Mental Note: Find Childcare

Things have been pretty busy around here lately.

I usually work three days a week, but has anyone seen the economy lately? Pretty much anyone who's left with a job is working more and more hours. I worked six hours on my day off on Friday. And eleven hours on Monday. And so it goes.

Add the PTO president to the list. I have my usual duties -- and at a special needs preschool, we have our own challenges. Parents are usually only there for two years and in some cases less, before they move on to elementary school. Plus, they're new to the school system, dealing with special needs kids and frequently have even younger siblings at home. Our volunteer base is small, but with 300 kids, our needs are large.

I'm in the midst of planning our Cinco de Mayo event where we bring in Folkloric dancers, students perform songs and dances, we sell traditional foods, and we hold a silent auction and raffle for the parents and community. Gaining donations is the biggest piece of it, as without cool prizes, no one puts in raffle tickets! This year is a bigger challenge than ever because of the economy, but I'm really impressed with and appreciative of some people I know not connected with our school at all who are small businesspeople who have donated some items to us. I'm hoping this makes up the difference for us (and hey -- if you have an Etsy shop and have something you could donate to help our preschool, let me know!).

And then there are the other things I toss in those spare moments, the making it to the chiropractor twice a week, choir practice twice a week, trying to run three times a week, cooking dinner for the family, and so forth.

This isn't at all to say that I'm more busy than anyone else of course, but I'm trying to justify my mental lapses. So ummm make me feel better, here.

Yesterday afternoon, I had a Cinco de Mayo meeting to talk through the donations we've collected and need to collect, as well as to figure out how much food we think we'll sell on the day of the event.

My dad has been watching Little Miss while I'm at those meetings so she can nap. Because she needs to nap. When I called yesterday morning to confirm that my dad was getting her off the bus, he had no idea what I was talking about. And had other plans. As did my mom. As did the other SAHMs in my babysitting co-op. Whoops.

So I brought her with me.

And she brought Snowy. And we spent the meeting with her tossing the teddy bear up in the air and screeching with laughter. And picking up the tambourines that had somehow been left in the room and banging them on desks. And running up to me with castanets and showing me how they can be earrings. And telling me to stand up when she clicked them together. And throwing the teddy bear at me. And knocking over my water bottle.

This meeting should have lasted no more than forty-five minutes to an hour. It was an hour and a half because of the three year old who so desperately needed a nap. I did bring her blankets with her hoping that she would lay down on a couch and rest. Yeah. I know better now.

March 31 is already on my dad's calendar. And I think I need to talk to the school about making sure she's in morning preschool again next year!

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Oh. You came here to find out who won the Spring Fling contest?

Well, as I promised I put all the entries into a spreadsheet -- because I'm anal that way. I was impressed. I only had two people not follow the instructions and have their entries forfeited (yeah, I'm a stickler for the rules; what can I say?). Ninety-seven entries total, and:

True Random Number Generator

Min:
Max:
Result:
86

Ok, if someone can tell me how to make it all pretty in my post like I see elsewhere, please let me know. this was the best I could do!

#86 in my list was MEGAN from INfertile Myrtle! She's a new follower, and I hope she (and the rest of you) stick around. Thanks for playing!

The Grass Is Always Greener...

Something's been bugging me all week long (raise your hand if you're shocked to hear me say that). When I got back from Seattle on Monday this week, the first thing I did was head upstairs to my sleeping children and try to wake them up so that I could say goodnight to them.

This may not sound that unusual or odd to anyone, but I am a very firm believer in the need of sleep in children. I know how much sleep my children benefit from, and I also know that having spent the previous four days with my parents, they weren't getting anywhere near that level of sleep.

So why did I (unsuccessfully, mind you) try to wake sleeping children? I feel like I'm missing out on them. I see them growing up quickly, and I don't get a chance to spend the time with them -- particularly not one on one -- that I realize more and more I want to because they're such fun and neat little personalities.

My mom told me that on Monday, Little Miss asked her when my mom picked her up from daycare if Mommy would be on a conference call when they arrived home. That's my only daughter's view of me. When she comes home from daycare, Mommy will still be working and unable to ask about her day or play with her or even just pay attention to her.

Work has been really busy for awhile now for me. I work twenty-four hours, and my agreement is that I stay at twenty-four hours, even if some weeks I work more than that. In return, other weeks I work less. I quickly built my way up past thirty hours "extra" that I had in the bank. I've been trying hard to reduce that backup and get back to even, but five months later, I'll end this pay cycle up around eighteen hours.

Granted, I'm really lucky that I work only three days a week and that I do have two days during the week that I can spend with the wee ones. It's amazing how fast that time disappears though.

Little Miss goes to preschool five mornings a week (not my choice - the special needs preschool is five days a week or nothing and she benefits from being there), she comes home, eats lunch, naps, wakes up to eat dinner, and our bedtime routine starts. There isn't a lot of quality time with her on the days that I have home with her.

Mister Man's days with me aren't much better. He's home in the morning and doesn't head to preschool until after lunch. We had a playdate this past Tuesday, and I realized how infrequently we have the opportunity to do this and how much he loves playing and sharing with his friends -- and how much the playdates benefit him and his social development.

The first Tuesday of every month I have the PTO meeting which essentially takes up the entire morning. I have only twenty minutes after Little Miss gets on the bus to hang out with him before we need to head to the preschool. Tuesday and Friday mornings are my only chances to run during the week, so we talk in the car on the way to and from the club, but that's it. Granted he loves going to the Kids Area and making new friends there, but I don't spend the time with him. If someone needs a doctor's appointment, guess when I'll plan it? Or if I need to run to the post office? Or maybe if my car needs an oil change? How about grocery shopping? Yep, it's all during the time that I should be spending playing with him or working with him on something or setting up playdates for him.

Then I run into the issues where the school plans events on days I'm working. Since they rarely try to plan anything for a Friday knowing how busy Fridays are, there's a seventy-five percent chance that whatever event they plan, I'm going to have to miss it for work. Forget the Halloween parade at school. Forget the Thanksgiving craft with my child. Forget the RIF events. Forget Valentine's tea. I'm the mom who isn't there. Unfortunately, with the frequency they come up, I can't take the time from work.

And don't get me started about my actual job. It's better and safer for everyone if we leave that topic completely alone.

But how can I even think about quitting in this economy? Could we make it work as a one income household? Yes, we could. It would involve cutting back on various things, but we could make do. I'm a nicely frugal person. But everything is so uncertain. Who knows where inflation will be going. Who knows when our roof will need replacing followed immediately by our furnace then our hot water heater then my husband's car and then medical issues? Were any of those worst case scenarios to arise, making do would no longer be in my vocabulary.

I work part time. I have a job that challenges me intellectually and gives me great responsibility. They pay me decently. How can you walk away from a situation like that?

Then I peek into Mister Man's room to see him sound asleep with a cat curled up on either side of him. Roar lifts his head at the noise, sees it's me and goes back to sleep. I quietly edge open Little Miss's door and see her surrounded by stuffed animals. These quiet, stolen moments are sometimes all I get from the wee ones.

How much longer will Little Miss say that I'm her favorite? How soon before Mister Man again pushes me away? And how soon before I don't recognize the teenagers before me, grown up in an instant while I was distracted elsewhere.

It's really been bothering me this week. Ironically, tomorrow I have an article or post or whatever you want to call it up on BettyConfidential talking about how I got to my part-time life. Go check it out tomorrow, and then whack me upside the head for forgetting that life's never perfect.

How Did I Get Here?

I got an email today from someone who had read my profile and was interested in understanding how I managed to have a part time position. I started to respond via email but realized it was a really long answer, so I gave her the short version. Instead, you lovely readers get the full story.

Here's the history. Two plus years ago, I was a relationship manager for the same company I work for now. I literally never saw the wee ones except during the weekends. My primary client was on the West Coast, and I was on the road around 50% of the time. When in the office, I rarely was able to leave before 7 or 8. My son was 2 1/2 at the time and would scream NO when he saw me while turning his head and sticking out his hands and arms to keep me away. Needless to say, that was heartbreaking.

As much as I loved my job, my family obviously came first. We could afford to have me stay home, so I submitted my resignation and began life as a SAHM to an 8 month old who was incredibly mobile and started walking less than a month after my last day and a 2 1/2 year old with some special needs.

Going from being in charge of everything and having my schedule be my own to being at home -- and I do me AT home -- with two small children who constantly needed refereeing was exhausting. I no longer had the mental stimulation I craved. I could rarely take the time to go to the bathroom unless they were napping. I had few friends (as we were in a new location) and fewer activities for the two of them, other than taking them to their Early Intervention therapies (my daughter was also receiving speech and occupational therapies, although she graduated from them last August).

The changes were quite a shock to my system, and I started climbing the walls. Luckily for me, I had two contacts who started calling me right about the same time to see if I would come back. The ironic part is that every time I had a conversation with one, the other would call me within 24 hours. Since they knew each other, I was convinced they were talking although they were from different companies, but that wasn't the case. It truly was coincidence.

The first to call was a guy I had worked with when I was a management consultant who had opened his own consulting shop specializing in marketing consulting with a large concentration in financial services. It really would be quite a neat fit, as I had loved consulting except for the hours. He had another former colleague (with infant triplets!) working for him on a part-time basis, so he was comfortable with part time workers. Given the size of his firm, it would be a contract position (e.g., no benefits) and half time. His version of half time was around 27 hours a week, which was more than I was willing to commit to at that point, but I'd be able to do the majority of the work from home. Plus, given that it's consulting, the pay was really nice.

The second job was with my former company in the same division. At the time, it was a contract position as well for 10 hours a week, again the majority from home. The pay wasn't fantastic, but it was decent. It was also far more flexible in terms of me setting my 10 hours versus the more rigid set by the client.

In talking to my friend who worked in the consulting company, her part time was becoming much more of a roller coaster full time and slow times and leaning more and more towards full time. Since I also needed childcare and didn't have an au pere (as my friend did), getting the flexibility in daycare also played into my decision.

I ended up going back to my former company. Initially, I was doing training on an analytics system for the business folks. It was super easy to use, and I was training the old marketing and sales people that I had worked with previously. Unfortuantely for them, the analytics guys couldn't translate their knowledge to the business folks, so I had a nice cushy job.

A few months into doing this, my boss's boss called me into his office to try to talk me into coming back on a more permanent basis. This would mean bringing my hours up to 3 days a week and working on a larger variety of projects. Personally, he had taken a number of lateral moves in his career so that he could have more family time and absolutely understood my desire to have time with my family. I agreed to come back, and the stipulation was the 24 hours meant 24 hours.

At that point, I began working on cross sell initiatives, helping the boss's boss put together analyses and business cases for the senior execs at the company and the like. I also started taking on some fun projects that involved developing new products and expansions to grow our overall business. The work was definitely interesting, and my role was appreciated even as my division was reorganized.

This May, we had another reorganization and I was volunteered for a new Strategy team that is focusing on defining a new era for our business. I have a new boss now, one who I don't respect nearly as much as I did my previous boss. He's very hands on, which irritates me as I know what I'm doing and don't like to have someone looking over my shoulder. Being part time though, I don't have too many options. Finding another job in my company will be difficult given the economy and the intellectual challenge I have will be difficult to replace. Plus, they pay me nicely.

The plus side is that my boss's boss again affirmed that I'm valued and seen as a critical contributor and supporter of me, so I'm currently working through how to make my situation more palatable again. My boss is clueless, and I'm still figuring out how to address his passive-aggressive tendencies.

I've thought about quitting to stay home again. I think I could do it now. My wee ones are older now and play nicely together and independently. I'm involved in a lot more activities, and the wee ones are also in school which gives me time to run errands and the like as needed. Plus I've been in my town for two plus years now, and I've made a lot of really good friends, which helps keep me sane.

So why haven't I quit? First, I do like what I'm doing, in general. Second, they pay me, and it's hard to give up that second income. Third, I get benefits with my job that are far better and cheaper than those my husband has -- and as a side note for all of you who think that teachers and other public servants have cushy benefits, I'd like to respond with a big old HA! Plus, inertia is a huge factor.

I joke that I'm waiting for a layoff that I'll happily take. Enjoy my severance and then stay home. Honestly, if I were to get laid off, that's exactly what I'd do. The industry I work in has many problems, although my company is doing ok. We have had some layoffs in my company and my division, but I've yet to be affected. And the Strategy team I work on that is figuring out how to fix things and how to recreate the business is likely to be among the last to be let go. And I'm consistently ranked at the top end of our evaluations, which leads me to believe that I'm again likely to be amongst the last to go, if there were additional layoffs.

And so I continue... my part time work life, part time home life, part time volunteer life, part time family life -- and way overcommitted life that I enjoy. But ask me tomorrow how I feel, and I may give you a different answer!

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And don't forget! Today is Free Slurpee Friday at 7-11!