Ultimate Mommy Guilt

I have been in a PhD program for Maddy's entire life (going on almost 4.5 years). I am about 2 months away from finishing with the intention of graduating in December. This is crunch time.

During this journey, there has been extreme amounts of guilt. Guilt that I wasn't spending more time with Maddy, guilt that I wasn't hanging out with Ted, guilt that I wasn't walking the dog, guilt that I wasn't going to the gym, guilt that I wasn't staying connected with friends and family, and of course, guilt that I wasn't writing or reading as much as I probably should for school. So that being said, guilt is nothing new for me, until last night.

Yesterday I left work about an hour early because I thought that it would be really nice if Maddy and I could do something fun together after work. I picked her up early and we went and got frozen yogurt.

We had a great time, just the two of us, which was much needed. 

Then Ted and I tag teamed dinner prep, played with Maddy, and did the bedtime routine. At about 7:45pm, I said goodnight to Maddy and Ted began the process of reading stories while I went to work on my dissertation. 

At about 8:15pm there was a lot of crying coming from upstairs and a lot of yelling for Mommy coming from Maddy. It seemed like a good idea to go check it out.

As soon as I walked into Maddy's room she looked up at me and said, please don't do homework anymore, please just snuggle with me. Those 10 words were all it took to set off the guilt meter higher than ever before. 

I know that it's important that Maddy see both Ted and I accomplishing our goals and achieving success personally and professionally. It's especially important for me to show Maddy that as a woman, you can be and do anything you want. Which is why I climbed into her bed and snuggled her and told her a story, because in that moment I wanted to be her mom more than I wanted to have a doctorate. After a few minutes, we talked about why I have to do homework and I taught her to say PhD. She told me I could go back downstairs because she was tired, so I kissed her goodnight and proceeded to work on my dissertation for 2 more hours.

I know the next 2 months are not going to be easy and that probably won't be the last time I feel guilty, but I also know that Ted, Maddy and I have come too far on this journey to give up now. We can do it!

What We've Been Up To

Wow, it's been a crazy few weeks this month. We've been trying to sell the house (still), I've been trying very very hard to write my dissertation (spending on average 3-4 hours a day working on it), and we've been working to have fun family time as well. I'll be glad when those first two things are done so we can solely focus on the third which is really the most fun.

Here are some photos of our past few weeks. Starting at the top left, that's Maddy at our camp site earlier this month when we camped at Hood Canal. It was an awesome time. Bottom left is Maddy wearing her new Seahawks tutu. We are all pretty excited for football season to begin, Ted and Maddy even have new jersey's. Go Hawks! Bottom middle is Maddy with her face painted with a spider. She asked for the spider even though most of the little girls were asking for rainbows and tiaras. That's my little feminist! Top right is Maddy at the public library this past weekend. She and I went to play and get some new books. We had a great time. Middle right #1 is Maddy in her new reading corner in her room. Now that she has a bed, not a crib, we read nighttime stories there, and don't need her rocking chair so we turned her rocking chair corner into her reading corner with some new to us bookshelves and her little rocking chair. Middle right #2 is Maddy and I eating ice cream on our camping trip at a little store close to the campground. Middle right #3 is Maddy playing at the playground at the campground. We love love love that this campground has a playground and Maddy went at least 4 times while we were there. Bottom right is Ted, Bailey and Maddy down at the water at our camping trip. It is the most beautiful place ever with mountains and water all over.

So there you have it, a recap of our past few weeks. Hopefully soon we'll have more time for fun that we can capture on the blog. For now we're just plugging along trying to get it all done!

A Day in the Life

I have seen a few blog posts recently where people keep track of their whole day, documenting the things they do and taking pictures when it makes sense. I thought it might be cool to do this too, both to share with others what a day looks like in my life and also to get a better idea myself. I have been trying to do this for about 2 weeks now and unfortunately there kept being days that I deemed not "normal" because of a variety of factors. One day Ted was out of town so I was on my own for the night which is definitely not the norm to our tag team approach to life. Another day I had to drive to work instead of busing it which creates a whole different type of day and once again is rare.

Yesterday seemed about as normal as I could get although there were still a few abnormal factors, the main being I had to work later than my normal 7am-3:30pm day which puts extra strains on our evenings. "Luckily" Maddy had swim lessons which Ted and her attended while I worked to get home at a reasonable time. Because of this, a lot of this day is about me and not a lot is about Maddy and Ted. Sometimes this is how my life is and the hats I wear more often in a day are those of a Student Affairs Professional and a Doctoral Student and I'm just grateful on those days that Ted graciously wears both of our Parent hats.

So here goes!

5:15am: Alarm goes off! I am a super morning person but 5am does get old after a while.

5:15-5:30am: Shower and get dressed/ready for the day. I do all of this in the bathroom where my clothes are already picked out because Ted is asleep in our room for at least another hour.

All dressed and ready for the day!

5:30-5:40am: Do chores around the downstairs including cat litter and food, put dishes in the dishwasher, and put away dishes that were dry on the counter. Pack my lunch which today meant scrounging around for leftovers in the fridge and throwing in a piece of fruit and a bottle of water for good measure.

Short ribs, sweet potatoes, cheese and crackers, a peach and water!

5:40-5:55am: Drive to the park and ride to catch my bus.

In the parking garage all ready for the bus!

5:55-6:10am: Wait in line for the bus with the other commuters. Check email and Facebook on my iPhone.

6:10-7:15am: Ride the bus (think charter bus, not city bus) from Tacoma to Seattle. It's very quiet, a lot of people sleep and since it's an express bus there are no stops in between. I try to use my bus time to be productive but that doesn't always happen. Lately with the pressures of finishing my dissertation always on my mind I have been using my time more wisely. Today I transcribed an interview from my dissertation research. Imagine listening to two people talk ridiculously slow while trying to type as fast as you can to get it all down word for word. Fun times, not, especially when one of the voices is yours and you keep thinking, is that what I really sound like?

7:15-7:20am: I didn't pack any food for breakfast so I went across the street to a market on campus and grabbed oatmeal and juice.

7:20-7:25am: Arrive at my office. Unpack my backpack, put my lunch in the fridge, plug in my iPhone and laptop to charge for later in the day uses, and log into my computer.

7:25-7:35am: Type up some handwritten notes to share with a student for a meeting I have later this morning. Eat breakfast at the same time.

7:35-7:50am: Finalize a PowerPoint presentation about working with disruptive and concerning students.

7:50-7:55am: Email dissertation interview transcriptions to myself to have for future needs.

7:55-8:00am: Go downstairs in my building to get to the location of the presentation.

8:00-9:00am: Give the presentation with a colleague on what staff should do if a student is being disruptive or acting in a manner that has someone concerned for their or someone else's safety. Lots and lots of questions which is common.

9:00-10:10am: Meet with a student and their parents to talk about current student conduct allegations he is facing and possible outcomes (that is unusual for all of you who are thinking, wait, don't you work at a college, parents, what?)

10:10-10:30am: Check-in with supervisor and administrative staff, check email, return a phone call, go to the bathroom and quickly eat some cheese and crackers.

10:30am-12:00pm: Attend a campus wide meeting about revising our student conduct code for the university. I have been on this committee from the beginning and this process has been going on for almost 4 years. Think big place, lots of beaurocracy, lawyers, and a constantly changing national landscape around college student discipline.

12:00-12:30pm: Eat lunch while checking email and returning phone calls. Attempt to go to the bathroom before my next meeting but since it was being cleaned, run down 2 flights of stairs to use one on another floor (why does it feel like it's only being cleaned when I need it?)

12:30-2:30pm: Meet with one of our university attorneys to prep for an upcoming student conduct appeal hearing. My attorney is awesome but this was exhausting!

2:30-2:45pm: Walk with a colleague to a meeting across campus. I decided to eat a peach while walking which was super messy, whoops.

2:45-3:00pm: Set-up for meeting including getting Skype going for a meeting with a student who is out of the area.

3:00-4:25pm: Lead a meeting with faculty and academic advisers who serve as the Committee on Academic Conduct. We discuss pending academic integrity cases including Skyping with a student to get their perspective (gotta love technology).

4:25-4:35pm: Walk back across campus towards my bus stop.

4:35-4:45pm: Wait for the bus. Check email and Facebook on my iPhone.

4:45-6:00pm: Ride the bus home. The afternoon always takes a little longer than the morning. I'm also usually wiped out by the end of the day and have less chance of being productive. I did send a few work emails and the rest of the time I played on my iPhone and iPad which included reading a few blogs, news articles, playing Candy Crush, and sending a few texts to friends.

6:00-6:15pm: Drive to Target while talking to my BFF Kendra on the phone. Kendra lives in New York and the time change coupled with each of us having a small child means we rarely talk on the phone.

6:10-6:30pm: Buy night time pull-ups at Target and keep talking to Kendra since my kid is at swimming and her kid is asleep, yay for grown-up time!

6:30-6:40pm: Drive home and keep talking to Kendra (don't worry, I have Bluetooth).

6:40pm: Arrive at home! Bailey is excited to see me and the cats are begging to come in or go out depending on which one of them you're referring to.

6:40-6:50pm: Cook green beans for dinner, fill the cats water, check the dryer, the clothes are still wet, change clothes, all while still talking to Kendra.

6:50-7:05pm: Begin heating up dinner which I made last night knowing today was going to be a long day. Also, I make coffee and load the dishwasher. I make the much needed decision to grab a beer after a very long day.

Turkey, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy! Yummy!

7:05-7:15pm: Update my info for this blog while waiting for Ted and Maddy to come home from swim lessons.

7:15pm: They're home! HUGE HUG FOR MOMMY AND MADDY since we haven't seen each other in about 24 hours.

7:15-7:40pm: Ted and I have dinner and Maddy had goldfish and juice since she ate some food before swimming. We all sat at the table together talking about our days, swimming lessons, why you shouldn't smash your goldfish, etc.

Post-swimming goldfish snack!

7:40-7:45pm: Clean up dinner dishes and pack lunch for tomorrow. Put on my PJs because I'm SO over work clothes. 

Maddy took this picture of me in my PJs!

7:45-8:20pm: Bedtime routine with Maddy which includes brushing teeth, going potty, washing hands, giving everyone including the pets a hug, reading stories, doing her bedtime sticker chart, stalling 374 times by asking for water, more hugs, a different blanket, another story, and whatever else she can dream up. 

Going potty!

Reading stories in her big girl bed!

8:20-8:30pm: Folded laundry which Ted had started earlier in the day. We even managed to put it away instead of leaving it folded on top of the dresser.

8:30-8:45pm: Sent a few work emails about some things that are going on tomorrow. Pick out clothes for work tomorrow.

8:45-9:00pm: Maddy is finally asleep so I can sneak into her room and pick out her clothes for tomorrow. And then get Chocolate Peanut Butter ice cream, yum! 

Sleeeeeeeeeeping!

9:00-9:10pm: Ted and I talk about our days while lying in bed watching the Mariners.

9:10pm-9:15pm: The power goes out and we lay in the dark until Ted remembers that we had an issue before with our electrical box and maybe it's just our power not the whole neighborhood. After some major detective work which included looking out the window and seeing the neighbors porch light on, we go outside and flip the breaker and poof power is back on. I'm not sure how long we would have laid in the dark if he hadn't remembered that.

9:15-9:50pm: More laying in bed, talking and watching the Mariners until I can't keep my eyes open anymore.

9:50pm: Goodnight!