Day 14

Wednesday morning we spent playing up in Zak's room. I surprisingly had nothing planned for the morning. Zak has a "big boy bed" up there that he hasn't used yet, so I pretended to lay down to take a nap.

He saw me, and told me he wanted to sleep there. (Surprise) I tried to pull him up with me, but he wanted me off the bed. So I got up, he laid down, and said "Bye bye", Zak's going to sleep (that's his new thing, he tells me "bye bye" when he doesn't want me around...like when I try to take away his computer because it's time for bed...bye, bye Mommy.) Anyway, I was rather shocked he was going to take a nap there, and of course it only lasted for 5 minutes.

After that, we ran a few errands. At Kroger he pushed a small child-sized cart around while I put the groceries in. Everyone commented on what a big help he was :-) We went to the car wash, which he loves, then to a couple other places. Eventually we met Dana and Sara for lunch at Chick-fil-a. Great place for kids! They have an indoor playground which he loved. He's becoming such a big boy. I must also say, it's very nice that I have more time for my friends now as well. It's like I have time to think and make sure I'm looking at the big picture of my life. I feel pretty good right now.

Zak has started 2 other cute things. First, he needs help getting on the toilet, but as soon as he's there, he says: "Bye bye" and he means it. He won't go until I leave. I guess he likes his privacy. The other thing is that he likes to check whatever I'm doing on the toilet (so while he likes his privacy, he doesn't seem to think about mine :-). Maybe this is too much sharing, but it really cracks me up. He checks and announces "Mommy pee pee! Mommy poopy!" I need to be careful if we have guests :-)

Had a good tennis practice, but have noticed Zak is getting a little more clingy these days. Maybe it's a natural phase, but he didn't want me leaving for tennis practice, and he hasn't done that in awhile.

Anyway, all in all, a good day.

Day 13

Friday started with me feeling a little down. My colleague at work was told her 8 year old son is probably down to weeks left to live. He has a very rare brain cancer that only attacks children, and so far there is no known cure. They've been battling it for almost a year. It breaks my heart...I'm sure hers is completely shattered.

It put me in a depressed mood. It makes me really think that what I'm doing is right for me. I need to know I'm valuing these times with my family. We are at such a fun time in a family's "career"...and it will be over all too soon, maybe even sooner than I think.

Even so, we had a nice day Friday. Zak found the camera we bought him a few months ago and asked to go to the zoo to take pictures of the animals. We have season passes, so I said, why not? We went for about 1.5 hours before it started to rain. He took lots of pictures of himself, thinking he was taking pictures of the animals. His favorite this time was the snakes, and he was good at finding them! I thought in one of the exhibits there were only 3 snakes, he kept pointing out more and we eventually found 9!

Then we went and met some friends downtown at Arnold's for lunch.

At some point in the afternoon I looked at our house and realized I really should take some time to clean a bit. I let Zak lay down in his bed and turned on a Thomas the Train DVD for him to watch. I then set about straightening the house. I turned on our Roomba (we call her Robo Kwiecien). Kwiecien is April in Polish, and for some reason Kuba personalizes every thing electronic in our house to some form of my Polish name (PC Kwiecien, Pod Kwiecien, Robo Kwiecien)...anyway, I set her to vacuuming while I did some dusting, etc.

About 30 minutes later, I realize I no longer hear Robo Kwiecien, so start the search to see where she stopped...I find her next to Zak's bed, turned on her back. I'm assuming she came into the bedroom, Zak couldn't hear his cartoon above the noise, so fixed it by flipping her over (which automatically stops her). He makes me laugh.

Later we went to play with Rowan for awhile, and then took Zak to a Cincinnati Cyclones game with our friend Dan. He loved it.

Friday was good. I feel so lucky to have this time...and maybe a little guilty.

Day 12

Monday and Tuesday were really good at work. I feel very focused now...almost everything has been transitioned off that we planned to transition to enable my 60%, and while not everything is going completely smoothly, things feel managable. I had a great review with one of the vice-presidents to close my day out on Tuesday. I was so energized after that meeting, that I really wanted to take some of my day today to get working on some of the stuff we talked about.

Having said that, I didn't want to give up my time with Zak...so thought that maybe during his nap time I'd get started on some things. I must admit, everytime I think that way, I remind myself of my new paycheck size, and make myself reconfirm the decision :-) I think it's a good thing.

Anyway, it wasn't to be in the end, because Zak took only a 20 minute nap...and that was in the car. No matter what I tried, he just would not sleep today...maybe he sensed I was trying to steal some of his time :-)

Last night was a little difficult. Zak had the beginnings of a cold, so wasn't breathing well...which meant he was up and down quite a bit throughout the night. At around 2am he wanted me to rock him in the "orange rocking chair". I didn't mind, it's one of the side benefits of working 3 days a week...I don't have to worry if I stay up with Zak that I won't be fresh for work. Anyway, between 2 and 5 we rocked, got juice, went to the bathroom, got more juice, cleaned out his nose, reapplied the vics...all those things you do when kids are sick in the middle of the night. I don't know when we fell asleep again, but we were up by 7 to send Kuba off to work (not my idea, Zak's).

I felt I should keep Zak home so he could rest and try to get rid quickly of the bug he had...so we didn't really plan much. We were just lazily hanging out together, watching cartoons, playing computer, etc. Then Sara called and asked us to join her and Dana for lunch. Zak and I were already starting to get a bit bored in the house, so we met for lunch and Zak had skyline for the first time! He loved it! And it's so great getting to have lunch with my friends.

We then came home, and I thought for sure he'd fall asleep in the car, but he didn't. I then tried to rock him for 45 minutes..no way. I guess his quick cat nap on the way to lunch spoiled it. So there was no time to even turn on my work computer, much less get anything done.

It got warm enough in the afternoon that I felt ok to take him to the park. We spent an hour there, playing on things (he loves for me to go down these cork screw slides with him...I barely fit!) and sitting by the creek and tossing in rocks.

Anyway, great day...not too busy so that Zak could recover (and he's already sleeping more soundly tonight)...and I'm ready to hit work with a strong energy tomorrow!

Day 11

Friday ended up being a good day, even if it had all the inklings of being a disaster.

It started on Thursday with one of my infamous migraines. By about noon I knew I had about an hour to get home, otherwise I'd need Kuba to take me home. So I cancelled everything, got home, gulped my NyQuil and was out. Kuba had to pick up Zak from daycare, I woke up for some dinner, and that was it. I was worried about how I was going to catch up. Every minute feels precious now at work....but there was no helping it. I simply can't function when I have them.

But it worked out ok, because also typical of my headaches, the next day I woke up feeling great. I woke up at 2am, headache gone...and so I worked from 2-5 and got everything done I needed to. I then went back to bed for a couple hours and was ready to go when Zak got up.

Friday was a busy day. We went over to play with Rowan and Dana for awhile...and to discuss important stuff like what we were going to wear to the wedding the next day :-) It's been so long since I've taken the time to actually enjoy the "pre-wedding" fun. Sara even called to discuss what she was wearing. It was so fun. After that, we met Diane (Zak's nanny from last year) at our place. We ended up going to McDonald's where Zak played on the playground. There were only 3 kids on it, so it was great for him.


After that, as I was rocking him in the "orange rocking chair" for his nap, I started to sing to him as I always have when trying to get him to go to sleep. He knows this song means sleep time (I always sing "Some Say Love...It is a River..." - I don't know why)....anyway, for the last few months whenever he hears that song he says "No no no no"...I always assumed because he didn't want to go to sleep. Well, today, as I started to sing that song, he very clearly and articulately said "Please be quiet Mommy." The boy barely puts any words together, yet he can say "Please be quiet Mommy?" At least he said please :-P Anyway, it made me smile.

After that, Dana asked if she could drop Rowan off while she picked up her cats from the cat barber shop, so Zak, Rowan and I played for a bit. It's nice that I can do that now...help out a friend in the middle of the week.

So Thursday evening, I was very concerned that I was going to have to give up some of my Zak Friday because of the headache...but in the end, it worked out ok. I felt very good going into the weekend...

Day 10

Today was a good one. I again left work yesterday with a feeling of being in control. Had some loose ends I would have liked to tie up, but this is normal even at 100%, so I feel I'm managing.

Some people have asked how do I feel about my career...ie, are people seeing me different, am I starting to be "hidden", etc. It has only been a little over a month, so probably a little too soon to tell, but as of right now, I definitely do not feel my career has in any way sidetracked. I'm still on the hook to the vice-presidents for several deliverables, and still seem to average 2 vp reviews a week. I think it's more than many of my peers. I'm finishing my annual review now, and part of that is articulating your personal goals for the coming 1-3 years. I've been very clear there that I want to make these couple of years an example for others hitting "executive" positions at the same time they are starting a family. I feel like the transparency is going to be key, so I will try to hold myself to that. Not exactly easy for me. I'm relatively introverted, and don't really like to talk personal topics at work. It's an interesting dilemma for women, because we have no choice but to showcase for all the world when we are pregnant. I at first hated that. You know, I've gotten some coaching, especially from older women, who have said not to tell people when you are having to take off work to take a child to the doctor or because they are sick, instead make it about yourself (I have a dr appt, or I'm not feeling well). But I think that's an issue, I think it's when we are more transparent about these things that we enable everyone to make the right accomodations and changes needed to progress. Anyway, I've digressed, the important point I wanted to make is, for now, I feel my career is still on track, but I've also felt this need to be overtly transparent with how things are going. I need to balance between feeling that I'm whining and holding myself (and colleages) accountable for my 60% paycheck...but so far, I feel ok. By the way, men, you should be more transparent too. I know way too many men with newborns at home, still travelling around or working long hours. Our careers are life long endeavors, so we should expect to have peaks and valleys when we can do more and less.

On the Zak side, I think he's realizing our new schedule. On the days I work, I'm gone before he wakes up. Today, when he woke up and saw me still here, he gave this big sleepy smile and said "Mommy" and with a very satisfied purring sound, turned over for a little more sleep. It melted my heart.

We went to the zoo today. It was pretty nice, probably the flowers were the most impressive part. He also really liked the snakes. I think we were the first ones in the park, and had the run of the place for the first hour or so. By 11:00, a few school bus loads of kids had arrived and it was getting a bit busier. Perfect timing since we went to meet my friend Maria for lunch at 11:30.

After lunch, we took a lazy nap, then went out on the bikes. We did a very hilly ride to my accountant to finally pick up our taxes...and, as the Polish say, "Szok! (Shock!)" I thought I was going to get money back, and instead we got an $8,000 bill. Now let me say honestly, it's been years since I've gotten a bill like this that I literally didn't know how I was going to pay. A few things hit at once (ie, we just loaned a friend $3,000, I just went down to a 60% paycheck, etc, etc)...we figured it out in the end, but it took a lot more dipping into savings than I liked. It's a reminder that things are different. I've definitely compromised on the financials to make this happen. So far, I'm confident it's the right decision, I'm just on a learning curve.

Day 9

I left Thursday feeling pretty much in control. Have a couple big deliverables coming up, but feel they are on the right path. Friday was all in all a great day, but I did have a few surprising revelations through-out the day. I'll tell you about those in a minute, but first, about Zak.

So Friday morning we headed up to "Entertrainment Junction." A great place for little kids Zakie's age who love trains. We spent about 30 minutes looking at all the model trains (really cool), then another 1.5 hours playing with the exact same train tracks and Thomas engines he has at home. At least he was somewhat interacting with other kids :-)

We ate lunch there. I bought him a slice of pizza and some train cookies. He asked for the cookies of course, I said after the pizza. He took one bite of his pizza and then said "Cookies please." :-) Smart alec. He actually finished most of his pizza and then ate his cookies. I let him pick one new Thomas engine (he picked Kevin) and then we left.

As we were getting into the car, I told him we needed to do some quick shopping at IKEA...he started shouting NO!!! NO SHOPPING! Hmm, I guess Kuba and I have tramautized him :-) Anyway, we did some quick IKEA shopping, then came home.

He did one other cute thing that day, but you'll only understand if you have a toddler really into Thomas...he got out his new "Kevin"...and his older "Victor." Over and over I kept hearing him say "Kevin!" and then "Sorry boss, slip of hook!" I couldn't help but laugh.

Anyway, at some point during the day I started thinking how nice it would be to have a night out with friends. I think it has been 3 years since I've thought about going out with friends! I of course have friends over, and meet up with them from time to time with Zak ...but I was really considering an adult night out, with some drinks, maybe some jazz music, just getting a little loud. Maybe now that I feel I'm having more quality time with Zak, I also can start thinking about more quality time for me? I don't know what the trigger, but Kuba and I are going out Saturday night for a friend's wedding, and we actually got a babysitter to stay the night so we can stay out late. I must say, I'm really looking forward to it.

The other thing that happened on Friday, is at around 4:00, I think Zak and I actually got a little bored with each other. It was like, we had a great day, did everything we wanted to do...and that was just it. He played his trains and had no interest in me. I started looking at the watch thinking about when Kuba was going to come home. This shocked me. I guess it's good I still have my days at work :-)

Day 8

Wednesday was a really good day. It was rather busy, but again, it's really nice that I have time to do some of the things I never seemed to have time for before.

I got to the lab right when it opened to get some bloodwork done, then managed to get back in time for breakfast as a family. I'm really, really liking that! Normally I'm in the office already by about 6am, so we only got to eat breakfast as a family on the weekends. It's so nice having these couple extra days together. I feel much closer to Kuba right now too. In fact, last night I was starting to feel a little guilty. Why do I get to do this? So many people have no choice, they HAVE to work so much, and here I am getting to have this extra time with my family. I for the first time was feeling a bit guilty at work too...having less on my plate than others. But again, I have to remember, I'm sacraficing 40% of my pay, so I shouldn't feel that guilty. But I do hope I don't start taking this for granted. This week I really feel the balance is shifting...I'm really managing to have more time, mind and soul, with my family. Now, it is a holiday week at work, lots of people out on vacation, so hopefully I'll continue to manage it when the hustle and bustle picks back up next week.

After breakfast, I had another quick appt, then came back and Zak and I hopped on the bikes and took some winter clothes up to Goodwill...and then I spontaneously decided to get a pedicure as we were riding by an empty nails salon. They were great with Zak. Again, it's so different doing things like that during the week. They weren't slammed with people, and Zak literally had the run of the place.

We came back in time to have our last lunch with Babcia and Kuba...and then I sadly had to take
Babcia to the airport. As we loaded her suitcases, Zak proclaimed that the little green carry-on was Babcia's, the big red one was Tato's, and the biggest black one was Zakie's. I guess I didn't get one. :-) Funny he claimed the biggest one for himself. He clearly thought we were all going somewhere. Anyway, we took Babcia down to the airport and I didn't just drop her at the curb like we've had to in the past. I had time to help her get checked in, they even gave me a pass so I could help her get through security. I'm glad, I mean, she's 65 years old and doesn't speak much English. While of course she can manage it, it's unnecessary stress for her. So I took her all the way to the gate, introduced her to the staff so they could help her, and then we tearfully said our good-byes. She's been here for 4 months, so the house definitely feels a little empty without her now.

I came home and Zak and I took the bikes again up to the park. He played at the playground for awhile, then we went and fed the ducks. He was telling me "1 duck, 2 duckS" ... emphasizing the s. Obviously someone has been working that with him, probably at daycare.

It was starting to get a bit cold then, and while I at first told Zak we'd go to the library, the wind had picked up so much that I didn't want to stay out much later (it was already about 5 by then)...luckily a train was starting to come down the tracks near our house...we could hear it from the park. Zak heard it first :-) So we turned our attention to trying to huff it as fast as possible so Zak could see the train go by. We managed to get a block away, so he at least got to see it as it passed....I had wanted to be closer, but he still was happy to see the real train.

It was still warm enough when we got home that we did some chalk drawings in the driveway. Zak asked me to draw Thomas...I did my best. I forgot to put the number 1 on his side, but Zak reminded me. He also had me draw a bell for him. Afterward he was really excited. He proceeded to have me draw Edward, Gordon, Rosie and Percy. I have no idea how he knows what those all look like. I know vaguely by now at least the colors and sizes. He knew what numbers to put on Percy and Edward, that amazes me.

Anyway, by then Tato was done working, feeling a bit sick, so we stayed home, ate dinner, and I helped them kind of get cuddled up on the couch before I went off to tennis practice.

By the way, Zak hasn't had one potty training accident the whole week...I think it's official. Our son is really a big boy. :-) I've really, really enjoyed my week this week.

Holiday

I didn't blog on Friday because it wasn't really a "less than full time" day since the whole company had off. Zak and I did manage to plant those flowers on Wednesday, although after he realized he had to get his hands dirty, he decided to just watch. He made me help him wash the dirt off his hands after the first touch before I continued with the planting. Now, contrast this to Saturday when we had 3 cubics of mulch delivered, which he gladly played King of the Hill on, buried himself up to his waist, and I had to drag him in at 10 o'clock that night once we were finally done spreading it all and give him 2 baths because he was so covered in mulch. Hmm.

Regardless, we have the flowers Zak selected planted, and he's already picked about 10 of them for me. I don't think they will survive long, but how can I be upset? :-)

Today is going to be a busy one, because Monika leaves back for Poland this afternoon. No more built in babysitter, and no more Babcia. Probably Zak will start to lose the little Polish he's finally started to talk.

I made 2 appointments this morning knowing Monika is still here. It's definitely another phenomenon about working less than full time...before I would not have hesitated at all to make a Dr. appt. during my work week, of course because I had no choice. There is never a good time for it, and I always have to plan it pretty far out, but still, I would do it during the work. Now, I feel there is no way I can take time from work for that. So I take time from Zak for it. Is it right? I should probably at least not feel guilty doing *some* appts during the work part of my week, but I probably won't. I can rationalize that a) I can bring Zak with me, so we can still have some nice conversations during that time and b) I still need to be successful at work, and even the smallest appt probably ends up being 3 hours by the time you add in travel, etc...that's a pretty big % of a 24 hour work week.

The other thing I've changed, I moved my tennis practice to Wednesday evenings, which is one of my days off. I did this because I find I'm working later on Tuesdays, and then have no energy or desire to then go for another 2 hours away from Zak. So on Wednesdays, I've had the whole day with him, and then Kuba can have some quality Tato/Zak time in the evenings. So small changes I'm making to help adapt to the new schedule, and if I'm honest about it, to give even more time to work. Notice I've added at least 1-2 hours on Tuesdays, and at least an average couple hours/month for doctors, dentists, etc. So while I've gone down to 60%, I'm definitely making it the most efficient, impactful 60% possible, cutting out all the "fat".

So far this week feels really good...but then again, it seems that everyone is off at work for spring break. Calm before the storm? Let's see :-)