Charles and Christy’s Weblog

It seems like I write a lot about what I don’t know, and this is yet another example. I have been struggling a lot lately - feeling overwhelmed and like my current life pace is not very sustainable. Before having Clark, I thought that work life balance was about being able to fit in both work and home. I seem to have missed completely that “self” also needs to be factored in. For 19 months or so, I am either a professor or a mom all the time. I have given up on hobbies, have lost track of friends, and don’t even know how to relax on my own anymore. I know that this sounds pretty bad. I’m hoping that having made this realization, that there’s a third party to be “balanced” here, means I’m on my way toward figuring it out. I’ve brought this on myself. It’s me that chooses to spend every moment I’m not working playing with my little boy, and it’s because I love doing this. I think I’m starting to feel the cost of that now, and I’m sure I will feel it more and more as Clark gets older. I have no sense of how I’m going to resolve this, only that I need to try a few things and find something that I enjoy that’s outside of work and home that doesn’t take too much time. Honestly, before having a baby, I thought people were blowing the work/life balance issue out of proportion… boy was I wrong.

Today was a good day. I gave a talk that got good response from important people, had drinks with the Helsinki deputy mayor, and tried reindeer. Among all this, I miss home and my little boy. Clark is such a physical little guy - he likes wrestling, tickling, and hugging. I hope I never forget what it feels like when a little boy hugs his mama… and I wonder why we stop this. He wraps his little arms around my neck, puts all his weight into it, and hugs like it’s a relief to him to be hugging. Looking forward to Sunday…

While I was sitting in the dimly lit nursery this evening rocking Clark to sleep, I realized that spending time with him is closest I’ve ever been to meditation. I’ve tried meditating many times but I’m not very good at quieting my brain. When I’m with Clark, however, I’m committed to being present in a way that I’m not for anything else. It’s not just at bedtime when I have this sweet little guy curled up against me… I experience this even when we’re outside. I watch him as he picks up pine cones or sifts through the dirt. I look around the neighborhood and just enjoy being outside watching him interact with the world. While it’s clearly not calm and meditative all the time, it is a very nice gift to have these moments in my day.

On Saturday we deemed him officially mobile.  What no one ever tells you is that these milestones (sitting up, crawling, walking I expect) are never singular events. They are gradual changes.  It is a fallacy to write “the date” that these happened in a baby book.  Instead you should write the two-week window in which it happened.

Come to think of it, that’s also true for “the due date.”  Instead it should be “the due month.”

I am now a firm believer that we all start out as scientists… and I’m not sure why so many of us quit being scientists.  Clark is experimenting every day, taking in data, and designing his next experiment (no explicit hypotheses as far as I know).  He wants to touch everything and taste most things.  He experiments with his physicality as well as his voice.  He is fearless and, thus, inspiring.  He watches the people around him and emulates them or tries to solicit a reaction from them… without much trouble since he’s so cute and precocious.  He’s inspired me to ask many questions like, “How do we learn what a smile means?,” “How do we learn to laugh?,” and “Why do we need to experience pain?”  I suspected that one of my favorite parts of being a parent would be watching my baby learn all the things I take for granted, and I was right.  I love watching this perfect little person explore the world around him without prejudice.  I recognized that I am charged to continually challenge him and expose him to new things while respecting his preferences… even if they don’t end up being for science.

It’s been a long time since I’ve written and a lot has happened.  After Clark’s birth, I went through a lot of different emotional stages.  I was so excited to finally have him here with us and I was amazed by him.  I was obsessed with every detail of what he was doing or not doing.  I was depressed that his birth didn’t go the way I wanted.  I was worried because the early days (I can say this in retrospect but at the time it seemed like a very long time) of nursing did not go smoothly at all.  I was impressed with myself that I had the tenacity to stick with nursing and find a way to make it work (no problem now!).  I loved watching Charles with Clark.  I was frustrated that I couldn’t figure out how to keep my family (that live far away) in the loop on our daily lives.  I was surprised at how much I didn’t ever want to leave my little guy.  I started to miss the community of people I got to know as we prepared for Clark’s birth (our doulas, our Bradley class peers, the Childbirth Collective folks), and I found a new parenting community (ICAN and Attachment Parenting).  I was shocked at how hard it was to get simple things done.  I was impressed by the amazing support we received from our family and friends (I don’t know if there’s a little guy more loved than ours).  I was worried because the dogs  did not adjust easily (a huge understatement!) to the life change. I was overwhelmed by the task of finding childcare.  I was traumatized by the act of leaving Clark at day care (even though we found an amazing place).  My life is totally different.  It’s clear to me now that I didn’t know how different life would be… I was arrogant… I thought I would be able to organize this new person into the previous version of my life.  I know now that nothing is done for my convenience.  If we stray from what Clark needs, everything goes haywire.  So, he sleeps when he’s tired (and you never want to wake a sleeping baby), eats when he’s hungry, and plays the rest of the time.  I do the things I need to do when I can but there’s a lot more stuff going undone right now.  I am surprisingly OK with this.