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I’ve shared here and there about my decisions surrounding childcare and work. I know so many moms struggle with it, and others maybe don’t, either because they are able and want to stay home with their kids or because they can afford childcare and want to work. There’s usually a lot more gray than that though. There are stay-at-home-moms that sometimes feel a twinge of embarrassment when some one asks, “And what do you do?” There are moms who work outside of the home and love it, but feel a sad or guilty whenever their SAHM friends recount the day they spent with their child at the zoo. There are WAHMs, of which I am one, who work from home, the “best of both worlds” as they say, struggling daily to get work done, retain sanity, and raise a child without Dora the Babysitter Explorer.

The topic itself has probably been exhausted beyond all reasonable desire to discuss it further- on television, in magazines, in playgroup, just about EVERYWHERE a mom goes. We all take some chunks and then go about life, trying to “do what’s best” for our unique families. No one quite knowing if they’ve got it right either way.  All of us loving our children so much.

My one and only, Lil’ E, will be turning THREE years old this summer. Simultaneously, a job I’ve been working for a looong time as a “temp” had an open full-time position, more or less created in hopes that I could move into it. The position sparkled with “best big companies to work for” kind of perks. It was so exciting to think about having a full-time permanent, salaried job with benefits and bonus’, a little travel, some routine and consistency. My initial thoughts? SURE, I can put Lil’ E in preschool every day, NO PROB!

Then I did the math.  Preschool, no matter how low I assumed the figured could go, would take a very large chunk of my income, nearly half of it. Taking Lil’ E to and from childcare would take 1.5 hours minimum out of my day, (and a perk of working from home is staying in pj’s and no commute!)

Even knowing that by taking the job and putting E in preschool would be an enormous financial strain, I was still ready to try making it work. Hubby and I would both keep part-time jobs to pay for childcare, we would do whatever it would take.

But in the end, as many of you know, it just wasn’t feeling “right”. I struggled with it every day and every night for a couple of weeks, and finally admitted to myself that there must be another plan for me. I did the opposite of the “planner” side in me and just decided late last week and over the weekend that I would not be applying for this job. I talked to my boss about it yesterday, so it is official.

And you know what? My decision has since been continually reaffirmed by little things and big things every where I go. I feel lighter and healthier than I have in like a year (even though I am also more broke than I have been in like a year!). Most interestingly, some one from a magazine found me over at VivianWrites and might have a consistent, flexible part-time use for me within the mag that would pay very close to what I am currently making at my “main” job, which is essentially going to be filled by a permanent employee while I lower my involvement to a very “as needed” basis.

I have also begun formulating the homeschool preschool “curriculum” (if you can call it that) that I will be using with Lil’ E for at least half of every day. I will have more flexible work, less conference calls and meetings, and be working slightly less than I have been over the passed year. I don’t have details planned out, which is a little weird for me, but since going with my gut, or maybe my heart, has been so far so good, I think I’ll ride this Surrender Train a little bit longer and see what sights I can view along the way.

“In its most profound sense, beauty may engender a salient experience of positive reflection about the meaning of one’s own existence.” -Wikipedia

“Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it” -Confucius

“Beauty is not caused. It is.” -Emily Dickinson

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” - Used by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 inaugural speech

What a strange passed few weeks I have had. I’m not sure where to begin and how much I am at liberty to share, but suffice to say that my employment situation (like the rest of the nations?!) has been in limbo (sort of?) and out playing golf and just plain driving the “planner” in me bonkers.

I love working, I really do, and I tell myself that I am darn lucky to do what I do, from home, even if I barely pay the bills, even if I feel Lil’ E is being neglected, even if I do not have the job security of permanent employment nor the perks of benefits or paid sick days. The long and short of it is part survival, part pleasure.

My (main) job has been more or less back and forth, one month I am planning for the inevitable discontinuation of my current role by brainstorming possible new careers (web design? in-home childcare again?) and the next month I am toying with the real possibility that I will be hired on permanently, which will be both a financial strain in some ways and simultaneously a great peace of mind. I struggle with seeing how things “work” out there in the great big world, where a job I already work can’t just be, well, my JOB. But I know life and corporations are more complicated than that and I try daily to leave things in God’s hands - while my captain insano “be prepared” speech turns on and I start worrying all night long about June 1st’s rent!

It’s fairly exausting to worry, as I am sure you all know. It’s not a positive energy and rarely leads to positive actions aside from getting you moving, which may or may not be what you actually need to be doing. Freud might say that being a “doer” is overcompensating for “dreamer” parents, who knows. Several people, some of whom know nothing about this situation in my life, have mentioned something along the lines of the following advice: Get to that quiet place where you can hear, and go from there.

In the meantime, let me tell you - this brain is so not quiet, and my body feels at times like its under panic attack for real! I know that the God I have relationship with is so so so darn good and true and faithful, and never once have I been regretful for surrendering my plans and worries over to him. At the same time, I am habitual in my efforts to take over and PLAN for Him, and not doing so takes concentrated effort just about every milli-second of the day.

That and two facts you will find rather TMI (”too much information”, for the grandparents): I have the first of these in like a decade and they are driving me crazy with preoccupation and additional worry AND I am SO this.

[/rant].

I plan to enjoy our last day with Ethan’s bud, Finn, on Friday, as the family we child-swap with will be moving to the east coast this weekend. We might meet a new childcare possibility the same day, more of a “nanny-share” (God, You’ve got a sense of irony about these things, don’t you?) This weekend expects to be a sunnier one than we’ve had as of late, and I plan to soak it up as much as realistically possible (Farmer’s Market on Saturday, some Coop building in the backyard, so on.) The fresh air always does me good, (one reason the carless thing is likely less of a big deal to me than it might otherwise be), so perhaps by early next week I will have some post’s for you of great fun and jubilation

Hope every one is having better luck in the future plans/economy/emotional health department - as my brother ALWAYS SAYS:

Can’t complain- Things could be a lot worse!

Since I won’t be around much this weekend, just wanted to say Happy Easter to every one! We got a little basket today and some used children’s Easter books at Powell’s, along with some stickers. Lil’ E has been asking for things he wants in his easter basket. They include: a pear, a kiwi, an apple, a strawberry, and a yogurt.  LOL Happy to oblige!

But of course, Easter has very little to do with a big white bunny who wears a tie and drops off baskets full of toys and chocolate to good little American children. I’m trying to be a tad more aware of the Resurrection this year, and grateful for the miracle of it all. The grave is empty! It’s so beyond me, I tell ya. Where does one even begin to grasp something like that? If you’ve ever had the opportunity to go to some of the ruins where Jesus once walked, perhaps you felt some connection to this 2,000 year old narrative. I myself can recall the far more commercial and backwards “theme park” in Orlando, FL called “The Holy Land”! Yes sir, you can see the empty tomb and later eat some “Honey and Milk” ice cream. Kinda strange, if you ask me. However, being in the simulated Jerusalem, you could almost try to displace yourself to that time period and replay the good ol’ Sunday school stories in your head, this time not as a reader of a book, but maybe as a fisherman, a Samaritan, a woman at the well, a blind man, a bystander on Calvary hill, or a Pharisee at the temple. You know what I mean?

I can only imagine how it might have been, how I might have reacted, to news of that Hebrew carpenter-turned-prophet whose tomb is now empty. Knowing my cynicism, I think I might have flipped the page in the newspaper without so much as reading passed the headline of that story. “Hmmm, ‘Eyewitness accounts say Jesus, a man executed on the cross just three days ago, now has an emtpy tomb…. Reports of angel spotting just in….’ Yeeeeeeeah- I wonder how the Obama v. Clinton thing is going!? *flip, flip, flip*”

Well, there is probably no end to this rabbit trail in sight, (not uncommon, as those of you who have known me longer than 30 minutes have already noticed!). So I’ll just close by saying that this has been fun, let’s do this again sometime, and may you have a very happy Easter celebration!

Oh yes, and I thought this video was cute… it has chickens and bunnies in it, so it indirectly relates to Easter. This one has a farting rabbit and since small things amuse me, esp things that sound like farts, I’ve been laughing at it for days.

This week held some surprises for me, some struggles and uprooting too. I enjoy having family and friends into our home, but as we all know, it invariably can bring with it the added history, dynamics, habits, and so on. Having company or living in close proximity with family or friends is one of the hardest ways I have had to “learn” community. It can unveil covered up resentment, bitterness and grudges in ways that only a close community can. You can find yourself, as I did a lot in the last few weeks, spouting off things you never thought about first, surprising yourself at your own subconsious (?) level of downright ugliness.

If I had a dollar for all of the unforgiveness that goes on in me and in my home,  let me tell you, that tax refund would pale in comparison!

The discussion at Evergreen today was on this idea of peace, both with God and with others. Forgiveness and reconciliation were facets to peace that resonated with me in a “holy crap, you’ve tapped my prayers” kinda way. I had been learning some major junk lately about having more grace and mercy with others, and seeing how many things I thought I had forgiven that I truly had not (and all the countless things I need forgiveness for, 99% of which I am grossly oblivious too, which I also suppose needs forgiving.) It was just last night that I sat on the floor in my dark room asking for peace, and experienced a few moments, maybe whole minutes, where the room inside my mind went quiet and what I heard was this:

There is an eternity.

I didn’t expect that. It certainly wasn’t what I was praying about, on first glance. But the more that sentence sunk in (and it had to, because there were literally no other words or thoughts in my head but this, despite my best effort!), the more I realized that the pain or chaos I feel is universal, recycled, shared- and that the fact that there is an eternity some how makes this one moment where I am pleading for God to calm the storm of anger or hurt in me a little bit, well, okay. I mean, think about it. There is an eternity. An eternity to feel, to heal, to grow, to love. And- there is a God of that eternity, a God of me, who can fill all of my deepest emptiness with everything that is full.

Whether this is true to you or not, this is going on in my life.

What followed church this morning was a lovely day, a chilly but “bright, bright, bright, sunshiny day”. Even included my first Voodoo doughnut (YUM-OH!) (… and NO, if you happen to look at the menu… I did not order a cock-n-balls. That’s just nahs-tey.)

P.S. Have I mentioned lately just how much I love my family? Cause I really, really do.

From the prelude in Grace (Eventually) by Anne Lamott:

I knew that if you had the eyes to see, there was beauty everywhere, even when nature was barren or sloppy, and not just when God had tarted things up for Spring. Often the people with the deepest insight looked as ordinary as any old alcoholic or serial killer. They might look like Siddhartha or Ananda Mai Ma, but odds were they resembled your bipolar cousin Ruth, or Mr. Burns from The Simpsons. Also, they could be extremely annoying.

As the timer ticks away my “work” hour, Lil’ E patiently plays with his choo choo’s. He also, while potty training the Naked Method, pooped in his room during my “work” hour.

Obviously, life as a work from home mom is a little unorthodox. I woke up this morning to the realization that it was President’s Day, and while many of the people I work with get a paid day off, I get to file my taxes and take a nap, sans income. Of course, I’ll play catch up on some things and get in some hours today anyhow, so I’m grateful for the “holiday”.

This passed week has been what folks in Portland lovingly call “The February Fake Out”; the temps rise, clouds part, ground gets a little less soggy, and citizens rejoice. We took some glorious walks this weekend, saving the bus fare in exchange for the crisp oxygen. I got to garden a bit last Friday while the kiddos and Peter the Rabbit ran around the yard. I have never experienced the thrill of seeing bulbs shooting up, revealing that under the dead leftovers of last year’s seasons, something new is stirring. I couldn’t wait, and got a dark red potted tulip at Garden Fever to bring in and place on my kitchen counter. It blesses the sun by opening up in mid-day and showcasing its dark and velvety inner core. I never even knew what tulips looked like when they opened up, or that they opened up at all!

So, while you must excuse me for any cheesy metaphorical stretch this is for the average non-Lit mommy blog, I can’t help but feel the little February fake-out open up some things in me that have been lingering under the impending death of old seasons of my life.

When I began this blog, my son was a nursing cruiser not even one year’s old. Now he is lengthening, widening, expanding every which away, ingenious enough to inform me, “Mama, you’re my best friend ever ever ever” or “Mama, you and I have Quesadillas in our butt.”

In the past nearly two years of writing this blog, my career was that of a brand new graduate, technically a “temp” for a great publishing company, doing whatever the heck was asked of me and learning as much as I could to gain experience. (There was the few months I was freelance writing first, and most of the time I held additional part-time jobs on the side.) Pulling away the end of the “toddler” season of my life, the “first job” layers that are all decrepit and mossy, I can see a few sprouts coming up. I’ll turn 24 in one week, crazy enough. What will mid-twenties have in store for me? I will phase into new and maybe risky career moves (shh, I’ll tell you more about it in a few months) in the next year, and I can sense that in many ways I’ll have to learn to surrender some of my best laid plans for those that might not be as comfortable and secure. Of course, I’ve got an entrepreneurial spirit so I’ll enjoy the ride.

So there you go, a few insights into my life, in general, while I sip my “Authentic Cajun” mug boasting a little blurb about “joie de vivre”.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m suffering from multitasking overload. You know, that familiar feeling that there is so much to do, you don’t want to do any of it? I’ve come down with an illness for the second time in the last month, which is very frustrating because of how much I feel it holds me back. My energy is lower, my spirit feels “off”, I can’t sleep well, so on. But I also notice that when I’m sick, my body is done begging my lifestyle to change: It’s forcing it to!

Yesterday, I asked Hubby to pick up cinnamon buns at Whole Foods for breakfast. After a diet of coffee, scones, wine and cheese for the last two weeks, I began to wake up craving something sweet and having a low desire to cook and eat fresh foods. Hmmm. Last night after dinner I began to feel funny, went to lie down, and woke up 3 hours later with a fever and swollen throat, aching back and neck, so on. When I got up this morning, what was the LAST thing I wanted to eat? Cinnamon buns! Yuck! I’m sick now, all I want is fluids and warm soup and vitamins! (Wish I woulda thought of that preemptively!) I remembered something Diane posted over at The Mommy Spot about fevers, (though I have no idea where I might find catnip, save the pet store, but I’m sure if I poke around at the Co-op I’ll come across it!) But mainly that, duh, the body is trying to heal itself when things like this happen. I’m not at all surprised I got sick, after the diet, lack of sleep, and Wednesday out in the cold; I was a walking germ-magnet.

But I particularly want to get to this point of multitasking overload. I was telling my mother-in-law today that I wish I could just do both; that is, work very hard AND remember to take my vitamins, drink water, read books, yoga, pray, whatever to take care of myself too. For some reason these things become mutually-exclusive for me!

So I’m spending some time while practically couch-ridden to think over my lifestyle, which is not at all unlike most young American working mothers, and ponder just what might be making me sick, literally.

I’ve read before that multitasking is actually bad for our brains. We actually aren’t multi-tasking when we think we are, it is simply a series of very short consecutive thoughts that tend to leave us forgetful and absent-minded, not performing one job very well, but several jobs, if we are lucky, satisfactory. This was brought up again on the Today Show this morning and I found it very interesting. I honestly do not know how to NOT multitask. I can’t tell you when exactly it began, probably around the time I started caring about my grades in school, but since then I’ve just been one of those people who studies with the tv on and intermittently checks my e-mail, and now a mom whose on the phone in a staff meeting with my laptop open doing some work while some one else is talking, and intermittently changing a diaper! Same ol’ Viv, just different tasks.

It’s very frustrating for me sometimes, the way my brain is constantly thinking through all the things I want to do and learn and be. Not a week goes by that I don’t think seriously about scrapping this random blog and trying to start a few that are more focused on a particular niche- in the end, I just cannot decide what that niche would be! It’s disheartening but very true that I am a “jack of all trades, master of none.” That works great sometimes. It certainly makes me available for a variety of non-expert jobs! But in the end, I’m, well look at me, I’m working three jobs! My brain is like my livingroom, switching between Work 1 to Work 2 faster than I can plug in the second laptop chord (there are a total of 4 laptops in my living room!)

I suspect a large percentage of twenty-somethings feel a bit like this, so I’m not at all implying I’m alone in this. In fact, I’d say my generation is one very susceptible to believing they can “be anything” and therefore TRY everything. So you’re like me: you know a little about writing, a little about nutrition, a little about marriage, a little about parenting styles, a little about html, a little about wine, a little about religion, a little about movies, a little about books, a little about politics, a little about finances, a little about just about everything- but you aren’t known for being good at any one thing. I envy my friends who are good at certain things: Editors, web designers, accountants, so on. They KNOW their craft. I mean, I got my degree in Journalism but I would never actually say I KNOW my craft.

Now I’m going on several tangents here but I feel like they are all a little bit connected. There’s this feeling in me for the past several years, something sort of, lacking rest. I’m sometimes wonder if I can even hold a conversation in a social setting because my brain is running speeds ahead of what the other person is saying!

So I was thinking, when was the last time that I wasn’t feeling like this? And I pinpointed the time period after Lil’ E’s delivery. Granted, a new mom is CERTAINLY multi-tasking a million baby things for which they are grossly unprepared for! But something about it, how it was JUST baby things, and that’s all, made me feel like a whole different person for a couple of months. I remember thinking I’ll never be that old Vivian, the one running at a million miles a minute and able to handle all kinds of deadlines all the time. I could make it out to check the mail, and that would be my big accomplishment for the day! But my brain was there, all there. I slowed down, took care of myself while I tandem nursed our co-sleeping infant, and the rest was sorta take-it-or-leave-it. It was a nice feeling, when a friend called with a burden, to actually feel for them and be present enough to listen to what they were saying, if that makes any sense. I was slow, steady, present.

Of course, it wouldn’t be long, just about 8 weeks, before I resumed my mostly at-home internship and started watching a second child from home and adding all kinds of layers to my life above and beyond my family and I. This is necessity, right? Financially, at least, it is. And on top of that, I don’t think we live in a society that looks highly upon single-task people, unless of course they are incredible musicians or engineers- certainly not just plain ol mothers! For sure, there is something internal or external that tells me it is lazy to do my life any other way.

Which typically plays out for a couple of weeks until I burn out, get sick, and am forced to sit around thinking about it (and in turn, writing excessively long blog posts to my poor and unsuspecting readers!)

Thoughts?

Technorati Tags: multitasking, illness, energy, sick, lifestyle, vitamins, multitasking, working mothers, brains, Today Show, blog, mom, baby

The Longer I Lay Here Lyrics
Artist(Band):Pedro The Lion

one, two, three, one ready go…
you’re up with the sunrise
and down when the work’s been done
with excellence industry
diligence naturally
i would like to be you
just for a few habit-forming years
laziness cuts me like fine cutlery
i need a miracle - someone to help me
myself
sweet jesus, i need you
forgive me this sin
not hookers or heroin, gambling or gin
it sounds so ridiculous, but i just can’t lick this
i need a miracle - someone to help me
myself
someone to help me
help myself

Today Lil’ E and I walked to the library to return some books, and while weaving our way through the neighborhood, he said, “Look, mama, it’s baby Jesus!”

“Where?”, I challenged, sure he didn’t know what he meant.

My gaze followed his pointed finger, and sure enough, there was a nativity scene etched in a holiday flag on some one’s porch.

I don’t want to over-spiritualize the fact that my 2 1/2 year old pointed this out, yet I felt in some small way like he was reminding me. He has the heart of a child, one that picks up on special new concepts with incredible clarity. I could be cynical and roll my eyes that I’ve indoctrinated my toddler with the image of a curly haired, blond baby laying on hay as being JESUS, or that baby JESUS is now right there in line with all the other holiday idols he points out on our walks- Santa Claus, Snowman, so on. But I’d rather focus (believe?) that the true message of Christmas has penetrated his impressionable mind, and even that somewhere inside where he is eternal connected with the idea of this baby he hears about when we sing, “Away in a Manger” at bedtime lately.

“Nativity” Poem by Li-Young Lee

In the dark, a child might ask, What is the world?
just to hear his sister
promise, An unfinished wing of heaven,
just to hear his brother say,
A house inside a house,
but most of all to hear his mother answer,
One more song, then you go to sleep.

How could anyone in that bed guess
the question finds its beginning
in the answer long growing
inside the one who asked, that restless boy,
the night’s darling?

Later, a man lying awake,
he might ask it again,
just to hear the silence
charge him, This night
arching over your sleepless wondering,

this night, the near ground,
every reaching-out-to overreaches,

just to remind himself
out of what little earth and duration,
out of what immense good-bye,

each must make a safe place of his heart,
before so strange and wild a guest
as God approaches.

To continue your spiritual reflection, listen.