Work

The week before Thea was born I was planning to keep working even though I was past my due date. As it turned out I just couldn't handle it mentally anymore, or I may have lost it on some well meaning lady who couldn't help herself but to ask me, "When are you going to have that baby?!"

I wrote my boss an email to explain to her that I thought I needed to give up until after my maternity leave. I felt really bad about it and offered to do work from home if she wanted me to, and she responded to tell me that first of all she understood and second of all, the only one pressuring me to work was me and not to worry about it.

Now that I am back at work, and trying to make the part time schedule successful, I am constantly reminding myself that I am the only one putting on the pressure. It's true, but I have to remind myself of it. I am a people pleaser and I am not good at putting myself and my needs and my want to be home with my kids first. The truth is, I would feel a lot more comfortable and a lot less guilty if I was working full time, but I am a lot happier working part time. I am just not comfortable with being a special circumstance. Maybe less guilty isn't true...I do remember the guilt of full time daycare too, and it also isn't comfortable.

Now that I have Thea and she is such a good baby, about 70% of me wants to have a 3rd baby. Not now, but after Leila goes to kindergarten. The biggest reason I have for not having more kids...because I want to be able to give work all that is expected of me. If you can't tell, Mommy-Tricia and Work-Tricia are definitely at odds. As it stands right now, I feel like I am balancing those things, but Work-Tricia is tapping her foot and asking, "When are we going to get back on track?" Mommy-Tricia is thinking lets keep this up for the next decade or so and keep on spitting out those beautiful babies!

I think it might already be time to review my post from a couple of months back to remind me of how hard it is when babies don't sleep.

One thing I have learned...the best of both worlds doesn't really exist. Even with an understanding employer and a wonderful care provider for my children, the tug of war continues to rage.