Monday, June 27, 2005

T-4 and Counting...

Today was the first day of my last week of work -- just four days left. It's finally hitting me now that I am leaving. I am beginning to get a little nostalgic about the things that I am leaving behind -- comraderie, an amazing set of colleagues, a collegial atmosphere, free food. And I am thinking about all I've built here and wondering what will happen to my work once I've left. Will I leave a legacy, or will my efforts be forgotten and wasted? Of course, there is a lot of bullshit and angst that I won't miss either. As I sit in meetings and listen to folks puzzle out different issues, I think to myself, "That's an interesting problem *you* have." Starting next week, my biggest issues are going to be naptimes and getting Sofia (my daughter) not to throw her bottle.

So, Sofia has started a couple of new behaviors that I am hoping are just part of a veerrry temporary phase. First, she has started screaming at the tops of her lungs when she wants (or doesn't want) something. Yikes! It's ear-splitting. We're actually taking a cross-country flight at the end of the week and I am praying that she doesn't decide to practice this new skill during the flight. I just know I am going to be one of those harried parents of a screaming baby that I used to shoot dirty looks at in my pre-parent days. Oh, paybacks are a bitch.

And her second very endearing behavior is her refusal to eat what I give her. This is a child who used to Hoover up whatever I gave her -- and I gave her some nasty stuff (pureed broccoli, oatmeal, and tofu anyone?) Now, she's literally pushing my hand away when I try to feed her. I think she wants to feed herself, but she's not really adept at grasping the spoon yet. So, instead of ending up in her mouth, the food lands all over her shirt, in her hair, up her nose, in her ears, etc. Combine that with the blood-curdling screams and you can see what mealtimes have devolved to. Actually, it's not that different from work. Hell, maybe I should stay at work -- at least I get paid! :)

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Quack. Quack.

Well, here it is, the first post of my new blog. I am officially eight days away from being a SAHM (Stay-At-Home-Mom to the uninitiated). Here I sit at my desk at work trying to wrap up the loose ends and projects that I'll be passing on to other members of my team. In reality, there isn't much left for me to do anymore -- I've been handing off assignments for a couple of weeks now and not taking on new ones. So, while I have a few hours of work to do each day, I definitely don't have enough to fill up a full work day. I am officially on "lame duck" status. Quack. Quack.

Yesterday I skipped out early to go shopping at Anthropologie. As luck would have it, they were having a sale. So, of course I proceeded to buy $600 worth of sale (and some non-sale) items. Yikes. Not sure how I managed that. Now that I am going to be among the unemployed, I am going to have to pare down the intensity and frequency of my little shopping trips.

It's a little weird to think of myself without a regular paycheck. I've been getting paychecks since I was 16 years old. Hell, over summer vacations in college I often juggled two, sometimes three jobs. I worked all through graduate school, too. And here I am at 34 years old with a kid and two mortgages about to divest myself of a paycheck. I've never really felt guilty about how much money I spend since I have always earned my own money. But, now I'll be spending the money my husband earns. Weird. I wonder if I'll get an allowance?!? Hah!

Honestly, though, I have been pretty lucky. I work for a well-known dotcom company that has afforded me the opportunity to do this. My husband and I have been fortunate enough that we can realize the plans that we created when we first got engaged -- to be able to afford to live on one income while one of us stayed home to raise our kid(s). Okay, a lot of it was luck, but at the risk of ringing my own bell, I have to say that I've also worked my ass off to get to this point. I don't want to mention the company's name while I am still working here, but it at times has sucked the very life out of me. It's an amazing place that folks read about in the press all the time -- the perks are not to be rivaled. But, the place takes its pound of flesh in return. Before my daughter was born, I worked long hours, worked at home during the evenings, worked on weekends -- basically the typical dotcom Silicon Valley lifestyle. Once I came back to work after maternity leave, the schedule was even worse as I tried to divide my days among two jobs: motherhood and corporate.

But, I don't have to cover all the ground now. I guess I'll have some time to expound on my experiences as a working mom. In the meantime, I'll go back to my email and try to kill time before I can reasonably leave for the day. Quack. Quack.