Tuesday, July 8, 2014

Open letter of apology....now I know!


Before I became a flight attendant the only thing I knew about them was that they served drinks and peanuts. My access to seeing one in person was limited to the three or four flights I’d ever taken in my life and then the once or twice I’d see them during said flight. I thought the job was easy, something that required little skill and a love of traveling. Three weeks of training and over 9 years of flying thousands of flights has proved me wrong. I guess my takeaway from my previous school of thought was you never really know what a job entails until you’ve tried it on for size yourself. So to all those flight attendants whose job I thought was solely to cater to me when I needed a frosty beverage, I’m sorry.

While I’m apologizing here’s a list of other women whose jobs I took for a cakewalk: stay-at-home moms, working moms, single moms and married moms. At one point or another I’ve been all of these things and none of them are easy roles. Perhaps the women who do them make it look easy but I can assure you, behind the Instagram and facebook photos it’s not. I’m sorry for ever thinking it was.

To the stay-at-home mom, I once wondered what the hell you did all day. I never quite understood how anyone who had the privilege of staying home with their kids (and to me it was a privilege not to have to punch a time card) could possibly complain. I believed your days were filled with trips to the zoo and swims at the pool. I thought it unfair you were able to nurse whenever you wanted without the annoyance of finding a time and place to pump because you never had to leave your baby at home. Your home cooked meals, strawberry picking and story time at the library days were the envy of someone who could barely find time to shower, get to work and make sure enough milk/baby food was in stock for the daycare or nanny. Though I fly and teach yoga and fitness I also have days where I have nothing scheduled for work and I find myself planning my idyllic stay-at-home-mom day. “I’m going to get so much done,” I think. Maybe I’ll even cook dinner.

Reality is I’m putting out small fires all day. When Charlotte was an infant my days consisted of feeding and diaper changing and maybe shaving my legs or putting on makeup. Now that she’s older it’s like having a tornado in the house. I put laundry in the washer and she’s playing in the toilet. I clean up breakfast mess and she’s fallen down and crushed a handful of crackers into the carpet. I vacuum and she’s climbing up the stairs. We go to play in her room and every book comes off the shelf. Time for a diaper change (which is kind of like trying to stick a cat in a bathtub if you want to know) and then naptime rolls around (FINALLY!). If she doesn’t nap at home I have a cranky baby but if she does I’m on house arrest for 2-3 hours where I take the time to get her lunch ready, maybe get myself ready and if I’m lucky practice some yoga. Once the princess wakes up it’s back to waiting on her hand and foot and before I know it the husband is at home wondering, “What did you do all day?”

Staying at home with your child means you get nothing and everything done all at once. It’s a blur of cleaning, feeding, soothing a crying baby and in-between trying to teach them something educational so they aren’t completely inept. It’s exhausting and I salute those of you who have more than one child and that is your daily existence.

When you stay at home, working seems a little glamorous. You are nobody’s mom for the hours you are at work and you don’t have snot stains all over your clothing and yogurt in your hair. When I’d work with people that had kids I use to think to myself, “this must be such a nice break for you to get out of the house!” It is, to an extent. When I’m working I sometimes feel like I’m on a mini vacation. I leave to teach yoga and I can linger after class with my students and talk uninterrupted. When I’m flying I can eat lunch whenever I want, eat what I want and don’t have to worry about bath time and the only person I have to put to sleep is myself. Yet who always shows up at your door while you’re working? Guilt.

I’ll admit the guilt was far worse when Charlotte was under a year old. When I wasn’t with her I was tethered to my pump and I’d constantly worry that I’d left her without enough food to survive. I mentally counted the hours until I’d be home from flying, teaching or working out as if the less I was gone the better mother I’d be. Paying a nanny to do my “job” seemed asinine yet we couldn’t afford for me not to work. I’d have a sinking feeling each time I left the house without Charlotte and I started to resent my job for taking me away from her. Why did I have to work when other women didn’t? It never seemed fair. From pumping in bathrooms, to staying up late to make lunches for school, organizing backpacks and keeping a calendar just so you know who’s picking up who…I truly admire all working moms out there. Dealing with a tiny boss then going out into the world and dealing with an adult boss is no small feat.

My husband is on call once every 7 weeks and for that week he can be called in to his job anytime day or night. Since I’m usually the one flying nights, he’s gotten in the habit of taking care of Charlotte when she wakes up in the morning. By the time I come home in the morning she’s been changed, fed and is usually back down for a nap which makes my mornings pretty easy. I try to sneak a nap in so I’ll be well rested for the following night of flying. When Chad’s on call though I have to stay home from flying so that someone is there when and if he gets called in the middle of the night. So there are days when I play single mom and I’m with Charlotte from the time she wakes up until sometimes the hour she goes to bed. I realize just how much my husband does and how easy this is to take for granted until you are alone with your child. If you’ve ever had your spouse leave for a day, week or longer you know exactly what I mean. One weekend Chad flew back to Michigan because his grandmother was ill and I didn’t even leave the house and ordered enough pizza to last me through the weekend. When you are alone with your child there’s no one to pass them off to when they are crying, no one to clean up dinner while you start the bath, no one to watch them at the pool when you want to take a dip in and no one to pick up a pack of diapers on the way home. You become excellent at multi-tasking however and become acutely aware of just how much free help is around if you ask. We don’t have family that lives in town so our friends have become ever important in assisting us when necessary. I inherently knew being a single mother wasn’t easy but I’ll admit there were moments in the beginning when Chad and I would argue about Charlotte and how we thought she should be taken care of…and the thought occurred to me, “this would be easier alone.” Sometimes raising a baby seemed like riding a horse and there were two people trying to sit in the saddle and steer with both thinking their direction was right.

One of my greatest take-a-ways from becoming a parent is that everything seems easier when you aren’t the one doing the job. There is always that sense that someone else has it better than we do or that if we were the ones in the saddle we’d be able to do it better. Our perceptions are skewed because we only see what others want us to see which is often barely a glimpse into their daily lives. Most days between three jobs, one child, keeping house and a husband, I’m barely keeping my head above water. Anytime we take on another role in life I think this becomes the case.

So let’s just all admit that really we’re doing the best we can and the fact is no one has it easy.

Flight attendants don’t just serve cokes….they’re there to save your ass if and when you ever need it….and I’d like to think moms, all types of moms, are the same way.  

Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Should we go back to the trenches again?


Almost a year has passed since I took the pregnancy test that would change my life. A text message to my best friend of, “WTF is THIS?! Don’t tell a soul!” with a picture of two positive tests was how I announced how I felt. I kept it secret from my husband for a week before I said anything. I wasn’t sure how to feel, and all I really felt was an impending sense of “my life as I know it is over.”

39 weeks
Fast forward fifteen months and I’m comfortably living in my new normal. Charlotte is walking, learning new words every day and amazes me just as much as she frustrates. She’s at the age where we, as parents, are finally starting to feel like we have some freedom back. The stage where we are no longer breastfeeding but eating solids, walking around, not having blow out diapers and taking naps on a regular schedule. We can leave the house a little bit faster and don’t have to pack everything but the kitchen sink to do so. We feel alright about leaving her with a babysitter and don’t worry every second that we are gone. As Charlotte has grown so have my husband and I and we can’t help but marvel at what we created.

at one year old
Which begs the question, “Is it time to ruin all our newfound freedom?”

Having a second baby. It’s something that people have asked us if we are “having” like it’s a question of what to eat for dinner. “Are you having a second baby?” “Any thoughts on having more?”

What people are really be saying is, “You both look like you are still having too much fun in your lives, isn’t it time you surrendered the thought of ever being or doing anything cool again?”

So here’s the truth, yes I’ve thought about it. I think about it all the time. Not so much the having another baby part but the actual pregnancy. I am in the phase where many of my friends are pregnant for the first time and I’m waiting and watching the excitement they are going through. If you’ve read my other blogs you know I really never had a desire to be pregnant. Yes I knew I wanted a baby at some point but it wasn’t what my heart desired most in this world. Some women are born to be moms and they seek their joy in being pregnant. Before having my baby, I was in the take it or leave it mindset. If it happened to me, great and if not, I wouldn’t have been too upset with my body. Now, however, after having gone through it, knowing the process of pregnancy and how my body responds to being pregnant and labor I find myself missing it. It’s the same feeling I get when I see people that have climbed mountains I’ve already summited. I’m happy for them, I can relate because I’ve been on that journey and part of me wishes I was there with them myself.

Here comes the part where I must remind myself not to romanticize pregnancy. Putting your body through carrying a baby is a lot of stress. There was the heartburn, round ligament pain and sciatica nerve pain shooting through my right leg. My skin broke out, I had to pee all the time and of course there was the frustration of not fitting into anything I owned. I couldn’t do backbends in yoga or race mode in spin. I couldn’t twist, rock climb, water ski, snow ski or run. In the beginning I was nauseated all the time and at the end I couldn’t keep anything down because there was no room. Flying and staying in hotel rooms was awful as I could never find comfort to sleep and standing all day made my feet swell. I hated waddling and having people stare at me. Now I’m the one who finds myself staring at pregnant women. I remember what that was like and part of me misses it.

one day old, she was pretty snuggly then
I guess what I really miss was the secret of it all. How no one knew in the beginning and even at the end no one could really feel the baby kick or move but myself. I miss hearing her heartbeat at the midwife appointments and the anticipation of what she’d be like. Now that Charlotte is here she is so wonderful and amazing but I don’t have her with me 24 hours a day like before. She’s becoming more independent and sometimes waves my hand or help away. For the first 8 months all she wanted was pretty much me and to be breastfed and now she’ll let strangers hold her and she literally laughs if I show her my boobs (she’s over it). Charlotte is not me, she’s not my husband, she’s her own person with her own opinions about hummus and climbing stairs and sitting still.

Yet one is easy. One means biking to breweries on Saturday afternoons and eating from food trucks. One means having a babysitter for concerts at Red Rocks and hopping on planes around the country. One means I can focus on my business, Yogi Magee Expeditions and plan retreats and hikes for the future and make money. One means we can buy a two bedroom house and still afford vacations and treating ourselves. One means I can teach yoga and 5am bootcamp and afternoons at the pool. We have climbed our mountain and are enjoying the view from the summit…do we really want to climb back down and up all over again?

Maybe is all I can say. Who knows if we will even be able to climb again even if we want to? In mountaineering hesitation leads to accidents and bad decisions. So maybe we sit at the top and wait for a while and enjoy the view. It’s truly a wonderful view. Yet I still feel a little jealous of the climbers below on their quest….and you know what?

That’s OK.