There is no -- such thing as -- Plan B

I was offered a new job last week. And, I did not take it.

There is pretty large part of me that feels like a rotten mother to have taken a pass on a less stressful part-time job. After what I said I should have been grabbed it?

A little earlier than that post I was in conversation with a dad of a young child who outlined how his partner was at home since she was not, and I quote, a careerist. What the hell is that? A careerist? I got non-careerist envy right away. You know me, who can't quite hunt down a job with twelve resumes and a nanny. Me, who has only worked one of the last 4 years, well, now one and a half. Please don't get me wrong I'm not out to slag dads for their perceptions of 'careerism'.

I told the folks who'd offered me the job the truth. I am committed to things I just can't depart right now. So when? The hidden gift of the position was that it was a 3 year term. It made me try hard to picture where I need to be in 2012. I realize now that I really have a pile to sort out over the next 3 years. I am not sure where I need to go but at least I have a better idea of how long it might take me. Trying to transition to tomorrow in time for yesterday had been entirely soul-sucking.

I remain, yours, until after the revolution, Mo-wo

On Con Moms and Non-Confidence

Last year when I was looking for work, and not finding it, I had some blue days. I was sad, and I was weak.

In one 'dust me off' telephone call with my mother the matter of confidence arose. I admitted that my confidence was eroded. I admitted that eroded confidence = near depression for me. My mother pointed out that when it came to confidence forget it. Confidence simply was not "what was going on with me". Non-confidence was the new way of the world for me and I better figure that out.

What she explained is that parenting, or did she say MOTHERING, is an antithesis to confidence. "Give it a rest" being her stalwart message at my life of whining, this time I heard the ring-a-ding-ding of truth big time. "She is right!", I thought. Looking after the kids is completely at odds with my old constructions of confidence. There were facts where now there are feelings. There were numbers and shares where now there are bottomless needs and illusions of fairness. It's all a crap-shoot. Every breath I take, every move I make. I am just making it all up. I DON'T KNOW. Yet, everyday the shining faces look upward thinking I do. What was my old tagline? "Yeah, right, whatever you wanna tell yourself, Mother-Woman." Do the kids know its a confidence GAME?

And, with that advice/realisation I entered what I call my parenting repose. Ahh... or is that Ohm? And there you have it people, non-confidence, not just for Stephen Harper, anymore.



I don't know extends to... Does kitty look ok, here?

Stuck

I remember when I named this blog. It was a joke on a self-address I used to make on behalf of my daughter. An script for shakey know-nothing moments where I could look into the dark eyes of my newborn and repeat the mantra.

"Yeah. Right. Whatever you want to tell yourself Mother-Woman."

That is what I thought she was thinking as I fussed over breastfeeding or acted like I could arrange a perfect learning environment or in those hours I chased ideal work-life arrangements. She is my child, her snarky humour was destined; I am glad she either had it or helped me create a theatre of it.

When I published that I was Mother-Woman it was important to me. I see now it was my public progress to an identity not of growth but of attachments. Till now I was always stepping up on goals, I was a very typical modern American in that way. Motherhood changed that. Now I am more or less a splat. A SPLAT. Everyday I am a messy tornado of identities, responsibilities, successes and failures not quite successes. I might liken my future, my self [sic] as splat. Splat or splodge -- sticky and stuck. A woman yes at the core, but a hyphenated woman. Fully formed into woman think of me a potato head, jam in this hole CAREER-mother! over here COMMUNITY-mother! the smile on my face MOTHER-woman! in the earhole mother-FRIEND! the weight of my ass parent-CONSUMER! The appendages are endless. Her Bad mother wrote recently about a grafting. Her appendages different from mine but perhaps not disparate.

My life has been pretty linear. I stand in awe of the sage nonlinear. I wonder if I ever could become more comfortably random, multifaceted and/or dynamic. Motherhood has made me try it on but maybe it didn't take? Me is a simpleton. I wuz a zygote once and then I grew. Gaining and growing out, on, up; dems the marching orders. Modernity. Linear.

As my work life has swollen in prominence there has been some return to the woman I was four years ago. Revisiting the straight and narrow, right in there -- the rat race. I wander the halls forward. I connect the dots, complete steps, fill in blanks. The halls are narrow and with each step a small piece seems to nap off of the mother-woman. I feel a bit naked. Damaged and, well, snappy. Mother-woman, a biplane down the sewer pipe.

What is it that could keep all the stuff glued on? What??? Is it creativity? Perseverance? The 7 habits of highly effective mothers? What?????

Tell me!!!!

Oh Baby

Here at June's end the times are heavy for me. I rest on the cusp of being an individual again. A bit ill at ease about it.

Every morning I drive to work past the maternity hospital and my insides wrench. I think of that June two year's ago when I thought I would give birth any minute, and didn't. I think of the June four years ago when I was so oblivious to what was ahead, my legs sticky in the hot weather, consumed with guilt that I would leave work. Just leave it. Not a whiff of a clue that I would revel in our separation.

There at BC Women's Hospital I wandered the parking lot in the early morning light of September almost four years ago. My identity about to explode. Shattering of self, or was it a cleavage? There I had those two dear births, blessing filled progress toward the rattle of bones that divided me and them. There is a part of me inside addicted to the senses of it. No doubt borne of the instrinic surprise of it all; myself completely romanced by the unknown -- all that is foreign in pregnancy and especially from two lucky childbirths.

It is over for us. We will not have any more babies and that makes this really such a strange time, this aimless June. I have for so long been 'that pregnant woman'... the mother. That is, in fact, how one new administrator addressed me last week. "Ah, yes. You. You're the mother."

What the hell?

But I am. I am the mother. A month today since I returned to work and only a few steps back towards that former self. A true worker with an innate ability for the oblivious. Will it come again?

****

I know that some comment how parenthood made them more aware... more attuned to life, involved, connected. I wonder about that feeling. I mean it has occurred. But still, I'm a bit more in the camp of parenthood has made me less oblivious.

The truth

If you were a woman before you were a mother then you know quite a lot about doing the job already.

Be liberated, accept/expect the challenges, the buck stops with you. Remember you know your child best. This is a response to this and this

Talk to the Armpit

I think you know it seems to us like we're pretty busy with the two little guys, the new home and stuff. (Oh, yeah and p-man's new blog friends!) I don't have enough time to make the blog as good as I'd like. Neither do I have enough time to talk all the details of life out with my spouse. But I have come up with a great solution to both problems. I will simply air some of the backburner husband/wife items on the blog. I know he's a reader and it's a way more efficient communication medium than effing face to face. I am of course a multitasker at heart.

So welcome to my new feature in which I tell the p-man's what's what... right through the blog. I like to call it -- talk to the armpit. Why? Because that is the level I aspire to -- the shaved armpit. Mother of a 30 month old and one 9 month old seeks 20-25 minute shower with full complement of shaving options, wash products from L'Occitane thanks not Aveeno or Dove.. and no little assistants!

He tells me yesterday.. "I would like to get my swim program up to three days a week."
My response. "I would like to shower 3 times a week."
Later he pipes up.. "I think we should buckle down and finish the move in."
To this I say "I would like to go the bathroom, you know.. when I feel like it."

Screw it dude. I just read about the theory of overly self-sacrificing new momism in this great book! It is over dude. I am not taking word one of need until I get 1. a shower regimen that we all can live with and 2. unfettered bathroom access.

From what I understand this might be a long process.

This is a must-have book I want to talk and talk and talk about it. I am so grateful to the friend who gave it to me. It is like what gets covered on so many wonderful blogs.. but it's a book!