Shelley's Case

Mommy's little Calvinist

This morning I dropped Peach off at daycare.  She was the first kid on her side of the room, and she was being pretty clingy.  I read a book to her on a little couch, then told her I had to leave and go to work.  She tried to get me another book, but I said, "No, I really have to go to work, Peach.  I'm sorry." 

Her teacher said, "Do you want me to read you a book?"  and Peach said, "Yeah."  (A newer development and annoying, the "yeah.")

She then turned to me and, when I went to give her a hug, pushed me away.  "Go work, Mama!" she said.  "Go work."  

(FWIW, she did run up and give me a hug as I was leaving!) 

Take your daughter to work day

Peach was booted out of daycare today for two incidents of loose stools within 45 minutes.  I found out when our legal assistant told me Matthew was on the phone.

M: We have a problem. 
S: We do?
M: Peach has diarrhea and has to go home. 
S: OK.... (thinking: which one of those other kids got her sick and will I get it?  I don't have time to get sick.)
M: I have to talk to the [important official] in half an hour. 
S: OK.... (thinking: I have prospective clients coming in an hour and a half and I still have three documents to get out the door today.)
M: Shell?
S: I guess I'll pick her up. 

I bummed a ride across the river from our legal assistant, picked up the Peach (literally: she did not want to get down, and she and her daycare bag are HEAVY), and found where Matthew had left the car (I can't actually pick up the car from the parking lot below the federal building, because I am a mere civilian - he had to go down and park it on the street for me).

And we went back to my office.  Now, I have taken her to my office quite a bit.  When I did contract work for the boss, I would bring her - newborn and usually sleeping - with me when I needed to pick things up and drop things off.  She's been changed on my desk (formerly the conference room table, a big glass number) when she still weighed in the single digits.  

Let's just say that in the last year, bringing her with me has been more headache and less productive.  The most I've gotten out of her in the office is about two hours, and that involved her climbing all over the sofa in the boss's office while he was dictating a memo. 

So I was not expecting great things here.  Screams, yes, tantrums yes, and maybe I'd get the most important things done, meet with the clients, and call it good. Did I mention she had not had a nap and was going to have no prospects for a nap? 

But she was awesome -- a trooper for four hours.  Oh, she squirmed and whined, and getting through the client meeting meant I let her dip a ballpoint pen into a can of Diet Pepsi and suck the liquid off of it, over and over again until some of the Diet Pepsi ended up in my lap, and that was the end of that.  I'm probably not going to be on the nominating committee's radar for Mother of the Year, but it worked.  It helped that the clients had a sense of humor. 

I got every mission critical thing done, and some optional (non-critical) letters.  I spun her around and around in her stroller, until I was so dizzy I couldn't stand it - and then she hopped out of her stroller to push it around and around herself.  She played with the magnets on my document holder, ate yogurt on the leather couch outside of my office, and I cleaned up the leather couch outside of my office when she was done.

Best bit yet?  She was asleep within 5 minutes of getting in the car.  Not only was it a decent work day, but it was a quiet commute home. 

Tipping the work/life balance back in favor of work. Or life. Or maybe just a little more sleep.

So, so happy that Matthew is going back to work starting tomorrow.  It was pure heaven to go to work today - leaving Matthew and Peach at home - and just go to work without having having to do the day care drop-off first - the wrestling her into the car, getting her into the building without her wiggling to the ground, the coaxing her to walk down the hall, the drop off (which, with a shout out to JN people, is the best part because of chats with her teachers), then back down the hall, back to the car, back across the river, park in the parking garage, then walk to the office.  So going back to a "love you, see you later" in front of my office is going to seriously rock.

I had one of the most interesting depositions of my career today.  Like, if it had been on video, I would have thought about how it would look on YouTube.  But I would never, ever do that.  Ever.  (Bonus: this is hilarious, but nothing like my deposition today. Who knew asbestos litigation was so hot?)

Not rocking is that Peach is in this extremely odd staying up late phase.  Until this weekend, she would go to bed between 6:30 and 8.  Last night she didn't go to sleep until 10 (!) and instead hung out and read books with me in bed.  Actually, I read my book and she read another one of my books, probably for a good 20-30 minutes.  Then she wacked me in the head with "Parenting Beyond Belief" and she was bundled off to the crib. 

Tonight, she is in her room chanting "Co-wee," "Co-wee" over and over again.  Corey is (I think) the only guy teacher she has and she LOVES HIM.   The other day I was giving a list of superlatives in reference to her ("Peach is...") and when I got to "wonderful" she shouted out "Co-wee!!!"   Corey joins Nick (our sushi chef) in the Peach Tiger Beat hit parade.  Congrats, Corey!

She's finally asleep in the time it took me to track down those links above.  I have to sneak in and steal her blanket to wash it because it managed to get splattered with red sauce, because she had to have it attend dinner with her tonight.  Right now there are three must-haves: the bear known as "Guy," the bear known as "Baby" and the blanket known as "blankie."  One day last week, not quite getting the object attachment, I ditched the bears and took her to school without.  She ended up clutching the dusty stuffed raccoon I keep on my dashboard (long story).   Anyway, I have no doubt the blanket is underneath her, and that this will be a tricky operation. Wish me luck.

You were saying?

I've always been distractable - quite distractable - with the exception of when I'm reading (good luck getting my attention then).  This means that whenever I set out to do something, like pick up something from downstairs, I can end up a) seeing the dishes and realizing the bottles must be washed ASAP or Peach will be bottle-less in the morning, b) deciding to whip up a quick dessert for later, c) organizing the refrigerator...

...and usually I go back upstairs having forgotten whatever it was that I went down there for in the first place.  In fact, as a case in point, I'm starting this post again for the third time now. 

And to drag the beautiful little Peach into the mix, it's become worse since she came along.  Whether it's  sleep deprivation or just being busier and having more balls up in the air, I really have a hard time keeping track of what I'm doing now and what I need to be doing next.  Recently I heard that having a baby makes men more productive at work and women less productive at work, and I had to laugh out loud.  That's pretty much tracked our experience to the proverbial "T."

For the next week or two, I'm focusing on improving my productivity.  Oh, don't get me wrong, I can still focus and I still get work done.  But I want to increase my ability to keep track of everything that's going on - without the mental to-do list distracting me from my tasks-at-hand.  I want to be able to focus on one thing at a time, for increasingly longer periods of time.  And because I'm wanting to hold myself accountable, I'll be keeping track of my progress here.

This week, I'm focusing on decluttering my work spaces (I have three - and yes, that's an issue for me that I'm hoping to sort out) and I'm reading Never Check Email in the Morning.

Shelley Mactyre's Day Off

Today I took the day off.  I've been trying to take off one weekday each week while Matthew and Peach are off at work and daycare, because I usually end up working one weekend day (at least) and because, well, my underemployment has to have some benefit.  It's not paying my mortgage or student loans, so it might as well be something else. 

I didn't nap (that is the gold standard of a good day), but I did work on that TiVo backlog (and figured out which Fred Meyer the Roloffs shop at on "Little People Big World") and made a cursory attempt at scrapbooking while doing so. Days off at home don't exempt me from getting Peach ready in the morning, and today I was actually awake enough to get the camera out. 

(Yes, I spun off the baby blog, but for those of you who don't look at Eden's Garden, I have to show off my new favorite picture anyway!)

My balancing act

Saturday I downloaded the free trial version of Life Balance, a piece of software (for Palm, PC, and Mac) which is a sort of project manager/ultimate to-do list/graphic representation of where your time and effort is going. 

It's a very useful tool.  It was interesting for me to look at my to-do lists and realize just how much of my time, thought, and effort goes to work -- much more than I'd originally thought -- as opposed to doing the things I enjoy.  (No wonder I never have time to practice the cello.) 

A recurring challenge for me is maintaining my motivation during a big project.  I have so many more demands on my time now that any interruption can derail me completely.  By forcing myself to make these detailed lists (and to prioritize and schedule tasks), it's much easier for me to pick back up where I left off.  "Where was I?" doesn't take ten minutes of retracing steps - I just look at where I was on the list of tasks. 

And that's the key for me - the real magic of making lists and putting everything down is giving myself the power to forget - if it's not rattling around in my brain, then I'm that much clearer on the tasks I am trying to focus on.   And by "that much clearer" I mean "able to work."  Between the baby and being so ill, it's been impossible the last couple of weeks to accomplish much of anything.

The magic of the software is in the way the task lists are categorized - by where you will accomplish that work, how often the work recurs (daily, weekly, or whatever), what priority level the work should have (from no effort to maximum effort), and the neat pie chart showing you what a balanced task list would look like, vs. the way your task list looks.

It's simple software (though not always intuitive, though the help is actually helpful) but it does what it does beautifully. 

The software is spendy -- $80 -- but there's a free 30-day trial.  I'm giving it the old college try for the next couple of weeks, but if it continues to be this helpful, purchasing a license is a no-brainer.  (And the trial download comes with a reminder to purchase the software.  Naturally.)