finding the right work from home balance

In my previous life as a corporate director of sales and marketing I worked out of a home based office. Or at least that is what my job description said. In reality, I was rarely in my home office. I was usually traveling Tuesday through Thursday, often away from home overnight, and when I was in my office I could almost always be found with the phone strapped to my ear on a conference call. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I frequently had calls that would last for 6 hours. Thank goodness for the mute button is all I'm saying... I was always working.

When I left that position I took a year off to stay home and help my new little one adjust to life in America, life in a family, life with a Mommy and Daddy. It was an unplanned year, as many of you know. I was supposed to take the position I have now but it was put on hold for a year. And while at the time it may have led to some panic at the thought of going from a corporate salary to no salary, it was, in fact, the best thing I could have done for my little family. As always, God had a plan and I just needed to let it happen. And while my little one is not yet quite where he needs to be, he is so much further along than he would have been had I been working that whole time.

So when I took this new position a few months ago I thought the transition would be easy, because I had already been working from home. I could not have been more wrong.

Now I am home for nearly 100% of my work life. I get out to visit our partners a few times a month, or to attend a networking event, but for the most part, I am here, in my office, every single day. Because of the nature of my work, and the fact that I work with families, the hours I work are quite varied.  I can work during the day, I can work in the evenings, I can work weekend and holidays. I can make a hot breakfast for my boys, and sit down and eat it with them. I drop the boys off at daycare and school every day, take my time, talk to their teachers, and still have time to work. I can pick up my boys after school, play with them, talk about their day, make dinner, eat it with them, and then, a few nights a week, pop back into my office for a few hours. Nice, right?

Sure, on paper it all looks great. But my boys get weird if they don't have what they consider to be "enough" time with their mommy. And their definition of "enough" is "all the time". If they are not in school or asleep then they just don't understand why they can't have my undivided attention.  They whine and cry when I head back upstairs to work, no matter how full I have filled their little attention buckets. (I LOVE Positive Parenting Solutions!). Sometimes it is like I am at the zoo, literally pushing small arms and legs out of the office so I can close, and lock, the door. Daddy takes them back downstairs and everyone, including me, is left in tears. Sigh.  So it's not as easy as it looks, and we have a long way to go to make it run more smoothly for our family. But the other day someone asked me for advice on working from home, so here it is, my advice:

• Turn your workstation off every night. It takes a few minutes to power up and turn everything on, which I don't have in the morning as I am starting my day. If everything is already powered up then it is very easy for you to just pop into your office and check your email, plan your day... when you should be spending time with you family. Work time is work time and family time is family time. I can't just pop into my office in the morning on my way to the little one's crib - powering down reminds me to be fully focused on the matter at hand, my boys.
• Plan your hours carefully so that you don't accidentally start working too early. I know, sounds crazy, but with no commute it is very easy to go straight to work. I find that if I go straight to my office after returning home from dropping off the boys then I run out of day and don't have enough time to do all the household management stuff that can easily get out of hand if not tended to every day. Many times I have walked into the kitchen for lunch only to see breakfast still sitting there, waiting to be cleaned up. How disheartening! With a little planning you can take the time you need to complete your morning routine without feeling guilty about not working. God, Family, Work, people. Always. I need to clean up breakfast, drink a cup of coffee while it is actually still hot, check my email, pray, start a load of laundry, and then I am ready to start my work day. Some people center themselves during their commute. I use 20 minutes before walking up the stairs.
• Take your lunch break for you, not for your house. I have to force myself to do this and, I must admit, I don't always do it, but it is so important for your sanity to take your lunch break for yourself. If you were working in an office building across town you wouldn't be thinking about the housework that needs done while you ate your lunch. So don't think it about it now. Taking your lunch time to eat, take a walk, listen to music, play a computer game- whatever energizes you is what you have to do to make it through the rest of your day. Put that guilt away- it is helping no one!
• Back to planning your hours- make sure you stop working in enough time so that you can focus on what needs done for your family. I set a timer and try very hard to finish my work on time so that I can walk away from my office and back into wife and mommy mode. Having an hour to myself before picking up the boys is invaluable. I can start dinner, set the table, tidy up the downstairs or make a quick pass through the upstairs. I have time to bring up the laundry I started in the morning and get it folded and into the boy's individual baskets for them to carry up to their rooms later. This way, when I pick up my boys, they are my only focus. They deserve my time.
• Let your spouse help. Now I know that your idea of a clean living room doesn't include a few scattered toys or cups laying about. But imagine how messy it was before he helped the kids clean up! I want my sweet husband to help out around the house, but it drives me crazy when he doesn't do it the way I would. Or when he doesn't do it at all. So now I make lists. I feel this is nagging but he asked for it, literally, and it really has made a huge difference in our home. He wants to help. He wants me to work. He wants me to contribute to the financial stability of our family, yet he also understands the importance of my being here for our boys. You may have to remind your spouse of why you work where and when you do, but also help him along with a little list or two, if needed. My husband knows that if I am working in the evening I expect dinner to be cleaned up, (and NOT just stacked in the sink!), the boys to be bathed, and at least the tiny toddler in bed. If I need more from him, like the trash or recycling taken out, the dishwasher emptied, etc., then I have to tell him. And once I do tell him, I have to let go. He is an adult, he can handle it.
• And speaking of letting go- you also have to let go of the childcare. There are moments, like earlier this morning, when I can hear total chaos happening downstairs. At times i can hear frustration in my husband's voice, or one of my boys crying. I can hear what sounds like elephants running through my kitchen - my boys play hard! I want to know what is happening down there- my heart aches thinking something is going wrong, or someone isn't happy. But my husband is not babysitting, he is parenting. And maybe he doesn't always parent the way I would, but these are his kids too and he needs the time to figure it out for himself.
• Keep your office as your office. It's not the room where everything that doesn't have a home gets dumped. It is your sacred work space. Our home office is shared by my husband and myself,  and I learned a few years back that the only way this was going to work was with separate desks. My husband has an office to go to every day, and so his desk at home is cluttered with bills and papers from the on the side accounting work he does. Which is fine, he doesn't work there every day. But I do. I was finding my work papers moved, or scribbled on as my sweet husband searched for a piece of paper to write a note on. Matching smaller desks set up facing each other solved our shared space problem. My desk is now mine alone, and I feel as though I am walking into a real work space every day.

It is both  hard and easy, this working from home gig. I know it will get easier as my boys grow older and can amuse themselves. But right now, when they seem to think that I am their lifeline and that they simply can't live without me, it is hard. It is a struggle to maintain the proper work/life balance and to focus on what I need to focus on. If I am working when the boys are clamoring for my attention I feel guilty. If I am spending time with my boys when I know I have a ton of work to finish, I feel guilty. If I spend all my free time with my boys because of the aforementioned guilt then I feel guilty for the time not spent with my husband. Add in the adoption guilt we adoptive parents carry around and the "I want to be a 50's housewife but just can't do it all alone" guilt and some days I am surprised that there is room in my brain for anything else. I remember fondly the days we had outside help cleaning our home and think that this may be the way we need to go in the near future. I don't know. I certainly don't have all the answers. But I can tell you this. When I am working on a weekend and my tiny toddler has been settled into his crib for his nap by my sweet husband, I am reminded again of how much I value being able to have this amazing work/life balance. As I hear him sing himself to sleep through our shared wall, or name the members of his family, (something new he has just started doing, "Mommy, Zhao, Daddy, Mommy, Zhao, Daddy..."), my heart is so full. And that is why we all strive to find the balance, right?

parenting after 40 is not for the weak

I became a first time mom at the age of 38. My second child joined the family when I was 41. I'll be 42 in five months, and most of the time I don't feel like a woman in her 40's. Maybe it's the sitting on the floor playing with matchbox cars keeping me young. Maybe it's the endless games of football in the backyard with my big four and a half year old. Maybe it's the constant climbing up and the down the stairs, lugging laundry from the second floor to the basement and back. Maybe it's the hourly chases of the tiny toddler to retrieve whatever he just stole - a pen, a breakable mug, his brother's stuffed dog. Which, actually, is my stuffed dog, but the four year old  fights over it like he brought it home from the war. Yes, I have many reasons to feel young. And I usually do. Until the end of the day when I collapse on the sofa and really feel my age. But it's then that I truly appreciate my age and what it has taught me about parenting.

OK, so being a first time mom in my late thirties means maybe I don't have the energy of a twenty five year old. That's fine with me, because I have the wisdom to survive this thing called parenthood.

While my husband might disagree, I don't sweat the small stuff. Occasionally I do totally freak out when every single toy is on the living room floor or every item of food in our kitchen is out on the counter instead of in the fridge. But the boys dragging grass inside on their shoes after playing in the backyard or shooting toothpaste on the bathroom mirror instead of onto the toothbrush doesn't bother me. I am old enough to have perfected my cleaning and organizing routine so the mess is usually contained and I am confident enough to still welcome a friend into my not always perfect home.

I had my years of living in the perfect home. My Pottery Barn, eclectic and fun styled home was perfect for me. We took our time painting and decorating, keeping to both our style and our budget. I remember the days before the kitchen cabinets were an art gallery and the coffee table was a parking garage. And I like the view so much better now.

I was twenty nine when I met my husband and thirty two when we got married. I knew who I was before we met, and we knew who we were as  couple before we brought a child into our life. That "stuff" that every couple goes through during the early years of marriage had already been dealt with. Our relationship is strong and had already weathered infertility, aging parents, miscarriages, money issues, job crises. Letting go of each other's hands to grab onto a child's didn't mean we took our eyes off each other. I think if we had been in our twenties we would have really struggled with the huge time suck called children.

My age guaranteed that my career was stable. While the working mother always performs a delicate ballet between the office and the babies and while a stable career certainly doesn't mean less demanding, at least I was comfortable enough with my position to be able to focus on the matter at hand; the new baby sitting on my lap being flown halfway around the world to his new home.

Of the small group of friendships I wandered out of college clinging to I was the last to start  family. I watched my friend's with their babies and toddlers. I watch them now with their teenagers. Not only are my friends a wealth of "been there, done that" information, but our relationships are the kind of strong that only comes from years of friendship. Had our boys come along earlier into these friendships I can't say they would be as strong as they are today.

As a 41 year old married woman my "community" is much larger than when I was younger. I am not parenting in a vacuum. I have my above mentioned college friends, who I rely on heavily and love so much. But the years have also collected work friends, church friends, day care friends. Each year the web of community gets a little wider and I find that I have more and more seasoned mommy professionals to help, or at least to commiserate with. Hillary Clinton was right - if you want to do it right, it takes a village to get it done.

I'm old enough to not care about looking silly. I can car dance. I know all the words to The Hairbrush Song. I can stare down the older woman in front of me in the checkout line who so obviously thinks my boys are misbehaving while simultaneously rocking the two year old on my hip, singing a dreadful  wonderfully upbeat song from The Fresh Beat Band, googling monster truck videos on my blackberry, and unloading the groceries. A younger version of me surely couldn't pull all of this off.

And I'm old enough to stand strong in the face of adoption stupidity. 'Nuff said.

I'm stronger at this age. I know what I want. I am comfortable with who I am and don't need to look for recognition or affirmation elsewhere. I've got this.

Which is a good thing, because I am making what feels like more than my fair share of mistakes. At least once a day I catch myself having a one sided conversation about behavior, consequences, nutrition...  Not to mention the adoption related questions and guilt. My near constant "is this adoption related or just growing pains?" questioning would have driven me mad at a younger, less confident age.

So I can play a mean football game against a four year old while running a play that does not involve knocking down the two year old wandering around the field. But only in my own, small backyard.

I can sit on the floor and play monster trucks or build a killer train track. But if we're going to wrestle we have to move the fun to the bed. Maybe I take a few more Tylenols than I used to. I do believe everything happens for a reason, and I was meant to have these boys in my life right now. Not ten years ago, but right now. It's all good. I've got this. And during those moments when I don't have it, it doesn't matter. I'm old. I'm just too tired to care.

again I am a winner

Last night we had our first post placement visit for our new little guy. I cannot believe that it has been five months since he joined our family and four months since we have been home from Russia! Some days it seems like we have been home forever and other times it feels as though I just stepped off that plane with my life changing youngest son sitting in his hip carrier, with his thumb in his mouth and his hand absentmindedly rubbing my hair. So this post placement appointment kind of caught me by surprise. On the one hand, how have we been home long enough to already be needing to do this? And on the other hand, we're just a typical family, so being reminded that we are being "watched", so to speak, was a tad startling.

I love my children and the family we have created. I firmly believe that these are not only my children; they are also the children I am meant to have. My boys are God given. So I don't usually think about the whole fertility thing, not anymore. I don't mourn the first months/years of my boys' lives that I missed. I am happy and content, yes. But that doesn't mean that I don't sometimes feel frustration over the hoops we adoptive parents must jump through. Before the child comes home there's the personal questions, the walk through of the home, the fire marshall. (for some reason the fire marshall visit really annoyed me this second time around and I am having a hard time letting it go...) After the child comes home there are more personal questions, this time centered around the parenting skills of the adoptive parents. Every so often it all just gets under my skin. After all, parents bring their biologically born babies home from the hospital every day in car seats not properly installed, to houses full of second hand smoke - you get the point.

So these past few days I have been mildly annoyed at constantly being singled out. But then the other day a friend of mine, a mother from my oldest son's china friends playgroup, posted a poem, of sorts, on facebook.

I love Sark.  Her book, Glad No Matter What, really spoke to me. And my friend's post really spoke to me as well, for two reasons. The first reason is my tiny toddler is a handful. He is sweet and loving and has a playful sense of humor beginning to peep through the chaos. But he is also short tempered, easily frustrated, and, occasionally, uses brute force to get his way. Parenting him these past months has not been easy. It has gotten so much easier and will continue to do so, but the journey has been a tough one. This quote reminded me to stop yelling, so to speak, and just love.

But perhaps even more important is the second reason. The person who posted this is more than just another mom from my son's play group. She is a friend. As are so many of the other mom's now. They are friends, confidants, giver's of great advice. They understand adoption guilt. They have their own battlefield stories. They have quietly become a huge and very important part of my life. And without the adoption journeys, with all their injustices, their personal questions, without the fire marshall, (oh my god, the fire marshall!), I would not know them. So again I am a winner. I won the biggest prize of all with my two beautiful boys, and the prizes keep coming.

When I remember all that I have gained- my family, this amazing community of mothers, a multicultural life- I know that I am truly blessed. And I am no longer annoyed.

my current worries

Last night was weird. My big four and a half year old had a few nightmares, eventually making me remove a large white plate that has been hanging on his wall since he joined our family. The plate was given to me at the baby shower held in Matthew's honor and has well wishes from my friends and family written on it. Suddenly he is terrified of the plate. So my son is scared of a plate and I immediately begin to wonder if this new fear is adoption related. If you think that sounds like a crazy leap, from nightmare to adoption related anxiety, all over a plate, then you are not an adoptive parent.

We eventually calmed our sweet boy down, tucking him back into bed and giving him his scrubbie to hold. That's right, his scrubbie. A while back Matthew found the scrubbie on the kitchen floor, where his little brother had been playing with it, and carried it off to bed. He likes the way the rough scrubbie part feels against his skin. I know, right? I try not to panic.

But before all of the bad dream drama we had some tiny toddler drama going on. Last night was not our best night. My tiny guy spent so much time hitting his older brother with toys that my oldest son eventually just put on his football helmet. Smart kid, that one. We have been dealing with this issue since day one and have tried numerous techniques to put a stop to this behavior. And it has gotten better. Not that you could tell that last night. So to keep him contained during his time outs the toddler spent some time in the pack and play last night. Where he learned a new trick. He can pull himself up, swing his leg over the top and climb out. Not abnormal, I know. Toddlers hurl themselves out of these things all the time. But the way he was doing it, slowly and somewhat stiffly- he looked just like that creepy girl/monster thing in The Ring. Oh. My. God. Most disturbing thing ever. And the truly sucky part was that I felt like such a horrible mother that I couldn't share my terror with my husband. He would think I was a lunatic.

Finally I did mention it to him and, turns out, he had been thinking the same thing. Sign us both up for Parents of the Year, people.

So I had a hard time sleeping last night. I kept picturing my tiny toddler disjointedly climbing out of the pack and play just like that girl in the movie climbed out of the well. And out of the TV. As soon as I would get that image out of his mind the adoption guilt would creep back in. And what the heck is up with the scrubbie?

To recap: My Current Worries...

1. Will the tiny toddler ever stop throwing hard plastic objects at my head?
2. Is it weird that my big four and a half year old sleeps with a kitchen scrubbie?
3. Why does a large white plate create such drama for my oldest son?
4. Is any of this weirdness due to adoption stuff?
5. Is it wrong to compare my tiny toddler to a horror movie character?

goodbye honeymoon, welcome back guilt

The Adoption Guilt  is back. Actually, I don't think it ever left. I am actually waking up in the middle of the night thinking about the sometimes near constant moments of parenting horror I have experienced these past few weeks. Apparently, the honeymoon is over.

I love my kids. And both of them saw more tragedy in the first months of their little lives than I have experienced, well, ever. There is a reason behind every odd behavior. Maybe not every behavior from my big four and a half year old. (and yes, I know I have been referring to him as "the big four and a half year old" a lot lately, but this is how he sees himself, so I'm just going with the flow.) I am not so wrapped up into being an adoptive parent that I think that every mis-step on Matthew's part is adoption related. Basically he is a obnoxious rambunctious, active, always sometimes overly sensitive preschooler. He is going to melt down. And his melt downs do not usually result in a mommy melt down. Which is what I keep reminding myself. I can parent. If I do say so myself I am actually pretty good at it, most days. But this new twist in our family has totally thrown me for a loop. I seem to be one mommy melt down after another these days.

Yesterday after school the boys and I were sitting at the kitchen table, having a snack. Well, actually, Matthew was sitting at the table, having a snack. OK, you got me. Matthew was squatting on his kitchen chair, eating a Popsicle. How he does not tip that chair over more often is beyond me. (I know what you are thinking: how many times has he fallen out of his chair? I honestly cannot say. I have lost count.) So, Matthew is "matthew sitting" in his chair and Alex is half standing, half sitting in his high chair, screaming at me and pointing in the general direction of the fridge. I am also not sitting. I am standing in the middle of the room, halfway between the fridge and my boys, fighting back the urge to see if my two year old can catch a flying piece of cheese while I fight back tears.

Here is what the food hostage exchange looked like:

me: how about a popsicle?
toddler: yes. and he shakes his head "yes".
me: hand over popsicle.
toddler: throws popsicle on floor while saying "no no no."
(repeat this exchange for every color popsicle in the box.)

me: cheese? (I say this while holding up a slice of cheese and smiling my best fake smile.
toddler: yes. and this time he smiles.
me: hand over cheese.
toddler: throws cheese at brother while screaming and attempting to rocket himself out of high chair.

me: maybe you are not hungry? I make a move to lift him out of the high chair.
toddler: screams no and takes a swing at me while signing "eat".

repeat this scenario, oh, I don't know, fifty times and you will come to understand how I finally picked him up out of the chair, set him on the floor, sat down at the table and said to his older brother: "You saw him saying "yes" to all that food, right? What is the matter with him?" And Matthew, in his always spot on four year old logic replies "That kid is crazy, Mommy."

I wish. That kid is not crazy. He is frustrated with the language barrier. He is teething. He is hungry. He is trying to assert his independence. He is two. Oh my God, he is so many things. He is not a purposely trying to drive me crazy. Although sometimes he is. I swear, sometimes he really is trying to drive me over the edge. He gets this look in his eye and makes sure that he has my complete attention before purposely dropping his food over the side of his high chair. And if he is really mad at me he will scoop it up by the handfuls and throw it. He has a moody streak, this one.

And I know what some of you are thinking. He is 26 months old. He will survive if he misses a meal. He is old enough to learn that there are consequences to throwing food and throwing tantrums. And I agree. But he is adopted. He is still bonding and learning to trust us. He has food issues that most likely stem from day after day of not getting enough to eat. I was there, at his orphanage. I witnessed snack time and meal time. And it was heartbreaking. So there is no way I am letting this boy think he is being punished or go without eating. Now, if my four year old acted this way, yes, he would be removed from the table. But his food issues are a thing of the past.

But oh how quickly we forget. I barely remember the time, when Matthew had only been home a month or so, that he bit me so hard we both landed on the floor. I was holding him, his head resting peacefully on my shoulder, and we were standing at the refrigerator, with the freezer door open. He bit me. Hard. Startled I bent forward in an effort to both push him away and prevent myself from dropping his tiny little 16 month old body. When I bent forward I let go of the freezer door, allowing it to swing back closed. Only I righted myself and stood up before the door had closed all the way, which resulted in me smacking my head, hard, on the freezer door. That was when we both went down. I remember sitting on the floor, holding Matthew with one arm and my head with the other, crying. I am sure those tears were only in small part from the pain. They were from the days of constant grunting and temper tantrums at the dinner table. They were from the near constant biting of mommy only. They were from the arm and backaches of never. being. able. to. set. this. child. down. never. ever. They were from the night terrors and the fact that I couldn't figure out why he always smelled like pee.

Yes, there were a lot of tears back then. And then, one day, it all smoothed out. And now, the tears are back. They seem worse this time around. They probably aren't, but they seem worse.

Maybe it is because Alex is older than Matthew was when he joined his forever family. Maybe I am expecting too much from this little guy. Maybe I just don't remember the occasional lows our first few months with Matthew. It's probably a combination of both. I don''t know. But one thing I do know; whatever is going on is leading to major mommy guilt.

My mantra these past few days:
it is ok to be frustrated. it is ok to me tired. it is ok to be thankful when the boys go to daycare/bed. it is ok to walk away and tag daddy in. he is not trying to drive me crazy. this is probably harder on him than it is on me. it is ok to let him scream when I pry him off of me and into daddy's arms - I have it on good authority that he immediately stops crying when I leave the room. and maybe most importantly, this too will pass.

I repeated this mantra last night over and over and over again. I sounded like Atticus Shaffer  from The Middle.

If this continues much longer you may find me muttering to myself in the grocery store or curled up in the fetal position in my kitchen with a Popsicle stick in my ear. Tonight when I pick the kids up I am going to try not to drag the big four and a half year old into my drama. I shouldn't really be asking him for his opinion on his brother's behaviors. That kid already has way too much power around here...

I'm planning to color my hair tomorrow. Not related to adoption guilt, just thought you would want to know.