the Renewal

Ok, well, I've been trying to determine what to do with this blog. I made it for a year, which was longer than I thought I would :-) But then abruptly stopped. I quit blogging because of what I'll call "the incident" at work. When the "incident" happened, I knew I could not blog about it. It was one of those times where I needed to wait a week or two for my head to clear before I did anything, lest I act (or write) irrationally.

In the end, I decided that no, I couldn't write honestly about the incident, which by the way, had nothing to do with my working part time, but everything to do with the colossal amount of stress that executives get put under (or put themselves under?). And so then I started questioning the whole purpose of my blog. I said in the beginning, I would write honestly about what it is like to work part time as an executive at a large company...and suddenly realized that when it came down to it, I wasn't able to be completely honest. So, am I being fake by continuing to blog under such a pretense?

On the other hand, I've had SO MANY people ask me why I've quit blogging. I think people appreciated it for several reasons, but one recurring one was that it reminded them to appreciate the little, but important things. So even if they aren't blogging, or working part time...some of the little things I recorded about Zak helped them remember not to take their own little life treasures for granted.

So, I've made peace with the fact that I probably won't be completely honest about some of the trials and tribulations at work (although I will try to be as honest as possible)...and so I will change the focus of the blog to be about appreciating the journey...which is what I'm trying to do. Appreciating the journey, in a responsible way :-)

I really missed blogging. It takes effort, but on the other hand, it made me really watch throughout the day for those little nuggets that I could share. So, let's try again :-)

Zak has come a long way in the last few months. He's 4 and so clearly a little boy now. If there is a group of kids between 3 and 6...he hangs with the older kids. He does simple math, and loves to play a subtraction board game I bought for us to play together. On the other hand, I can't get him to spend any time on forming words out of letters, or writing for that matter. So it looks like Math is his clear preference.

I started this "star" system with him, which has had so many unbelievable benefits. I was trying to think of an allowance system, but something not quite as complex because I think he's too young to understand fully money and savings. So we came up with "10 stars" gets him pretty much a toy of his choice. He's got it down and told me the other day that he has 5 stars, 2 5s makes 10, so he needs 5 more stars for "Dash" the tank engine (which he is now back into after several months of cars). I was really, really surprised that he basically figured out 2 sets of 5 = 10! He also negotiates with us all the time (Zak, if you eat some peas, I'll give you a star....hmmm, how about 3 stars?) If he's getting close to the target, he gets really motivated....earlier this week, he was at 7 stars and asked if we had any laundry to do so he could get a star. He then asked if we had any carrots to eat so he could get another star :-)

He's become very aware of his age, and that he's taller than some kids, but shorter than others. He tells anyone who will listen that he was 3, but now he's 4...and now he's tall enough to ride the colorful slide at the King's Island water park. Today he told me "One day, I'll be as tall as Chloe, and then I'll be able to ride all the rides at King's Island" :-) The King's Island height limits have really made an impression on him :-)

Another big impression, his best friend at school, Aiden, broke his arm, so has had a cast for the last month or so. Zak fell the other day, hurt his arm (a little only), ran over to me, and asked me to kiss it quick so it won't be broken. I did so, and luckily, it was just in time to prevent him needing a cast :-)

Today was Chloe's birthday, and she had her party at the Blue Ash Rec Center. Zak and Rowan were playing in one of the playgrounds where we could see them from the picnic shelter. Matt and I were talking about how nice it is that they are old enough to play without us having to watch every minute. About 5 minutes later, we realized there were still a lot of kids at that playground, but no Rowan or Zak. We started to walk over, thinking they were probably in the slide or something....started walking a bit faster when kids were coming out of the slide...but no Rowan or Zak. So Matt, Dana and I start running, realizing that Zak probably convinced Rowan to go to another part of the park. Matt found them first...they came running when they saw him...Zak said, "We were just checking out the river." oo la la. I trusted Zak again a little later...he gave me a high five, and promised he would come and tell me if he wanted to leave the playground within our sight. He kept his promise this time.

Work is going really well right now. The atmosphere is high stress, but manageable. I have a pretty strong team again, and they really step up on the days I'm not there. I think it's pretty seamless for most people. I try to look at it this way...if I had the 2 more days, sure I'd get more done, but I'd also probably spin a bit more as well. I literally tell myself sometimes...you don't have time to deal with that, make a decision and go. And that's what I do :-)

I can't believe next year at this time I'll be sending Zak off to kindergarten, celebrating my 40th birthday, and probably upping my work days (maybe I'll ease back into 4 days a week to start :-))...I have a good life. The best of a lot of worlds.