Seattle

Twice a year, my company holds a big technical training conference for employees in Seattle. It attracts folks from all over the world! My fellow program managers and I don't really need to attend the conference ourselves, but one of the teams that we work closely with sends a number of people. So we run some sessions for them at the conference. Since the sessions bring remote employees like myself into town, our management usually uses that week to hold our quarterly team meetings and other events, so that we don't have to make multiple trips. Works for me!

This summer's conference was scheduled for the last week in July, so I anticipated that it would be my first business trip after my return to work on June 21. In early June, we found out that Hubby would be attending the conference himself. I quickly confirmed with my manager that I would need to be in Seattle as well that week, and that it would be OK for me to bring my family. We started making plans:

• Flights: Noob is home with family for most of the summer -- mostly my mother-in-law. (She's a teacher, so she's off work for the summer.)But the Seattle week happened to be the first of two weeks where my mother planned to come watch Noob. She was flying in from Georgia, and booked her ticket to go to Seattle before coming to Dallas. We also bought a ticket for Littles.
• Hotel: I booked a two-bedroom suite at a Residence Inn very close to my company's office. We've stayed at this same hotel in the past while traveling with Littles, and it always works out well. There is plenty of room to spread out, and having a full kitchen makes meal preparation/eating with kids much easier.
• Child care: Although my mom would be in Seattle with us, she did have some work she needed to do. With Littles out of preschool for the week, we knew that she would need some help with the kids. We used our company's backup care program to locate a nanny, "J," who would come to the hotel in the mornings, allowing my mom to get some work done. My dad also planned to fly out later in the week to help -- he wanted to see the kids anyway, and Seattle has much nicer July weather than Georgia does!

With all our plans in place, we took off for Seattle on Friday night, on Noob's first flight ever!

I brought along about 25 oz of breastmilk. About 15 oz was frozen milk from May, and 10 oz was refrigerated milk that I had pumped over the previous day or two. The frozen milk started to defrost on the way to Seattle, and therefore had to be used within 24 hours. So Noob got bottles all day Saturday, rather than breastfeeding, and I pumped. So at the end of the day, I had 25 oz of refrigerated milk that just had to be used within the next few days. That was more than enough milk for an average day away from Noob, along with some extra in case I fell short pumping.

The extra milk did come in handy, as I had a difficult time with pumping all week. I was in a lot of meetings, and often had to delay or skip pumping sessions. In fact, by Wednesday, I actually had to make a special trip back to the hotel in the middle of the day to drop off the milk I had pumped that morning, in order to ensure that Noob had enough milk to get him through the rest of the day. If I do a trip like this again, I'll definitely pump more in the days before our departure, so that I can bring more refrigerated milk with me as a safety cushion.

The child care arrangements worked out reasonably well. Noob did fine. At his age, as long as he's kept fed and rested, he'll be OK, and J and my mom did a good job of that. Nights were a little tiring for me, as the best way to keep him quiet with so many other people sharing the hotel room with him was to pull him into bed with me and nurse him all night. But that worked out fine, as I still got a good bit of rest, and having him nurse so much was good for my milk supply anyway.

Littles was more of a challenge. J had a different approach to dealing with Littles than Hubby and I do. Not in a bad way, really. To give an example, if I take Littles to the park, she never wants to leave. So a few minutes before it's time to go, I'll tell her, "OK, Littles, 3 more minutes, and then it's time to go home." She'll often respond, "5 more minutes," and I'll say OK. Of course, she has no concept of time, so a minute later, I'll tell her, "OK, 1 more minute," and she'll respond, "2 more minutes." And so on. But this gives her enough of a heads-up that she almost always leaves on her own accord within a reasonable amount of time, even if it's a little longer than 3 minutes. J, on the other hand, went to the park with her and told her "5 more minutes" and then counted down exactly 5 minutes. Again, this wasn't a bad approach, just confusing to Littles because it wasn't what she was used to.

On top of it all, obviously Littles was dealing with being in a different time zone. She was also missing both Hubby and me tremendously. I was working very long hours, and Hubby was actually staying in a different hotel -- he was downtown, close to the convention center, while the kids and I were out in a Seattle suburb close to my office. All in all, it was a bit of a rough week for her, and she definitely was not on her best behavior.

I felt a little bad for my mom. She doesn't get to see the kids all that often, so I know she was really looking forward to spending this time with them, but she ended up getting a bit of a raw deal under the circumstances. For example, when she came in to say "Good morning," Littles would cry "Mama!" and cling to me. It wasn't that she doesn't love her Nana, because she does, but just that she associated my mom with my leaving, and she didn't want me to go. Thankfully, my mom hung in there, and was a huge help on a couple of nights when I had dinner meetings. And then she flew home to Dallas with us and stayed with us the next week, where Littles got back on her normal routine and did much better overall.

All in all, it was a hard week in many ways, but I'm glad we brought the kids along. Really, the only other option would have been to leave my mom at home alone in Dallas with both kids. That might have given Littles a little more consistency, but she still would have been acting out some due to missing Hubby and me -- she does that even when just one of us is away. Pumping would have been a huge struggle for me. And it would have been a lot to ask of my mom, to care for both kids alone for a whole week. At least in Seattle, even working long hours, I could help her in the mornings, as well as most nights. So really, everything worked out as well as it could, under the circumstances!

Big girl

Hard to believe it's been a full year since Littles started at her preschool.

This morning, when I dropped her off, she put her lunch on the shelf and her school bag in her cubby, then pulled out a mat and chose a Montessori work to do. All by herself.

Another girl, B, was hanging back in a corner of the room, fingers in her mouth, watching the other kids, a little unsure of what to do. She is new to the class, so I'm guessing she just recently turned two. She looks so tiny! Watching her this morning, it struck me that that is what Littles looked like a year ago.

And now look at her. My big girl.

Her teachers report that she's doing really well with her own work and is also great at helping with the other kids. She'll stay in the introductory room through the summer, and then move up to one of the primary rooms in the fall.

Just a few months ago, the idea of moving up made me really nervous. I still saw her as that not-quite-two-year-old who I dropped off a year ago. Now I can see that she's ready. She's grown and learned so much in her current class, and we'll miss her teachers tremendously, but I think she'll thrive on the challenges that the primary room presents.

Maternity leave

Long time, no post, I know. I've been busy.

Noob arrived a few days before his due date, on January 31st, and I have been on maternity leave ever since.

I'm lucky to work for a fabulous company that offers up to 20 weeks of maternity leave to new mothers, including 12 weeks fully paid. I'm currently two weeks away from my return-to-work date.

I've enjoyed my maternity leave tremendously. Much more than I did with Littles. Some of this is likely due to our changed family circumstances. When Littles was born, Hubby was working long hours at a startup company, and had a 45-minute commute on top of it. He also traveled monthly. Now, he works shorter hours at an office that's 5 minutes away, and last week was his first business trip since Noob's birth. He is around a lot more, which takes a load off my shoulders. It also makes me happy to see him with his kids so much more. His new job gives him more time to be the amazing daddy he's always been.

Some of this is likely due to the fact that I'm enjoying Noob's entire newborn stage more than I did Littles'. He is a ridiculously easy baby. Not that she was difficult, by any means, but he's even easier. And now I know that even the occasional difficult moments are just... moments. They'll pass quickly. And all those wonderful moments? They'll pass even more quickly.

And some of this, I think, is the confidence that comes with having 2+ years of working motherhood under my belt. I remember checking my work email a lot in the early weeks of my maternity leave with Littles. After all, work was what I had done for, well, my entire career. I didn't know how to let go. I didn't want to let go, because I knew I was good at my job, but I didn't know if I'd be any good at this motherhood thing. In some ways, I didn't want to be good at it, because then maybe I would feel like I should do it full-time. I didn't want to enjoy myself on maternity leave, because then maybe I would think I should make my leave permanent.

Now? I know that I'm good at this motherhood thing. Being home for this long, I've discovered that I really could be a stay-at-home mom. I love it that much. I can't justify my decision to work by saying, "I'm not cut out to stay at home." Because I am.

But that doesn't mean that I will. That's the confidence that I have now that I didn't have with Littles. I can admit to myself that I would love to stay at home, but I can still choose to go back to work -- because I love working, too. And I know my kids will be just fine either way.

This time around, I've barely looked at my work email while on maternity leave. I have a different job right now. It's OK that I'm good at it. It's OK that I love it. It's also OK that it's temporary.

Missing out

One of the frequently-fired missiles in the mommy wars goes something like this: "As a stay-at-home mom, I'm able to attend all of the class parties at my kid's school. I see all the kids who don't have a parent there because both parents work. I see how sad those kids are."

I always roll my eyes at that. "Well, I have a flexible work schedule. I'll be at every party. No problem. It's called work-life balance, duh."

At the orientation meeting for Littles' preschool, we got the calendar of all the important dates for the year, and I dutifully sat down and put every single party for the entire school year into my calendar. I wasn't going to miss a single one!

Fast forward about two months. I received a calendar placeholder for my training in Seattle this week, went to accept it -- and realized that the last day of training conflicted with Littles' very first class party.

An enormous wave of mommy guilt washed over me. I immediately pulled up an instant messenger window to tell Hubby to please, please, please make time to go to Littles' school on November 19th for a special Thanksgiving lunch.

He agreed. Mommy guilt assuaged.

That is, until my normal pre-bedtime phone call with Hubby and Littles tonight. Turns out it wasn't just lunch; the kids put on a little play for the parents. Littles' class sang songs, and apparently Littles (who loves to sing at home) just stood there and didn't sing anything!

I giggled at that with Hubby, and then it hit me: I missed my daughter's first school play :(

I pressed Hubby for more details, but I could hear Littles wailing for bedtime in the background. He said, "I'll tell you all about it when you get home."

I can't wait.

Why I'm glad I'm traveling today, Thursday edition

A guy in my training class had free speaker phones to give away! They hook up to your laptop -- definitely handy for all my conference calls at home. Woo-hoo for free gadgets!

Why I'm glad I'm traveling today, Wednesday edition

I talked to Hubby and Littles a couple of times tonight. They had a daddy-daughter dinner at a local restaurant, and it sounded like they both enjoyed it.

It reminded me of one of the definite upsides of all my traveling over the past few weeks: Littles has grown noticeably closer to Hubby. Not that they weren't close before, but there are just some subtle differences, like how Littles no longer asks for me to do both bathtime and story time at night. (Hubby and I always split those responsibilities when we're both home, even when Littles protests.)

Don't get me wrong, Littles and I are still very close. It's not like she's rejecting me for being gone. It's just that in my absence, her relationship with her daddy has had space to grow. And that's a beautiful thing for me to see.

Why I'm glad I'm traveling today, Tuesday edition

Finding the handful of sleeping positions that are actually comfortable at 29 weeks pregnant is a lot easier when you have a king-size bed with lots of pillows, all to yourself!