Another cool website for working parents

As with Relish!, I originally tried Readeo through the Mamasource deals site, but it's now become a permanent part of my working mom bag of tricks.

Basically, Readeo allows you to read childrens' books on your computer. It provides a library of a bunch of books (I won't hazard an estimate, but suffice to say we've had the subscription for over three months now and are still discovering new books) and you can flip through them, pictures and text and all. Littles owns tons of real books and we check out books from the library, too, but since we discovered Readeo, she almost always bypasses the real books to ask for "books on the computer" for her nightly storytime.

That alone is probably worth the $9.99 monthly subscription fee. But what makes it great for traveling parents is that you have the ability to "BookChat" with someone on another computer. You can flip through the pages of the books together, and even bring in audio and video. (The video appears at the bottom of the screen with the book "pages" on it.)

So last week, while I was on a business trip, I was still able to do storytime with Littles. Littles loved it, I loved it, and it gave my husband a much-deserved break!

It's also great for distant grandparents and other family members. You can invite them to join the site and they can create their own guest accounts for free. Then, when they BookChat with you on your paid account, they will have access to the full Readeo library. (Guests not BookChatting with a paid subscriber have access to the book of the month, as well as a few other free books.)

Downsides? The audio/video quality is not as good as Skype or other dedicated video conferencing tools, but it's definitely serviceable, and the book-reading functionality more than makes up for it. Also, the site makes heavy use of Adobe Flash, so it's not usable from devices that don't support Flash, such as the iPad.

Readeo does offer a 14-day free trial, so sign up for it before your next business trip and give it a shot!

What's for dinner?

I will be honest here. I have many talents. Cooking is most definitely not one of them.

Fortunately for me, I married a man who does enjoy cooking. Even so, in a household with two busy working parents and two kids who are typical eaters for their ages (that is, a little picky), "What's for dinner?" is often one of the most challenging questions of the day. And the answer is "Take-out" a little more often than we'd like.

As of late, we've started using a service called Relish! We originally found it through Mamasource deals site, and it's really helped us with meal planning and preparation.

I've discovered that what I like least about cooking is not the cooking itself, but planning and shopping. Relish! helps tremendously with this. Each week, it provides about 10-15 different dinner options. All you have to do is click a button to add them to your weekly menu. When you're done, it generates a shopping list for you. Easy! It also stores every recipe in a searchable database, so you can go back and choose favorites from a past week.

We've tried a lot of different meals over the last few months, and have found them consistently easy to prepare and absolutely delicious! Trust me, when I say they're easy to prepare... they're easy to prepare. To give you an idea of my lack of cooking skills, I've messed up cooking rice before. But Indian chicken korma? Spinach lasagna rollups? No problem.

Relish! also provides freezer meal options. This worked out well when both Hubby and I went out of town on business a few weeks ago. We were able to prepare a weeks' worth of freezer meals ahead of time for my mother-in-law, who was staying with the kids. Then, all she had to do was pull a meal out of the freezer and pop it in the oven, rather than hassling with cooking dinner with two kids under her feet. We've also used this for quick weeknight dinners, or just to have a home-cooked meal option even if we haven't had time to get to the grocery store yet.

One limitation of Relish! is that it's really geared towards dinners, not breakfasts or lunches. This is fine by me, as I usually just do cereal/yogurt for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch -- easy enough to plan for. But Hubby likes to eat more elaborate meals earlier in the day, and he says he's used other sites that provide good breakfast/lunch options.

Still, we both really like how easy Relish! makes dinner. So, if you're already in a good groove with your dinner preparations -- rock on! But if not, I highly recommend checking out Relish!

Easy.

Twice in the last few months, I've had stay-at-home moms tell me that it's easier to be a working mom than a stay-at-home mom. The reason they always give? "At least you get to go to the bathroom by yourself."

The peeing-with-an-audience situation also came up in a Babble article posted by another friend, entitled "Stay-At-Home vs. Working Parents: Questions to help spouses bridge the communication gap." It's meant to be a humorous explanation of the different stresses that stay-at-home parents face, as compared to their working spouses.

Even working moms sometimes echo the sentiment that they have it easier, such as in a recent post by NPR Baby Project blogger Christy Lilley, as she prepares to return to work after the birth of her second baby:

I often think being a stay-at-home mom is harder than being a working mom.

After a particularly exhausting weekend with James [her toddler], going back to work feels like a break. Even though I'm working, I find little moments of time throughout the day to myself. Whether it's catching up with a friend on the phone during my commute or listening to whatever I want on the radio instead of Raffi nursery rhymes, working out at the company gym during my lunch hour, or reading the news online in between meetings, I savor these moments.

When I'm home, I have no time to myself. It's all kids, all the time.

Let me be clear: I agree that being a stay-at-home mom is hard. But I don't think it's inherently harder -- or easier -- than being a working mom.

In fact, after stating that being a stay-at-home mom is harder than being a working mom, Lilley goes on to discuss the many challenges that she faces as a working mom. The constant guilt. Working with people who are either single or have a stay-at-home spouse and therefore don't have to drop everything at 5 PM to get the kids from daycare. Being pulled in a million different directions, and feeling like you're doing neither of your full-time jobs (the one that's paid in money, and the one that's paid in toddler-hugs and baby-kisses) very well.

But she also talks about how much she enjoys her job. I enjoy my job, too. And so that is why for me, being a working mom is easier than being a stay-at-home mom, despite the challenges. If it were harder --if the enjoyment I got out of the job wasn't worth the challenges I faced in it -- then I would stay at home.

I have no personal experience aside from maternity leave, but presumably, it's the same for stay-at-home moms, no? A commenter on the Babble article stated:

I've been both a SAHM [stay-at-home mom] and a WOHM [work-outside-the-home mom] at different points in my life, and I have to admit that for me personally there is less stress as a SAHM because despite all my children's craziness, I madly, deeply and passionately love them and no matter how mad I get, my love for them covers all. Can't say the same for colleagues and bosses!

Exactly.

So, can we please quit with the whole "who has it harder" discussion? Forget stay-at-home vs. working moms. Being an adult is hard. Period.

I can envy my husband, who never seems to struggle with guilt because he works, and say that working dads have it easier than working moms. But I know he feels an inherent drive to be the primary financial provider for our family, even though he doesn't have to be. I don't feel that same drive.

He might envy his co-workers with stay-at-home wives, for whom going on a business trip simply entails a quick phone call home to say, "Hey, I need to travel next week," rather than the complicated coordination of travel schedules and daycare pickups and freezer meals that we have to go through whenever either of us has to go out of town. But surely he doesn't carry the same pressure that they do of knowing that they're just one silly mistake away from losing their family's entire income.

And while parents will often roll their eyes or smile knowingly to themselves when a childless person complains about how difficult his/her life is, the truth is, childless people have their own challenges. About five years ago, I went to a big meeting for my entire team at work. We were being asked to travel more and more, and some people who had joined the team when it was a low-travel job were not happy about it. One of them stood up and said, "I have three small kids, so it's hard for me to travel on short notice. I think that people who don't have family commitments like that should take on more of the travel burden." Another co-worker, a brilliant single woman with a lot more guts than me, replied angrily, "How dare you? I might not have kids, but I do have other things in my life that are just as important to me as your kids are to you. I don't want travel to take me away from those things, any more than you do."

(As an aside, that woman has been promoted multiple times over the last few years. The dad no longer works at the company.)

Yes, these days, I'm often up late at night blogging or exercising or sewing or pursuing other hobbies, because that's the only time I get to myself. Whereas before kids, I could fill my evenings and weekends with coaching/refereeing high school lacrosse and captaining my local Team in Training triathlon team and training for an Ironman triathlon myself and playing ice hockey and soccer, all on top of a job that required extensive travel, and still get to bed at a reasonable hour (or sleep in if I didn't). But I had to do all that to feel fulfilled, to feel like I was doing something with my life. Now I feel like I'm doing something with my life when Noob wakes up at 6 AM and I snuggle in bed with him and fall back asleep while he nurses. Or when Littles gets home from school and we go up to the playroom and dance like fools to kids' music before dinner.

So who has it harder? Who cares. Why can't we just celebrate the joys and vent about the stresses of our jobs -- inside or outside the home -- without comparing to the joys or stresses of other people's jobs?

Hanging up the horns, round 2

Back in June, with my average daytime pumping output down to maybe an ounce a day, I decided drop my one pumping session. The pumping session was solely to keep my supply up and put milk in the freezer for donation, since Noob was drinking whole milk exclusively during the day, so it was no problem to drop that session. I dropped off my last milk bank donation shortly afterwards.

At the time, I was also pumping while on business trips. I'm currently on my third business trip in two months. On the first one, in mid-June, I brought my pump, but only pumped 3 ounces over two days. On the second one, two weeks ago, I brought my pump just in case, but ended up pumping only once, for a measly half an ounce. Back home, Noob did fine with no breastmilk.

So, last Tuesday, after dropping Littles off at preschool, I drove to the parking lot of a local 7-Eleven. There, I met up with the mom of a nine-month-old who is unable to nurse, who I had found through Eats on Feets. I handed over the remainder of my freezer stash, mostly milk pumped on business trips and therefore not frozen within the 24-hour window required by the milk bank. I really enjoyed meeting the mom whose baby would benefit from my milk. Donating to the milk bank has been great, but very anonymous.

Anyway. That donation meant I was officially hanging up the horns. I did not bring my pump on my trip this week.

When I reached this point with Littles, I wrote about a recent discussion over whether women should feel proud for breastfeeding their child, since after all, women have been breastfeeding for millenia. I said that I did feel proud, because women have not been pumping for millenia, and pumping was hard work!

I feel differently this time. Sure, I'm pleased that Noob is among only 10% of babies who are still breastfed at 1 year of age. But as I've explained in previous posts, I really didn't have to do a whole lot of pumping for him. He was home with family till just before his first birthday, and I work from home, so I mostly nursed him directly. And yes, women have been doing that for millenia. Not really an accomplishment, like something I should be really proud of doing.

I'm also pleased that I was able to donate over 400 oz of breastmilk (340 oz to the milk bank and a little over 90 oz direct to the mom I met last week). But again, I don't really feel like that's a special accomplishment. Women have been wet-nursing for millenia, too, and aside from my European adventures, it was really pretty easy to fit the extra pumping sessions into my day.

I am proud, and very very lucky, to work in a job and for a company that made breastfeeding so easy. Every woman should have the opportunity to breastfeed as long as she wants, even if she returns to work. It makes me sad that so many women find themselves in work situations that are not conducive or even openly hostile to pumping. It's just not right.

I'm also thankful that I still have the opportunity to nurse Noob. He's an early riser, usually waking up between 6-6:30 AM, and I am… well, not an early riser :) So most mornings, I get him out of his crib, bring him in bed with me, latch him on as we're both lying down, and catch a few extra minutes of sleep while he nurses. I love it, and I'm in no rush to end it.

But I do love the fact that this morning, I was able to go for a 30-minute jog on a beautiful trail next to a river, rather than spending 30 minutes pumping. It's been a great run, but I'm glad to be done.

Adventures in pumping, European edition

Just from a quick peek at my tag cloud, it's obvious that I have quite a bit of experience with pumping while traveling. So when I found out I had to go on a business trip to Munich, Germany, I wasn't particularly worried about pumping during it. How much different could it be?

It turned out to be quite the adventure :)

Before the trip
This trip was for a large meeting with some business affiliates that are based in Europe. To keep costs down, most attendees shared hotel rooms. This poses obvious problems for me with needing to pump, so I contacted the group in charge of organizing the meeting ahead of time to let them know that I'd need a place to pump and also a refrigerator in my room.

(As a quick aside: I have shared a hotel room while pumping, on two trips earlier this year with the lacrosse team that I coach outside of work. I had to coordinate with my roommates so that I could take over the bathroom a few times a day. Certainly not preferable, but it did work out.)

I felt a little awkward, especially since the main organizer was a man. But the other four members of the group were women, so I figured at least one of them had to have breastfed at some point.

There was a moment of confusion when the male organizer thought that I meant I was bringing Noob with me -- as in, bringing him into the actual meetings! He gently suggested that I might want to have someone to watch him during the day! I reassured him that it would just be me and my trusty breast pump, and he made the proper accommodations.

The outbound trip
I flew to Munich via London. My outbound flight left at about 9:45 PM on Sunday, so I was able to nurse Noob normally all day Sunday before getting on the plane.

I opted not to pump at all on the trip to Munich. Noob nurses little enough now that I'm not in discomfort if I go for a while without nursing/pumping, and it was much easier not having to deal with pumping on the plane. I might have tried to pump during my layover in London, but as it turns out, my director (my boss's boss) was on my flight from Dallas. We ended up chatting for most of the layover. It was nice not having to find an excuse to slip away to pump.

In Germany
I arrived in Munich a little before 6 PM local time (11 AM Dallas time) on Monday, about 18 hours since my last nursing session. I eagerly got my pump out... and realized that despite all my careful planning, I had forgotten one very important thing: A converter to allow my pump's AC adapter to run on European voltage. Oops.

Normally, I would have been able to use my pump's battery pack, which I always leave in my pump bag. The suction isn't the best, but it would have allowed me to pump enough to stay comfortable while I searched for a converter. Unfortunately, I had pulled the pump part of my Medala PISA out of the larger bag for this trip, to save on space in my jam-packed suitcase.

I quickly searched Medela's web site (in German, of course!) and figured out that there were a few "apothekes" (drug stores) in the area that were affiliated with Medela in some way.

I set off for the nearest one, which was in a shopping area directly underneath my hotel. It was a tiny shop, so I was surprised to see that they did have a sizeable display of pump parts and other breastfeeding supplies. They did not have any PISA adapters... but they did have an Avent manual pump available. These retail for around $30 in the USA. At this store, it cost €61.99 (just under $90).

Whoa.

But I was already late for a meeting, and I knew that the store would be closed by the time it was over. I didn't have time to shop around for the best price, nor did I want to wait to pump until it reopened the next morning. So I bought it.

I had trouble at first because the Avent only comes with a standard size (24mm) breast shield. I typically use a large (27mm) or extra large (30mm) shield with my PISA, so the smaller shield was very uncomfortable. But I found that I was able to insert the larger Medela shield into the Avent shield. It didn't look pretty, but it worked! This is not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. The clear plastic (and the white handle) is the Avent stuff and the cloudier plastic is the Medela shield:

Once I got that figured out, I actually liked pumping with the Avent. I got a decent amount of milk, and it didn't take much longer than pumping with the PISA. Actually, when Littles was the same age that Noob is now, I had retired my PISA and was pumping with a manual pump (Medela Harmony) on all my business trips. It might be time to retire the PISA again! The PISA bag takes up nearly half of my rollaboard suitcase -- compared to the Avent, which is just what you see above -- so it would be nice to get that space back.

Anyway. The Avent turned out to be so effective that I ran into another problem: I ran out of room for all the milk I pumped! I didn't bring milk storage bags (I had forgotten them, too, in my PISA bag -- yeah, I don't know where my brain was when I was packing!) and so by Thursday morning, I was down to my last storage bottle. I looked at a couple of stores to find some sort of container for my milk, and eventually saw the following box on a shelf at a different drug store:

Based solely on the picture, I quickly discerned that this box contained something breastfeeding-related, and then I read the (tiny) English text to confirm that it did indeed contain breastmilk storage bags. So that picture was a very effective advertisement! But I don't think it would fly in the USA, because it shows -- gasp! -- a naked breast! Funny how different things are in Germany :)

On Friday, with all that milk pumped and safely stored, it was time to head home.

The return trip
I had brought a small cooler bag to carry the milk home, along with a box full of sandwich size Ziploc baggies. I got the hotel bartender to fill up a baggie with some ice, then put it in the cooler bag with the milk before heading to the airport.

It just so happens that the male organizer of the meeting was on my flight from Munich back to London. I had met him during the meeting itself. He turned out to be a jovial older British man, quite open and likeable. As we were waiting to clear security, he said, "I just have to ask, because we were all wondering. I understand that you have a baby and that you had to pump milk. But what was the refrigerator for?"

I was confused by the question... "To keep the milk cold." Duh?

Him: "You're actually bringing it home with you?"

Me: "Yep. It's right here in my backpack."

Him: "It will last that long without refrigeration?"

Me: "Yes, it's in a cooler bag with ice, and anyway, it's good for about 10 hours at room temperature."

Him: "Wow! You learn something new every day!" Turns out that none of the female organizers have kids, so none of them had any clue about breastmilk pumping and storage :) Although one is pregnant now, so I guess she'll learn soon enough!

I was glad that the topic had come up prior to clearing security, because security turned out to be a pain. I got to the metal detectors, pulled out the cooler bag, and discreetly informed the security agent that it contained breastmilk.

Agent: "What?"

Me (a little louder): "Breastmilk."

Agent: "WHAT?"

Me: "BREASTMILK!"

So much for being discreet. At that moment, I was relieved that my director and his boss, who were flying out at the same time, had gone out of a different terminal and weren't with us at that security checkpoint. Nothing like discussing your bodily fluids in front of the people who control your promotions.

After that exchange, the agent directed me to put the cooler bag through the x-ray machine. This is something that I haven't been doing as of late when flying in the States, just to avoid any potential risks of exposing the milk to radiation. I simply tell TSA that it is "liquid medication" and they hand-scan it. But putting it through the x-ray machine is probably fine and I really didn't want to have the "liquid medication" discussion at that moment.

On the other side of the x-ray machine, another agent pulled the cooler bag off and said, "What is this?" in broken English. I replied, "Breastmilk," and she gave me a confused look. So I pulled an actual bag out, since the German-purchased bags helpfully had "breastmilk storage bags" printed on them in four different languages :) She gave me another confused look and said, "Where is your baby?"

Ummmmm, at home?

She called over a supervisor and we had the exact same conversation, including asking where my baby was. Eventually, they did a swab in the cooler bag and on the pump, to test for explosive residue. (TSA often does that in the USA, too.) When it came back clean, they sent me on my way.

Whew.

Just before boarding the flight, I asked at a small eatery for some more ice for the cooler bag. The cashier pointed to the front of the eatery and said "Ice." I was confused, as all I saw was a cooler for ice cream." The cashier was confused, too, and said, "Ice" again. "Ice cream, yes?" Ohhhhhh! I said, "No, I need actual ice" and she figured it out and gave me a cup full of it :)

And finally, my milk and I were safely on our way to London.

I had an overnight layover in London, which was good from a milk storage perspective, as it allowed me to dump out the ice and chill the milk safely into the fridge. The "fridge" in this room was actually the automated minibar, so I had to be very careful not to move stuff around, to avoid getting charged for it!

The next morning, I filled up two more baggies with ice at the hotel ice machine. I placed one at the bottom of the cooler bag, then put all the milk bags in, then put another baggie on top. This was at about 7 AM London time (1 AM Dallas time). Then I headed for the airport for the 10-hour flight back to Dallas.

I was a little nervous about clearing security in London. After all, Heathrow is the airport where the original liquid explosives plot was uncovered. But thankfully, compared to Munich, clearing security in London was a breeze. I did have the milk x-rayed again, but it didn't attract any extra attention.

On the flight, I was stuck in a window seat, so rather than disturbing my seatmate by getting up to ask for ice, I simply asked the flight attendants to give me a cup of ice whenever they came around doing beverage service. They were very accommodating. I kept the box of baggies in my seatback pocket, so I could dump the ice into a baggie and place it into the cooler bag, which I kept under the seat in front of me.

The milk was still nice and cold when I got home at around 2:30 PM Dallas time. The oldest milk was about 5 days old at this point, and had been refrigerated (not frozen) the entire time, but I did a quick sniff test and it smelled just fine. So into the freezer it went!

Overall, my first impressions were right: It really wasn't that much harder to pump while traveling internationally vs. domestically. But next time, I think I'll bring my pump's battery pack, my manual pump, and my milk storage bags :)

Where I pumped today (well, yesterday)

I was in my company's office in Los Angeles this week for a team offsite. On Wednesday, I pumped in the "quiet room," as this office calls it. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture, but it was a pretty standard setup with a couple of chairs and a power outlet.

On Thursday, I went to pump late in the day and discovered that the quiet room was locked. Fortunately, my teammates had all left for the day, and the conference room that we used all week had no interior windows and a locking door. So I just locked the door and used that room to pump.

Probably the best view I've ever had while pumping :)

Breastmilk donation

Pumping for Littles was such a stressful experience that I eagerly anticipated the day when I would able to stop. If you had told me back then that with my next child, I would not only continue pumping past his first birthday but would actually do it for other babies, I would have laughed in your face.

But that's exactly what I'm doing right now.

It all started about three months ago, on Facebook, of all places. My friend E, who has a son just a few months younger than Noob, posted that she had just become a breastmilk donor with the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas. I had heard of breastmilk donation before, but given that I have a very average milk supply (I've always made just enough to feed my nursling, not much extra), I never thought it was something I could actually do.

But when I looked into it in more detail, I found out I was wrong. The milk bank asks for a commitment to donate 100 ounces of breastmilk, which does not have to be all at once. I've always maintained a freezer stash of around 100 ounces for Noob to use when I travel on business. I figured that as he started cutting back on nursing past his first birthday, I could slowly cut back on my freezer stash (since I wouldn't need as much to cover him during my business travels) and donate the excess to the milk bank.

So I registered with the milk bank. It's a pretty straightforward process. I had to fill out some paperwork (asking about everything from my average caffeine consumption to the extent of my European travels) and get a blood test done. Everything was paid for by the milk bank. They even gave me collection bottles to use for donation.

It has turned out to be mutually beneficial. Obviously, the milk bank -- and more importantly, the preemies and other fragile babies that it serves -- benefits from getting my milk.

But it has worked out well for me, too. A few weeks after I signed up with the milk bank, Noob went on a nursing strike. For a full week, he only nursed first thing in the morning, and completely refused to nurse the rest of the day. I was worried that this was a sign that he was close to weaning fully, but I did want to keep my milk supply up, just in case he did decide to return to the breast. Thankfully, breastmilk donation gave me a great reason to keep on pumping through the nursing strike. I was able to bank up to 10 ounces of breastmilk each day during the strike. And when Noob did start nursing again, my milk supply was still there for him.

These days, my nursing/pumping schedule looks something like this:

At home - weekday	At home - weekend	While traveling
Morning - Noob nurses During the day - Noob gets a sippy cup of milk. We're working to transition him to whole milk; right now, he gets sippies that are about 1.5 oz breastmilk/4.5 oz whole milk. I pump to get milk for the next day. Any extra goes to the milk bank. Evening - Noob sometimes nurses when he gets home from his sitter's. Night - I pump again. All of this milk goes to the milk bank.	Morning - Noob nurses Late morning (after first nap) - Noob nurses Afternoon (after second nap) - Noob nurses Night - I pump for the milk bank.	I'm traveling this week and following this schedule: Morning - Noob gets a 6 oz bottle of thawed breastmilk. I pump. During the day - Noob gets a sippy of breastmilk/whole milk. I pump. Night - I pump. Since I'm cutting back on my freezer stash, I plan to donate all the milk I pumped this week. On future trips, I may need to use the pumped milk to replenish my freezer stash for the next trip, but whatever I don't need will get donated.

At this late point in Noob's nursing career, I'm not sure how much longer my supply will hold up, but as long as it's still here, I'm taking full advantage of it.

I just dropped off about 150 ounces at the milk bank last weekend. And I haven't even really started cutting back on my freezer stash yet, so I think I'll be able to donate at least 100 ounces more before it's all said and done.

Here's my donated milk all packed up and ready to go. Yes, those are wine bags -- E's brilliant idea for transporting the milk :)

 

Not bad for someone with a very average milk supply :)

Interested in donating?
I know most working moms do maintain a freezer stash, so I really encourage everyone to look into donating it when you're done pumping, even if you don't pump specifically to donate, like I'm doing. There may be a milk bank in your area, but if not, see if you can work with a more distant milk bank. I know the Mothers' Milk Bank of North Texas provides shipping containers and reimburses dry ice purchases for moms who need to ship their milk.

There is also Eats on Feets, which helps moms who have breastmilk find nearby moms who need breastmilk. Direct "milk sharing" is free from the minimum donation requirements and other hoops that milk bank donors must jump through. I'm considering donating some of my milk in this way, as the milk bank's pumping requirements are more stringent (because the milk goes to very sick babies) and not all of my pumped milk meets those requirements. Mostly, it's hard for me to freeze milk within 24 hours when I'm traveling, as the milk bank requires. The milk is still perfectly safe for healthy infants (after all, Noob drinks it :), so if I can find a baby who could use it, I might go that route.

Every pumping mom knows that breastmilk is liquid gold. Better for it to go to a baby than down the drain!

Interesting article

Regrets of a stay-at-home mom

Consider this a warning to new mothers: Fourteen years ago, I "opted out" to focus on my family. Now I'm broke

http://www.salon.com/life/pinched/2011/01/05/wish_i_hadnt_opted_out

I'm posting this link here mostly as a reminder to myself :) I often get caught up in the short-term downsides of being a working mom, like how I have to miss Montessori Night at Littles' preschool in a few weeks for my third business trip in a 5-week period, or how pitiful Noob sounds when he cries as I leave him in the morning. I sometimes find myself thinking, "Gosh, I wish I could just quit. Put an end to this nonsense."

This article is a good reminder to me to think long-term. Yes, my kids will only be this little for a short period of time... and that's exactly why it's important for me to keep working through it. Short-term, yeah, maybe I'd be happier if I weren't working. But what about five years from now, when both kids are in school? I know I'm in a field that I can't just walk away from for a few years and pick up right where I left off. Working might not be the easy choice right now, but if I look just a few years down the road, I know it's the right one.

This comment on the article really blew my mind. I've bolded the parts that I really liked:

I didn't even love being home with my kids. Love my kids, but was grateful to work part-time with sane adults. (No brickbats, plz. I'm a good mother-- ask my kids- but this idea that kids need one woman devoted to their comfort 24 hours a day is pretty recent. Certainly my mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother didn't do that, and their kids turned out just great.)

But all the part-time jobs were "family friendly," and that meant lousy pay and no benefits. So here I am, 50 with a chronic illness, a husband who lost his job AND our health insurance, and a bunch of part-time jobs none of which offer health insurance. And the only jobs I can get are similar jobs, all underpaid and unbenefited. And I can't get insurance coverage-- insurance companies don't offer private insurance to those who have pre-existing conditions. Six months from now, I'll be able to get the new health care bill insurance-- I am crossing my fingers that nothing goes wrong in between.

And you know, I could actually have given something to the world, not just my kids (who didn't much appreciate it anyway, to tell you the truth-- they think their dad is the cool one, because he went out and earned the money and got his name in the paper and all that). The loss of human potential is something no one factors in, but it's increasingly important to me as I realize I don't have a lot of time left to help people with my rather unique set of talents.

oh, and the husband? He never liked my choices. He "let" me do it, but he always wished aloud that I'd get a good job and make good money, and why did I keep talking about us being equal partners when he was the one working all day and I was the one with the "Freedom".

So-- no respect from kids, husband, society, employers. No benefits. No pension. Nothing on my resume but low-skill, low wage part time jobs. And minimal-- very minimal-- Social Security contributions.

When you're 30 and facing this decision, look forward 20 years. The kids will be grown, and trust me on this, they'll remember about 2% of those wonderful experiences you gave them. Kids know when they're loved and taken care of-- and you can do that just fine with a full-time, full-benefit job. Husband might still be around, might not, but don't assume he'll thank you for your choice to stay home. Or he might have moved on, and you're alone without health insurance.

Just look ahead. Make your choice not just on today but on the future too. And remember that you count, and your future counts, and factor your own well-being long term into your decision. You might still decide to stay home, but you might also think about how to mitigate the dangers -- like insist that your husband deposit 10% of his salary into an account that's just for your future. Take courses to qualify you for a new position (yes, you can do that part-time... you can even do it on line). Teach your kids to respect your choices. Go back to work when they go off to school, or work part time, or work every other year, or try to find a company with flex-time. Get on early with a forward-thinking big company that will promote you even if you work part-time.

You count too. Your future counts. Don't forget that like I did.

So... that is my reminder to myself. If it's a good reminder to you, too -- great :)

Desperation

This post is part of a series on finding child care.

In my previous post, I talked about how we thought we had lined up a spot for Noob at an in-home daycare, only to find out that the spot wasn't available, just two weeks before Hubby's return to work.

Once that happened, I knew that in-home daycares weren't an option. I had already contacted every one within a reasonable distance from our home, and no one had openings.

Hubby and I talked seriously again about the Bright Horizons daycare center that had been our favorite center option. We both really liked it. But there was just one problem that I simply couldn't overcome: In the toddler room, the kids only got one nap a day. And Noob most definitely needed two naps! I think that sleep is so important to young children, and I had a really hard time compromising on that point.

Since the one-nap-at-1-year policy is pretty common in daycare centers, I asked some other daycare moms about how their kids did with that transition. For the most part, they said it went fine. I knew Noob would adjust OK if he had to. But I still felt like it wasn't the best choice for him.

One of the other moms told me, "Taking one nap just gives him more time to participate in that great educational curriculum at daycare!" That comment hit me in completely the wrong way. Noob is 1 year old. This might sound odd, but I totally don't care what he's learning. Sure, I don't want him plopped in front of the TV or stuck in a crib by himself all day, but at his age, day-to-day life is enough of a learning experience for him! He just needs to feel secure and loved, and to get plenty of one-on-one interaction. He doesn't need a college prep curriculum -- and he certainly doesn't need to sacrifice his sleep for the sake of any curriculum!

It was yet another sign that, as I mentioned in a previous post, the daycare centers we visited just didn't fit our parenting "style."

I couldn't get past it. Even Hubby could see it, and conceded that we needed to find a different option.

(As an aside, two months down the road, I'm really glad I stood my ground on this point. Even now, Noob does fine with one nap some days, but usually takes two very solid naps totaling 3-4 hours -- and still has no problem falling asleep for the night before 8 PM. I have to think it would not have been healthy for him to force him down to just one 2-3 hour nap.)

But given our short timeframe, our options were running thin. Feeling a little desperate, I decided to post an ad on craigslist. I had no time to waste interviewing people who wouldn't be a good fit for our family, so I was very upfront about a few of the "non-mainstream" things that are important to us: Healthy food options. Acceptance of extended breastfeeding. Minimal TV. Cloth diapering.

I only got one response back. I think I scared a lot of people off :)

The response was from a 21-year-old woman named "A." She was living with a roommate "L," and watching L's daughter, "S," who was right around Noob's age. A was fine with the things I had mentioned in my post and she actually used proper English spelling and grammar, which is rare to find among craigslist posters/responders :) (I know that sounds nitpicky, but when a post has a ton of spelling and grammar problems, I feel like that person simply isn't very professional.) And her home was conveniently located right on the route we already took to drop Littles off at preschool.

Despite all that, I didn't have high hopes, just because there are a lot of crazies on craigslist. But, well, we didn't really have any other options, so I figured A was worth a visit.

I was surprised when I ended up loving her. When I visited, L was there, too, and they were watching the child of one of their friends. It was obvious how much they both enjoyed being around and interacting with kids. Now, A did not offer a college prep curriculum :) But I definitely got the sense that A would provide the security, love, and interaction that I wanted for Noob, and that she would respect Hubby's and my preferences as parents.

Hubby visited separately (I had been so convinced that I wouldn't like A that I told him not to waste his time coming on the initial visit with me!) and felt much the same way. So we told A that we wanted to go with her.

I quickly got background checks processed for both A and L (since L only works part-time and would be around a lot when Noob was there), and called references. Everything looked good.

A week later, Hubby returned to work, and Noob went off to A's.

In-home daycare search

This post is part of a series on finding child care.

In my previous post, I explained how I explored the daycare centers in my area, finding only one option (a Bright Horizons franchise) that I was willing to consider for Noob.

As much as I liked Bright Horizons, there were a few logistical hurdles that I had trouble overcoming. Most of these centered around the fact that Noob would start there at 11 months of age, which is around the time that kids transition from the infant to the toddler room. I didn't want him starting in the infant room, getting used to the kids and teachers, and then having to move to a new room just a few weeks later. But at the same time, I wasn't sure he'd be ready for the toddler room, where he would need to be walking well, completely off bottles, down to one nap a day, etc.

So I wanted to look at the in-home daycares in my area as well, knowing that they would provide more flexibility while avoiding the quick-transition problem.

Unfortunately, there aren't many in-home daycares in my area. And they can be hit or miss, to say the least. Some are fabulous, and some are downright scary. Fortunately for me, the Texas Department of Family and Protective Services provides an excellent tool for weeding out the scary ones: Search Texas Child Care. This web site allowed me to locate every in-home in my area and, more importantly, view any daycare licensing violations that it had received.

So, the place where TV and video games were the only activities offered, or the place where the licensing inspector had to move knives and scissors to a location not accessible to children? Yeah. I didn't have to bother visiting.

But I did find that in the suburb just to the north of us (where Littles' preschool is located), there are a couple of in-home daycares that have been around since the early 90s and have a clean or nearly-clean inspection record. That was promising!

Unfortunately, when I first started looking in September (about four months before we needed care), none of them had openings :( They also did not have a waitlist or any formal means for me to be notified if something did come available.

Not so promising.

I decided to wait and see whether anything came available as Noob's start date drew closer. In late November, I contacted all the places again. To my surprise, one place did have a new opening!

So Hubby and I went to visit. We both really liked it. The provider was located just around the corner from Littles' preschool, and she had been in business for almost 20 years. It was clear that she loved what she did!

She had converted her garage into a room for the daycare, where she had lots of educational toys and materials for the older kids (roughly ages 1+). Her daughter assisted her and took care of the infants, who mostly stayed in the living room. It matched up very well with what I wanted for Noob... a smaller, homey atmosphere, but with plenty of activity and stimulation, a limited number of providers, and flexibility in meeting his changing needs.

She provided a couple of references, which I called, and they all raved about her. I called her back to say that we would take the spot.

We waited to hear back.

And waited.

And waited.

I started to suspect something was wrong.

Sure enough, she came back to say that the child who was supposed to be starting in preschool, thus opening a spot at her daycare for Noob, was in fact staying at her daycare through the end of the school year.

It was mid-December. Hubby was going back to work in two weeks and we still had no child care lined up for Noob.

In my next post, I'll talk about what we did next!

Where I pumped today

I'm up in Seattle this week, for the same semi-annual technical training conference that I attended back in July, shortly after my return to work. This time, though, Hubby is not attending, so I'm all alone up here -- he's back home with the kids.

Again, the conference kicked off with a Sunday session. Thankfully, this time, they opted to do it at one of my company's offices, rather than at Benaroya Hall. Since all of my company's offices have rooms for pumping, that meant I had a dedicated spot to pump, rather than having to pump in the bathroom.

The setup in this office was similar to the one in most of the other offices I've visited up here, with three cubicles and a curtain for privacy.

Much better than a bathroom! And unlike back in July, when Noob was still exclusively breastfed (no solids) and I had to pump three times during the day to get enough milk for him, I only had to make use of this spot once. I love pumping for a nursing toddler. So easy.

Uncharted territory

Noob turned 1 last week! Normally, a baby's first birthday marks the point where s/he can transition to cow's milk instead of breastmilk or formula. With Littles, I was so sick of pumping that I stopped when she was 11 months old, and used up my freezer stash while we transitioned her onto milk.

But since Noob was at home for the first 11 months of his life, I haven't really had to pump much at all -- he mostly nursed directly. Also, my current job is much more conducive to pumping than the job I had when Littles was nursing.

So I'm not sick of pumping, and so no reason to stop doing it. Noob also recently had an allergic reaction after accidentally being given peanut butter, so now that we know he has one food allergy, we're a little gun-shy about introducing other high-allergen foods, such as cow's milk.

As a result, Noob is still drinking breastmilk exclusively -- no other kind of milk. He nurses in the morning. His sitter gives him a bottle during the day, and I pump once. Then he nurses when we get home in the evening. It's very manageable!

This is uncharted territory for me, so I'm not sure how things will change over time. Should we transition him towards getting a cup of breastmilk during the day, rather than a bottle? When should we think about introducing cow's milk, and how will that fit in with his breastmilk consumption? Will he drop nursing sessions on his own, or will I eventually need to nudge him towards weaning like I did with Littles?

I'm curious to see what the next few months hold for us!

Searching for child care, round 4: Noob

I've blogged before about our various searches for child care for Littles. We recently went through yet another search -- this time, for Noob.

We knew from the start that Noob would not require outside child care for quite a while. Between my maternity leave (20 weeks), Hubby's paternity leave (12 weeks), and some assistance from my mother and mother-in-law over the summer in between our two leaves, we were able to keep Noob at home until just before his first birthday.

This meant that we weren't in any particular rush to line up child care for him. Still, while I was on maternity leave, I started visiting daycare centers in our area. I figured that I would pick my favorite and put money down to hold Noob's place. Then, as his start date drew closer, we could look at in-home daycares, nannies, and other options that could not be reserved well in advance. (Sending him to Littles' preschool was not an option, as it does not start till age 2.)

I was already familiar with virtually all of the daycare centers in our area from visiting them during previous daycare searches. I already knew that my top choice would probably be the same Bright Horizons franchise that we had almost picked on two separate occasions for Littles. In fact, I had visited Bright Horizons so many times without sending Littles there that I was a little embarrassed to go back again.

But none of the other daycare centers appealed to me. I finally realized the fundamental problem: Hubby and I have a certain parenting "style," and I couldn't find a center that fit that style. Sometimes, it was obvious, such as at the center that served Frito pie (Fritos corn chips, "mystery meat" looking ground beef, beans, and bright orange cheese) as a lunch, when we try to minimize fried foods and provide at least one fruit/veggie at every meal. Or the one that had an hour of TV time listed daily in the infant room, when we try to avoid screen time for our kids until age 2 and limit it past that point.

Sometimes, it was just a feeling. Many places felt very "institutional." I felt like Noob's basic needs would be met at all of them, but I didn't feel like he would be loved on and nurtured like I want.

I want to be clear that I am not anti-daycare center. I consider Littles' preschool to be a daycare center, and it doesn't feel "institutional" at all. I'm sure there are similarly non-"institutional" daycare centers out there that accept infants. I just didn't find any of them close to my home.

Anyway, after visiting all the places except Bright Horizons, I had only found one other that I would consider, a Children's Courtyard franchise. As luck would have it, both places are on the list of daycares available for backup care through my company. We had two stretches during Noob's time at home where we needed backup care, so I was able to get him in to both centers for a few days each. This was an excellent way to "test drive" both places.

The Children's Courtyard was one of the places that felt very institutional when I visited, and my test drive confirmed this. I peeked in to both infant rooms each day when I dropped off and picked up, and not once did I see a caregiver on the floor just playing with a child. They were always feeding a bottle, or feeding solids, or changing a diaper, or filling out a daily sheet. Not surprising, as they keep a 2:10 caregiver:child ratio in the infant rooms -- the maximum allowed by the state. Infants have a lot of needs, and from what I observed, the caregivers were busy meeting those needs, with very little time left over for anything else.

As for Bright Horizons, I was glad to have the opportunity to visit without actually having to visit :) and I was truly impressed by the care Noob received. He cried a little at drop-off each day, and the teachers were great about holding him while I left; at Children's Courtyard, they had plopped him in an Exersaucer. One day, when I came to pick him up, I was surprised and pleased to find the director of the facility lying on the floor with Noob and two other babies, just playing with them as their regular teacher prepared a bottle.

I knew that Bright Horizons was the only daycare center I was willing to consider. But again, I was embarrassed to put down money knowing that I might back out again. So the weeks went by, and we still had no confirmed child care lined up for Noob.

In my next post, I'll talk about how I looked at in-home daycares as an alternative to Bright Horizons.

Where I pumped today

My team here in Seattle moved to a new office building, so I've spent the last few days wandering around feeling like the new kid in school. It also gave me the chance to check out a new pump room.

It's interesting seeing the contrasts between different pump rooms, even within my company. Since I work in a male-dominated field, many of the pump rooms seem to be very lightly used. One sign of the light use? The receptionists at those offices have to look up the pump room location when I ask.

But my team's new office houses my company's sales and support arms, which tend to have more women. So when I asked the receptionist where the pump room is, she didn't have to look it up... she pulled out a stack of cards that had the pump room numbers and combination written on it, and told me, "Use the one on the fifth floor. It's nicer than the one on the second floor."

She was right! It's pretty darn nice...

I love the comfy couch (in the bottom right corner of this picture), and the artwork on the wall :) It also has a mini fridge for storing milk.

Oh, and if you're curious about what three days' worth of breastmilk looks like...

That's probably around 60 oz worth, all in freezer bags. The cooler bag is the little one that came with my Medela Pump in Style Advanced. For my flight home tonight, I'll put some of this milk in another cooler bag, so that I can fit ice packs in there to keep the milk cold.

Pumping changes

Business trips give me a good opportunity to see where my milk supply is at. I've had trips in July (Noob was 5 months old), October (8 months old), and November (9 months old). On these trips, I've generally pumped first thing in the morning, twice during the work day (around 11 AM and 3 PM), and once at night back in the hotel. I usually got about 12 oz at the morning session and 6 oz at each of the other sessions, for a total of around 30 oz. Meanwhile, back home, Noob was eating 4-5 six ounce bottles each day, so I was able to keep up with him fairly easily.

Over the last two months, Noob has dropped down to just 3 nursing sessions each day, as his solids intake has increased. So on my current business trip, I'm pumping 3 times a day as well: first thing in the morning, once during the work day, and once at night. Today, I got 8.5 oz in the morning, a a little over 3 oz during the work day (this was a short session), and 9 oz at night, for a total of just under 21 oz -- a definite decrease compared to my last business trip. Back home, Noob ate 17 ounces, so I'm still keeping up with him.