I never said I was the perfect mom

The past 24 hours has been a perfect exercise in how NOT to be a perfect mom.

Step One. Even though you know your child has been a bit under the weather, but has no specific glaring symptoms other then a low grade fever off and on, you dose them up with Motrin and Cheerios, and send them to nursery school anyway. Actually, they are one of the first to be dropped off.

Step Two. Work late, and forget to check messages until you leave work. In fact, forget to call the mommy who is supposed to be picking up your other kid, just to make sure everything is still happening as planned. Thank god, everything happened as planned.

Step Three. Get to nursery school later then expected for pick-up, and find daughter sound asleep on the floor. They don't close for another hour, and the teacher says your daughter has been complaining about an ear ache. Leave her asleep on the floor. Go home to shower and change, and make a doctor's appointment for that evening. End up being one of the last parents to pick up at nursery school, so that you can just grab her on the way to the doctor's office, since it's on the way.

Step Four. Keep both kids out until 9pm on a school night trying to fill a prescription for the ear infection your daughter has.

Step Five. Take older child to school an hour late, because you neglected to deal with homework the day before, and let him sleep in in the morning.

Step Six. Completely ignore the new rule of always wearing pants to take child to school. Squeal into school parking lot an hour late, in bathrobe and thong. Wave and smile, and shout "I love you honey" out the window as you peel out in the sand. Son is horrified.

Step Seven. When daughter suggests playing a new game, you continue to type, and say "Maybe Later." When she scoops up a handful of change and says the new game is "Make all of mommy's money disappear" say "We play that game every damn day" and continue typing.

Step Eight. When you have finally decided to shower and dress for the day, take child to library for story time, and leave her in the children's section while you go read the New York Times in the back of the library. Return to children's area only when your daughter says she is getting nervous and needs you. Bring New York Times. Do not sing or clap or dance. Sit and Read and ignore the adults acting like idiots.

Step Nine. Instead of going to yoga and doing the grocery shopping, return home to work and let your child watch TV for 3 hours. Give her a peanut butter and jelly. Almost out of jelly. Crap.

Step Ten. Fall asleep on the couch, and forget to pick up your kid until the school calls and wakes you up and the secretary announces in a cheerful voice that "you forgot your son". (OK, that one happened last month, but it could happen again at any time.)

Finding Peace

Today I am feeling aggravated - and it is 6:30 in the morning.

Not a great start.

It all comes from checking email for work. I shouldn't do that anymore.

Except, I have to. For now. But I am slowly unwinding from that obligation - because yes, it does feel like an obligation. I used to love my job. I loved my job when I worked in an office. When I had co-workers, and the buzz of energy, and a hot pot of coffee, and multiple phone lines and a copier and fax.

Now, everything feels more intrusive. It's all here, in my house. Nagging at me. What I have decided is, working from home sucks. I love GOING to work. And then LEAVING WORK. Working from home when Lucy was young was wonderful. It was a blessing. It allowed me to parent AND earn some money. But the fact is, I am happier - and thus more productive - AT WORK. And I am happier at home without work intruding on my family time. This point was driven home during our family vacation over Thanksgiving. I had one client that was planning a very complicated itinerary. (Just thinking about it right now makes my stomach hurt.) And I emailed and called about this itinerary EVERY DAY OF MY VACATION. It was awful. It was intrusive. But I was obsessed, and didn't want to stop until I got it right.....In the end, the client decided that my price wasn't good enough, and my service was lacking, and they went to a different agency after the holidays. So I lost the booking anyway, despite all of the time and effort and intrusion. Bah. And then this morning, an email from one of the companies that I was working with on that booking, to tell me that all of my work was being transferred to the new agency. Thus, I am feeling aggravated. I do have one small bright spot in all of this - the destination they are headed to (with their kids) is in the news, both for malaria and for burning people at the stake. Have fun !

So. First resolution of 2009 (and I thought I wasn't going to make any !) Check work email ONCE per day. In the morning. New inquiries will be responded to ONCE a day. I will set aside one hour to deal with work-related issues. If they want to call my cell, that is fine - but email is ONCE per day.

Personal email can continue to be checked obsessively.

And she's back.......and she's gone again......

Sorry, bear with me. It's nuts right now. (Derfina, I said "nuts").

I am resurfacing briefly, but I have two more days of head down, ass dragging work ahead of me. And I am totally dealing with an internal struggle, I just wrote a column about how hard it is to live with tourists in your space all the time - and I am a god damned travel agent. My JOB is to make people tourists. A bit of a conundrum, let me tell you.

So with the outer struggle (work at the cafe) and the inner struggle (um, my entire life right now) I am really FEELING it - all torn and confused and bewildered and conflicted.

And the real blood and guts of it is something I touched on recently. I have too many jobs. I am totally torn between different (and conflicting) roles. Thus my feeing of inner conflict mentioned above. It's not just about mental anguish - I am physically beat. I have spent most of my adult life trying to rein in my commitments to work, to friends, to family (and you notice the order those appear in, it's not accidental). With the marriage to my adoring husband (who enables me to live my freakishly accelerated life) and the arrival of my two kids, and now the dog, I have been slowly trying to get a grip. And failing miserably.

So my big challenge in 2009 is to pare down. Minimize.
I am going to work at the cafe.
I am going to write my column.
I am going to work as an independent travel agent.
I am going to freelance.
I am going to develop the business I started a year ago, that has basically been on hold for 10 months.

Oh. Wait. See, dammit. Too much stuff. SHIT this is hard ! I think part of it is fear that I am gong to miss something. An opportunity or experience that is unknown right now, but will become clear later. And part of it (most of it ?) is my completely ADD personality. I am either running around like a crazy person, or asleep because I am so completely fatigued (like, bone deep exhaustion) that I HAVE to stop and rest. And neither of those options is good for me, my kids, or my marriage. The dog can roll with it, he's a terrier for christsakes.... Come to think of it, he and I have a lot of similarities in our personality.

Hm.