How do you do it?

There is something wrong when at 10:30 I feel guilty for not working tonight at home when I arrived at the office at 5:45 this morning. Oh, there is work to be done. A lot of it too. I’m behind as colleagues are taking vacation, getting married (the nerve!) and I find once again that it is invading my life. It so easily slips in, taking a few minutes here in the evening, bringing home a proposal to edit, write, and read in the evenings, checking email at 6:30 in the morning before anyone else is up so I can get a head start. Then the computer comes home with me every night, I power it up when Prayse goes to bed, I get stressed because there happens to be 45 flagged emails with more coming in and inquiries as to why I didn’t get so and so their deliverables, what happened to this prospect? What happened to that? Where is my investment summary? Where is the edits to this proposal that is due tomorrow? We promised this co that information yesterday, why didn’t it go out?

STOP THE MADNESS!!!!

I get it. This is my job, it pays for food that is on the table, for the wonderful daycare that we can afford, for the clothes on our backs, for the money getting put into our retirement plans, and for the vacations we are saving for and for the presents I will order for Prayse’s birthday. I get all of that. I am grateful for all of that. I work for a company I believe in, for bosses and managers who believe in me and that is wonderful. I do not wake up every morning dreading going to work and hating every minute that I’m there. I have been there before and it stinks.

But when my work invades my dreams, when at almost 11:00 at night I am setting my alarm for another 5:00 a.m. morning so that I can get work done before taking Miss P to daycare… well that is just plain discouraging. So what do you do? What is the answer? How do you balance it all out? How do you do the job and do it well to provide for your family along with being a great wife and great Mom?? Because really I can’t afford to drop the ball on any of those priorities. That doesn’t even include my friendships and other family members. They really get the short end of the stick.

I need help. I need answers. This is discouraging and this is when everything is going well. My marriage is going well, I am falling in love with my husband (continually, which in and of itself is exciting). Mommyhood? Rocks my socks. There is nothing better in this whole entire world. Work is so busy because it is finally starting to turn up… so what am I complaining about right?

Tonight when I came upstairs I told Raymonn that I didn’t get any work done, instead I had been upstairs just cuddling my baby. He gave me a kiss and told me, “She needed you.” Truth be told, I needed her. She centers me. In this crazy busy world that is my life, she brings me back to core and makes me realize how blessed I am.

And boy is she changing. Every day it seems is something new. This weekend we started the oh so fun game of  “Uhh-Ohhh!!” when anything and everything is dropped. Said so cute you can’t help but play along.  Yesterday we were in the Gap and Banana Republic and there was this nagging feeling in my gut when we were in BR but I ignored it. When walking into the Gap with my squirmy child just wanting down to run and tagging along after her as she ceremoniously tried to pull off every single display of tank tops in sight, I stopped in my tracks. The worst thought in the world crossed my mind… “I have a toddler.”

I was in tears, it shouldn’t be true. How can an 11 month old be a toddler? How? I should get more time with my BABY. Toddlers are for Moms of 2 year olds, not 11 month olds. That’s how it should be. But as she becomes Miss Independent, wanting to feed herself with a spoon, wanting to walk instead of be carried, wanting to grab her book to bring to my lap, pulling me into the kitchen to sign “More” to tell me that she is hungry… the signs add up and it is getting harder and harder to deny.

I cuddled and rocked her for more than an hour after she fell asleep tonight. I remembered and thought about my pregnancy and my maternity leave. That’s all I did on mat leave, just cuddle my baby.  We were literally almost inseparable. It was perfect. I looked at my beautiful child tonight and just thought, you will always be mine. Wow. Someday you’ll be 18, someday you’ll be 24 and getting married, someday you’ll have a child. Oh God, I need help. I need all the help I can get because this is a huge responsibility. I pray that I do this right and give her every fighting chance to grow up to be the amazing young woman I know she will be. To stand up for herself and for what she knows is right, to be the kind soul willing to help but to be smart enough not to get taken advantage of…

I could go on and on about the thoughts that fly through my head, how do I teach her well enough so that she stays away from drinking and doesn’t get into a car with a driver that has been? How do I teach her how  sacred her body is and will she listen? Will she be going to school with the 12 year olds that are pregnant??

I have to stop. I have to take a deep breath and realize that just like when I first brought her home from the hospital it is day by day, one step at a time and we will work together to figure it out. If however, you have any suggestions I am still all ears!