Because it's been way too long since I posted pictures

These are from September, when we FINALLY did our first-ever professional family photo shoot.

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Corporate law practice lesson: Call the client for context

During my first year at The Firm, I would occasionally write about a lesson I had learned about practicing law. For instance, read and pay attention to every word (and don't skip over the appendix, the bottom of the email that you think only contains a signature, or the sections of the statute that probably don't apply); point out things you think are confusing or wrong (and don't assume that there must be some reason you don't understand, or that if it were important somebody more experienced would have already fixed it); and one I still repeat to myself: if you screw up, admit it and try to fix it immediately. The coverup is worse than the crime! (Not that I've covered anything up. But somehow the first thought that runs through my head after I get that pit in my stomach, realizing I've made a mistake, is that if I'm lucky nobody will ever find out. And then I have to be stern with myself and deal with it like a grown-up.) Another one I didn't write about, but that I think counts, is: Don't be afraid of recycling paper. Print, print, print. My eyes would fall out if I stared at a screen even more than I do now, I'm a more accurate reviewer when I'm looking at paper, and having an almost-correct version of a document is not good enough when I need the correct version in front of me.

Now that I'm experienced enough that clients often contact me directly, or partners ask me to handle matters for unfamiliar clients without giving me context first, I've learned a new lesson: to be more proactive about calling clients and getting context from them before tackling an assignment. Before I can draft an agreement, for instance, I need to understand who the client is, including their business and their corporate structure; who the other party is and the client's relationship with them; what the course of negotiations has been like; what the business deal is; what open issues exist; what the client's concerns and goals are; and what they anticipate may happen in the future. Sometimes I'm reluctant to call the client for context, for a variety of reasons. I assume that the client or the partner would have given me the context I need when making the request. I don't want to waste time and money by calling the client, especially if it's a simple contract or they want it back very quickly. If my contact at the client is the CEO or other high-level executive, I feel like an unscheduled phone call is intrusive unless I know it's a key deal for them, and scheduling a call may take a while. If I don't know the client very well, I don't want them to feel like they have to start from scratch with me when someone else from my firm should already know this stuff about them.

What I've realized is that none of those reasons matter. It doesn't even matter whether they're valid or silly. I need that context to do my job. Preparing a draft first and then talking to the client about it does not save time or money. It results in unnecessary back and forth with the client, as I inevitably learn something important during the conversation that needs to be folded into the agreement. Clients typically don't think about how much context is necessary. It's my job to follow up with them as needed, and part of that may mean resetting their expectations about how quickly I can get them the agreement.

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Chaotic Christmas

We're down south at my sister-in-law's for Christmas. She has two babies, an almost-2-year old aptly nicknamed "The Hurricane" and a 1-year old who lets out an ear-splitting shriek whenever she is happy, sad, excited, angry, wants attention, or feels like shrieking. Neither sleeps through the night. The TV is constantly blaring (or at night, lullabies are blaring from the babies' room on infinite repeat). The kids have all taken turns being sick. X developed a hacking cough, K threw up last night before passing out. So, while it's been nice spending time with the family, it hasn't been a relaxing vacation.

Yesterday K and I were out for a walk, looking at the Christmas decorations in the neighborhood. I pointed out a Nativity scene. He asked what it was, and I explained that it showed baby Jesus being born. "Who's Jesus?" he asked. (This time I had an answer prepared, unlike the last time he asked me this and I passed the buck to Grandma.) "Jesus lived a long time ago," I said. "He taught everyone to love each other and to treat other people the way you would want them to treat you. People thought what he said was so important that they wrote it down and still remember it and talk about it. Christmas is Jesus's birthday, so people put up pictures of baby Jesus at Christmastime." "If baby Jesus comes," declared K, "I'm running away." "What?? What are you talking about?" "If baby Jesus comes I'm RUNNING AWAY," insisted K. "Why?" "Because then we'll have FOUR BABIES." I explained that baby Jesus wasn't going to come live with us and  be his new little brother, he was born a long time ago and this was just his birthday. But K was still suspicious.

We had K christened in the Catholic church, in accordance with our pre-marriage agreement that we'd raise the kids Catholic. I told JW I'd cooperate, but he was in charge of the kids' religious upbringing. My only stipulation was that they be taught to respect other people's beliefs, and my un-Catholic hope was that they would also question the idea that what they heard in church was the capital-T Truth. (Partly because I think it's dangerous to blindly believe what you're told, and partly because I don't think you can honestly respect other people's beliefs if you're not willing to allow that they might be true.) But with one lapsed Catholic parent and one atheist parent, K has so far grown up in a religious vacuum. I tried dragging him to the local UU church a few times, but gave up because he was so resistant (and JW wouldn't come, so I spent the whole time running after K trying to coax him to cooperate), and I can count on one hand the number of times he's attended church (all holidays, plus his own christening). When he comes across a reference to prayer in a book, or God, he has no idea what it means. He asked me what "pray" means once and I told him it meant being grateful for what you have and wishing for good things to happen, especially for other people. But we haven't had a real conversation about God yet. I feel like telling him "some people believe this, other people don't" diminishes genuine faith, and I don't want to sow the seeds of disbelief so early. At the same time, I don't want to be a hypocrite. I don't believe in God and dislike many things about established religions. I guess we'll cross that bridge when we come to it, and hopefully he won't be proselytized as much as I was as a kid. There are a lot more dark-skinned people around where we live than where I grew up.

So. Back to Christmas. We woke up and snuggled in bed together. K kept mentioning that as one of his favorite parts of the day, and JW and I were happy that he would rather snuggle with us than run downstairs and tear open his presents. K got a remote-controlled car, a remote-controlled helicopter, and ten little Matchbox cars. I gave him a bunch of new books, which he has declined to read. Santa gave him a toy Mater (from the Cars movie, which he refuses to watch because it's too scary, and yet asks for the toys by name) and a Batman book. Santa also left him a little scavenger hunt around the living room and kitchen. After initially being annoyed that he had to read on Christmas, he loved it and said he hoped Santa would do that every year. (The scavenger hunt literally took me five minutes to put together. For that effort-to-delight ratio, I'll definitely do it again next year.) X got a new toy to chew on and a gift card to Carter's for some non-hand-me-down clothes. I made sweet potato cinnamon rolls, but as usual I didn't put enough goo in them or enough glaze on top. Next year I swear I will follow the recipe. K and I played outside by the creek.

JW repeatedly tried and failed to get K to watch "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas," to the point where it moved beyond just K annoying Daddy and became a running joke. Earlier today K turned to me and said, "You know what I like?" "What?" "You," he replied, giving me a kiss. "You know what I don't like?" he continued. I grinned and we both said at once, "Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas!" "Seriously, though," I told him, "how do you know you don't like it if you won't even try watching it? Why won't you watch it? It would make Daddy so happy." "If I see Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas," he replied, "I will DELETE IT." Seems to me that the logical next step is to repeatedly tell him that baby Jesus wants him to watch Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas.

The trip down here went amazingly smoothly. So smoothly that we're bracing for disaster on our return home tomorrow. I will be a little surprised if we don't stagger in the door soaked in our children's bodily fluids. Maybe it'll be a Christmas miracle.

Next year I'm pushing for a family holiday cruise. No cleaning, no cooking, we'll hand the kids off and drink margaritas by the pool. Now that sounds like a vacation.

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X and K update

X had a doctor's appointment last week. He weighs 21 pounds! He shot up from 15th percentile in height and 30th in weight at his last appointment, three months ago, to 50th in height and 70th in weight. No wonder he outgrew his 9 month clothes so quickly.

 

X is now honest-to-goodness crawling, belly up off the floor. True to form, though, he does not crawl unless he has to. Instead, he wants to walk, walk, walk (holding my hands). Yesterday as we walked around and around the house, we kicked a red ball in front of us and he laughed every time it went rolling away.

 

K is enjoying the pre-holiday festivities (especially his chocolate Advent calendar). We went to a friend's cookie-decorating party over the weekend and he created Technicolor cookies drowned in so much frosting you couldn't pick them up without getting covered in it.

 

I proudly reported to my parents that K is reading everything in sight, from signs to cereal boxes. K overheard and said, with a perfect Yogi Bear inflection, "You are totally right, Mommy. I read everything I see!" He never liked to flip through books on his own for fun, and he never pretended he was reading when he had actually memorized the book. I thought all little kids did that. But now he sits there and reads on his own, and since he whispers the words to himself I can tell he's actually understanding what he reads. Often, after sounding out the words, he'll go back and read the sentence again ("Happy... birthday... shout... shouted... Pooh. 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY,' shouted Pooh!") I love that.

 

Recently I was part of a conversation with two older women who were talking about how things are so much harder when your kids are teenagers. They both agreed that their kids went through a phase where they seemed like they hated the parents and were so difficult to be around. One woman whose kids are grown now reassured the other, whose kids are currently teens, that it's all worth it when they come back in their twenties and thank you. The whole conversation made me grateful for my two cute little guys. Once in a while I tell K I have to get lots of hugs in now, because in ten years he won't want me to hug him so much. He always says, "Don't worry, Mommy. I'll still want lots of hugs!" I would put it in writing, but we all know that 4-year olds don't have the capacity to enter into a contract. Because in ten years he'll be a different person.

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Brass ring around your neck

Last night I emailed a partner around midnight with a document he had asked me to review. He wrote back five minutes later. This morning he responded to the usual hi-how-are-you with his usual grin, as he replied, "Exhausted! I feel terrible." Not that midnight is an atypical time for us to be working. I'm guessing it wasn't his first late night this week and it won't be his last.

This is an impolitic thing to say, but with the exception of one person who doesn't have kids, all the junior partners I know often seem like they're about to snap from stress or keel over from exhaustion. I have a hard time seeing how I'm supposed to aspire to be them.

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Playdate

At K's playdate yesterday, he emerged from the closet where he had been hiding and wailed, "Kaden scratched my ear!" His friend's response was to run away to the corner, yelling, "I didn't! I didn't do anything!" K came to me, crying, and I led him out of the room while Kaden's mom talked to him in the closet.

K's ear was fine. He was mostly upset because of his friend's reaction. "What if you were playing and your friend suddenly said you hurt them? How would you feel?" He considered this. "Bad," he replied. Ordinarily I would go farther with this and ask him why. But I know what K would say. He would feel bad that he hurt his friend. Instead I replied, "Maybe that's how Kaden feels. Sometimes when we do something wrong by accident, we feel bad about what we did, and we also feel scared that people will be mad at us." He understood, stopped crying, and started playing by himself, occasionally trying to get his friend to join in. His friend took a long time to calm down, but K was patient and eventually the two boys were running around laughing again.

Later, K's grandmother told me that she had been pretending to cry about something silly, and K laughed at first but then got worried and said, "Grandma, you're joking, right? Are you really sad?"

Sometimes I wish K weren't so sensitive. I see so much of myself in him and that was not a trait that served me well during my childhood. But I also love how caring he is. He'll need that emotional maturity when his friends are making fun of him for refusing to watch the terrifying Cars movie.

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Baby on the move

Remember that baby who never bothered to roll over and was content to sit in one place for ten minutes at a time? That baby has been replaced. The new version yells "RAAAAAA!" which is my signal to come over and hold his hands, enabling him to toddle over to his destination. He generally makes a beeline for the next toy. If we don't get there fast enough, he lets out a mighty roar of protest. X is not that steady on his feet yet -- although he did stand for a few seconds unsupported today -- but it doesn't stop him. Unlike K, who  seemed surprised and a little tentative with his first attempts at walking, X motors ahead, his lower lip jutting out and his eyes on the prize.

He army-crawls too, but this is clearly not his preferred mode of mobility. He will only do it with a specific purpose that cannot be met as quickly by walking. We were at my parents' house over the weekend (also present: my in-laws, who promised to come every year; JW's grandmother, whose presence was a welcome surprise since she's increasingly housebound; my aunt and cousin; a friend of the family who we haven't seen in a long time, and who my mom once upon a time tried to "introduce" me to; my sister-in-law's parents; family friends who come every year, and are like family; and of course my parents, brother, sister-in-law and niece). Whenever the big kids were playing with a toy together, X would crawl over as fast as his little arms would pull him. The big kids would move away, annoyed, and he would pursue them.

We've been procrastinating, but it's time to babyproof.

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Inner grammar nerd versus the SEC

Filing a Form D online. The form is asking me for "Issuer's Identified in the Filing."

REALLY, SEC?

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Good to be a woman

Sometimes I tell K, "You're lucky you're a boy."

For instance, I have told him this in response to:
"How did you get the baby out?"
"Did you just stick something in your underwear?"
"You're joking, right? You're NOT JOKING? You PAID someone to RIP HOT WAX OFF YOUR FACE? WHY???"

Yesterday my brother told me about a lecture he was planning for his medical residents. He's going to open with a long example about urinals and the various heuristics for choosing the right one. I've never given urinals much thought, not having to use them. But today, when I walked into a bathroom stall at work, I thought, Women don't have hangups about choosing the right stall. And then I thought, But if I had to be right next to somebody, and we could see each other pee, then I'd care a lot more. So, I may pay someone to rip hot wax off my face, but least I don't have to see anybody (aside from my offspring) pee.

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Bowling party

Yesterday, K and I headed over to Lanes and Games to attend one of the three Stars Wars bowling parties simultaneously happening there.  I only recently discovered the joys of candlepin bowling, which, if you're not a New Englander, involves cylindrical pins and a small, light ball. Perfect for little hands and people with chronic wrist problems.

We're all familiar with little-kid soccer. A swarm of kids chase the ball, all trying to kick it at once, and occasionally tripping over each other and falling down. (Except my kid. He's the one malingering at the other end of the field, inspecting an ant.) As it turns out, little-kid bowling is similar. At any given time, there were at least three children hovering over the ball return. When a ball came out, a kid, any kid, grabbed it and immediately ran over to the lane and heaved it in the general direction of the pins. After five seconds of monitoring the ball's slow progress down the lane, they would run back to the ball return. About one in ten balls bounced off the metal bar that was clearing the pins and returned to the children, often hitting some of the other balls on its way. It was more like large-scale billiards than anything you would think of as bowling. The kids did manage to rack up some impressive scores. Ten pins are no match for twenty balls.

After a few frames, if you could call it that, K announced, "I'm done with Lanes. I'm ready for Games!" He grabbed my hand and we ran to the arcade room. We played an unsuccessful game of pinball, with each of us controlling a flipper. Then I introduced K to air hockey. I tried to let him win, but he wouldn't cooperate. He didn't care, though. He laughed with glee every time he hit the puck. After our game, he played one of his friends. While the friend's dad was watching them and nudging the puck when it got stuck in the middle, I snuck off to play pinball by myself.

IT WAS THE LONGEST AND MOST AWESOME GAME OF PINBALL EVER. Lights were flashing! Multiple balls were shooting out and ricocheting around! I even triggered a mini-pinball game a few times. PINBALL WITHIN PINBALL. I got so into it that I ended up neglecting K for nearly ten minutes after the boys went back to the Lanes. I can't remember the last time I've had that much fun. And I realized, how sad is that? There are many things in my life that I enjoy and that make me happy. But I honestly can't remember when I last had fun, extended, laughing, excited fun. The kind of fun K was having while playing air hockey. I have fun moments with K, but they're quickly ruined when he either demands something or wants to reenact the moment fifty times.* (Today we had the following conversation: "Say that and then tickle me again. Why aren't you laughing?" "Because it's not funny anymore." "Why?" "Because after a while, when you do them over and over, things stop being funny." "Why?")

 Another thing that happened yesterday: Around 6:30, I was giving X a bath. I called JW in and said, "Can you take over? I feel like I'm going to pass out." I proceeded to do just that. I thought I was just lying down for a minute until I felt better, but at 9:30 I woke up just long enough to take off my jeans (pockets still full of tokens, as I discovered when I did laundry today) and didn't wake up again until a quarter to six the next morning. I thought I'd be refreshed, but I just felt worse. Late nights working, early mornings with the kids, a perpetually sick baby who has passed on his colds -- I've only been back to work for two months and I already need a vacation.

* Edited later to add: On further thought, it's not at all fair to say K ruins every fun moment we have, or to say that I never have fun at all. I've been missing out on a specific type of fun, the playing air hockey, riding a roller coaster, WHEE! kind of fun. So maybe I'll just go back and use all those tokens that I fished out of the dryer.

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Please sir, may I have another

I just got a call from a partner saying that I need to make some final edits to a document when the partner is done looking at it, in about an hour.

X was sent home sick today. We're taking him to the doctor tomorrow morning. He has not been healthy in about two months. Which, probably not coincidentally, is about the length of time I've been working since my maternity leave.

I woke up with a raw throat yesterday and today. Even after stopping nursing, I just don't have the physical stamina I used to. With a baby at home, even with JW taking care of a lot of the childcare duties, I find it much harder to stay up all night working and still be able to concentrate the next day than in my pre-baby days. I get almost no work done over the weekend since I'm running after the kids and doing the chores that didn't get done during the week.

I wish I had a job that did not require constant availability, and did not come with the expectation that I would work nights and weekends. I wish I could come home and just be home. Does a job like that exist, that also pays enough that we can afford daycare? I've been applying for the odd in-house job here and there, but I don't think I have the experience yet.

I know there are worse problems to have. Still, I need to start developing an exit strategy.

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X at 8 months, and Halloween

X has a new cold, but this is a normal baby cold and not the wheezing RSV thing, so we can deal with it. I am feeling much more human these days now that I'm officially done with nursing (the last time was about 6 days ago) AND X is sleeping through the night most of the time. Hooray for getting older! X is also making his first crawling preparations, getting almost-but-not-quite up on all fours, and transitioning between that position and sitting. And he has taught himself how to clap.

K has been candy-obsessed all week. "Can you guess what my favorite is?" he said. "It starts with an S." I know he likes fruity, chewy things. "Skittles?" I guessed. "Starburst? SweetTarts?" No, no, no. "Snickers?" No. Finally I thought back to trick-or-treating and remembered what he was most excited about. "SpongeBob Gummy Mini-Sandwiches!" "That's right!"

I rushed home and made it for about half of the trick-or-treating. I was so excited to see X in his tiger costume, the same one K wore when he was a baby. K and his friend from next door laughed and ran in front of us, racing to each door, while we trailed behind, calling, "Not that house, the lights are off! Don't forget to say thank you!"

K has let me eat one piece of his candy each day. Lucky for me he doesn't like peanut butter.

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Oatmeal

I keep packets of instant oatmeal in my desk. I skipped lunch and I'm hungry.

But I don't FEEL like eating oatmeal.

But if I'm that hungry, then I'm hungry enough to eat oatmeal.

I hate it when things I repeat to K in my mommy voice come back to bite me.

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Drying up

My milk supply has plummeted lately. I've never been an efficient pumper -- in twenty minutes I typically produce under four ounces. Lately it's more like two.

I've been using the weekends to nurse X frequently and get my supply back up. But since he's been sick and congested for a few weeks now, he hasn't had that much of an appetite and it's been hard for him to breathe and nurse at the same time. For the past few days he's refused nursing altogether. If I offer him the breast, he either looks away or bites me. (With his tooth!)

I could try to pump even more, but I don't think I'm up for it. I'm so tired all the time as it is, and swamped at work. (And I'll be honest, I hate pumping.) He's already on formula -- we were doing about 2/3 milk and 1/3 formula when I started working, then we slipped to half and half, and we're now approaching 1/3 milk and 2/3 formula. I think I'm going to throw in the towel.

One reason I wanted to stay home with X for so long was that I was committed to nursing him, and was hoping to go past the 8 months that K lasted before he self-weaned. I thought my supply would stay up for longer after I got back to work, since for six months I breastfed almost exclusively (the last few weeks, he started eating solids and getting one bottle of formula a day so we could introduce it before daycare). But just like last time, as soon as I stopped nursing throughout the day, my milk production started to shut down.   

I feel like I should be happy to be free from the pump, but I'm a little sad that this part of my relationship with X is ending.

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It looks nice but it is itchy

Staying at the office all night is no fun.

You know what's worse? Staying so late you have to pump in your office in the middle of the night.

You know what's worse than that? Staying at the office all night and having to pump at midnight while wearing an itchy sweater.

It wouldn't have been so bad except for the itchy sweater. I didn't anticipate wearing it for so long.

The good news is, X's breathing has improved, and all the itchy sweaters and midnight office pumping sessions are no big deal compared to my baby getting better.

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A partial list of emotions

(I didn't remember writing this, but found it in my Drafts folder from over a year ago, when I was recruited for another job that I was considering taking. I didn't publish it at the time for obvious reasons. But I was feeling very conflicted for the reasons below, plus a big one I didn't include in this list: Wanted to get pregnant soon.)

Flattered that someone wanted me

Unwilling to start over somewhere new, when I'm finally getting my feet under me

Disloyal to The Firm, especially my mentor who I feel has invested in me

Worried about what people in The Firm would think

Intrigued by the idea of experiencing a new place, especially one that seems more aligned with my interests

Excited once I found out about the type of work they want me to do

Ecstatic at the thought of not having to do any more routine administrative corporate work

Annoyed and resentful that the thought of a new opportunity made me start acknowledging any dissatisfaction with my current job

Unmotivated to make any long- or even medium-term commitment at work

Worried that I'm passing up valuable opportunities at work because I'm anticipating something that might not happen

Questioning whether a new job would be taking a step in the right direction, and what that direction even is

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Inaugural trip to the ER

X started coughing nearly two weeks ago. At first we thought it was a little cold. K had a runny nose and was coughing a little too. But X didn't get better.

This week he started wheezing. The pediatrician said he had a bronchial infection and prescribed antibiotics. But after several days, X still didn't get better.

This weekend he was upset and didn't want to be put down. His wheezing and coughing got worse. He rejected my efforts to nurse him and bit me several times when I tried. (By the way, he got his first tooth!) After I wrote yesterday's post about how he is so independent and doesn't want to be held or picked up at night, he spent the entire night sleeping on top of me and periodically waking up screaming. We haven't done that since he was a newborn.

I called our pediatrician again and he told me to take X to Children's Hospital. He said X would need an inhalation treatment. I tried not to panic, but I've never been to the ER for any reason, or set foot in Children's Hospital. To me, going to the ER means you're dying, and going to Children's means your kid is dying. It's the best pediatric hospital in the country and people whose children are seriously ill fly to Boston to take their kids there. I called my brother, the ER doctor (or, to be medically correct, the ED physician). He reassured me that my pediatrician had said to go to Children's because they would have the necessary expertise and equipment to deal with babies, and said that since X's illness hadn't responded to antibiotics it was probably viral and would have to run its course. He said X would probably benefit from an albuterol nebulizer to loosen up his airways (similar to an asthma inhaler) and if that didn't work, they might be able to try a steroid injection.

Our experience at Children's was surprisingly pleasant. It's obvious they put a lot of thought into making the experience as clear, smooth, and comfortable as possible. I expected to be waiting for hours in a room full of crying children, but we were shown to our own exam room right away. We did wait a while and stayed a total of about five hours, but people kept coming in and out to look at X and talk to us, and I felt they were moving his treatment along. In the end, what my brother said was spot on -- they concluded it was viral bronchiolitis and they couldn't treat it, but did the nebulizer and sent us home with an inhaler. They also did a chest X-ray and confirmed that it looked fine.

I talked to my brother again in the evening. When I mentioned the X-ray, he said that he almost advised me against it in advance, because it was unlikely X had bacterial pneumonia and if the X-ray had looked bad they would have admitted him and pumped him full of antibiotics just in case. He asked why I sounded worried and I said it was because X seemed to be getting worse and worse. "He'll get better, right?" I asked. "Of course," he replied, sounding surprised. "Bronchiolitis is not permanent. It'll clear up eventually." That made me feel better. We all just have to get through this.

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Brothers

People always ask me whether X and K have different personalities. For whatever reason, they like hearing that the answer is yes. X has a personality to match his executive look. K is more sensitive and more active.

K wants to hold my hand while we eat dinner, and often comes over mid-meal for a hug. Before I got pregnant, he was constantly asking to be picked up and carried, and he still likes to be carried when he can get away with it. He says "I love you" every five minutes. X doesn't mind snuggles, but mostly he likes being carried around for mobility purposes. The second I sit down, he's outta there. Probably more as a function of his age that his personality, while he likes us, he doesn't seem to care that much whether we're around.

When K was a baby, I would spend long nights holding him and pacing up and down with him to calm him down. X does not like to be picked up when he's sleepy. It actually makes him cry more.

When K was a baby, it took him a very long time to realize that he wouldn't starve if I did not feed him the second he got hungry. He'd start crying while I was fumbling with my nursing clothes, and I'd have to calm him down before feeding him. If X sees that I'm taking some steps toward feeding him, like walking upstairs, he waits and only complains if it seems like I've forgotten about him. In general, X gives ample warning before he gets really upset.

K does not like to play by himself, and if you suggest it, he protests, "But then I will be LONELY."  X can play independently for long stretches.

K likes me to do things for him, like put on his shoes or feed him the last few spoonfuls of soup. When K used to lose his pacifier at night, he would yell, "PAFA" or later, "PACIFIO!" until JW or I eventually got annoyed enough to come give it back to him. At 7 months, X likes to hold his own bottle and can recover his own pacifier and get it back in his mouth. I anticipate a lot of "Do it myself!" as he gets older.

K asks for help. X perseveres on his own. He will keep reaching for something until he falls flat on his face.

K was always wiggly. As a baby he was always practicing his next motor skill, and as a little kid he's always running around and climbing on everything. X is not nearly as active. He is content to sit in one place for long periods. When he does make a leap in motor skills, it seems very intentional, even though this may be unlikely given his age. For instance, K would roll over and over until he rolled out the door. X can roll, but rarely does, preferring to be upright. K would try over and over to stand up and to pull himself up until he was eventually able to do it on his own. X is now starting to get interested in standing up. But he doesn't make the same efforts K did. He just refuses to bend his legs when I try to put him down.

K is cautious. I never had to worry about him getting into dangerous situations that he wouldn't be able to get out of, and I can give him free rein when we're outside. I don't know yet what X will be like on this front, but I suspect he may be a little more reckless than his big brother. I can see him being so focused on doing something that he doesn't stop to consider whether it will get him in trouble. But we'll have to wait and see about that.

I love K for his sweetness, silliness, and energy, and I love X for his independence, calmness, and patience. And I hope that the words "Why can't you be more like your brother?" will never escape my lips.

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Fall

(A poem by K)

Leaves fall from the trees,
Rabies is a disease.

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Columbus Day 2011

My third Columbus Day holiday ever. The last two were serene, golden days spent walking hand in hand with K, kicking leaves, and listening to street musicians play. This one was... not.

X is still sick and is sprouting his first tooth. He was in a good mood about half the time and spent the other half yelling and hitting me.

K has been extra-demanding lately, and to add insult to injury, after I spent the entire day running after him and playing with him until I literally passed out, his account of his day when Daddy came home was, ""Watched a video, then ate breakfast... played with my friend... and that's it."

I got an hour of respite when K went next door to play. X napped for part of the time, and then I had a little alone time with him. A friend called for parenting advice the second I put X down for his nap. (I love giving any kind of advice, but I'm not sure why she thinks my advice will be any good. Hopefully she has other advisers too.)

We had some nice moments, like when we played hide and seek. I started making noises to help K find us, and X laughed and gave us away. Then K and I kept trying to make him laugh with funny noises. The magic of baby laughter works even on 4-year olds. We had fun at the playground together in the morning, and went out for ice cream in the afternoon. But there were also plenty of times when I caught myself thinking, "Is it Tuesday yet? When do I get to go back to work?" Thank goodness I'm not a stay-at-home mom.

Sometimes I think K needs more one-on-one attention. But then when I try to give it to him, he can never get enough. He sucks up all my energy. I feel so annoyed when I just spent an hour playing with him and the second I go to do something else, he starts in with, "MOMMY. HEY. MOMMY. PLAY with me."  I don't know if it's him or me, or both. Maybe I am just grumpier than usual. I'm tired all the time. Maybe he's just going through a phase. Maybe it's X. He never complains when I need to go care for X, but maybe he feels like when he does have my attention, he needs to latch on to me and never let go.

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In the past few weeks

Work has gotten crazy. I closed a deal for one of our largest clients today, and started diligence for their next deal. And the circle of billing continues. I'm still enjoying it, except for the late nights. I don't have the physical stamina that I used to, since I'm still nursing and X is not consistently sleeping through the night (and the nights he does, K gets up).

The boys have both developed colds, plus conjunctivitis for K. Luckily they both managed to stay in school all week, thanks to a well-timed prescription from my doctor brother.

We traveled to NY for X's mukhebhat. This is a Bengali ceremony that is supposed to be the first time the baby eats solid food. (In practice, not really.) "Mukh" means "mouth" and "bhat" means "rice". A tray of different types of food is set in front of the baby, and the uncle feeds the baby rice. Then the baby gets to choose from another tray an item that is supposed to represent his future calling. Traditionally this tray holds a pen (representing learning), a book (religion), dirt (agriculture), and money (money), plus whatever else the family wants to add. We had a magnifying glass, a calculator, and my mom took off her gold necklace and tossed it on the tray at the last minute. X immediately grabbed the gold coins and necklace, and was startled at the resounding cheer. Now we know which one we should be nice to, so he'll take care of us in our old age. K picked the dirt and the pen, so he'll be of no use to us.

JW has begun campaign season. Politics is his passion, and every year from September through November he has nonstop strategy meetings and campaign events. He's been plotting a way to try to do it full-time.

My parents came for the weekend and took care of the kids while JW and I went on our annual getaway. We had planned to go the weekend of our actual anniversary in August, but we got hurricaned out. It was supposed to rain all weekend on Cape Cod, but we got lucky with just a few drizzles. We walked on the beach out to the lighthouse, hiked in the beech forest, visited art galleries and bought a painting for K's room, had a cocktail in a window-walled bar at sunset, and ate delicious South African food while slightly drunk. (And returned to our room at the B&B in between these activities to pump.) It was lovely to be together without the kids for 24 hours.

The kids got their school pictures taken. Most are similar to all the other pictures of the two of them: photogenic K looks like he could be a child model, while X looks skeptical and a little confused. But there is one picture where X is actually smiling! We are getting so many copies of that one.

K started soccer. It's going well. He likes the drills more than the scrimmage. Two of the kids are much bigger and more experienced than the others, and they each score six goals while all the other four-year olds are hopelessly chasing after the ball and running off the field for hugs and snacks.

(I would provide illustrations for each of these anecdotes, except our photos are all on JW's computer. Don't you think in this day and age, it should be brainless to access our pictures from anywhere?)

We have had so many plumbing issues over the past few months that I joined our plumber's "Gold Club." They came out today to look at a leak, and they're coming back next week to put in a new faucet. I knew the clawfoot tub would be trouble.

Partly because of the plumbing issues, I ended up working from home for a few days this week. It was kind of awesome. We're not really supposed to work from home during normal working hours, but I forwarded my phone and nobody even noticed. I got to skip the commute, wear sweats, and watch TV while I pumped, and I still billed plenty of hours. I'm more efficient at home. I think it's because I'm so conscious of all the other things I could be doing that I want to finish my work as quickly as possible. At work I feel like I'm stuck in my office no matter what, so it doesn't matter as much whether I'm being industrious or procrastinating. It's not like if I finish early I can go home.

And now we're preparing for the three-day weekend. For the past couple of years, Columbus Day has been a beautiful respite from work and a chance to bond with K. We'll see what it's like this year with both kids.

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Robotic spy baby

Recently I read an article somewhere that reminisced about a classic home ec assignment: caring for an egg as a baby stand-in. The author confessed that their egg cracked well before the week was up, but added (paraphrase), "Don't worry, your eggs are safe these days. Most high schools now use robotic baby dolls that provide instant feedback if, for instance, their 'parent' holds the bottle at the wrong angle, and transmits the information to a central server. Students' grades reflect the collected information."

I can't be alone in finding this horrifying. First of all, I doubt that MOST high schools use this system, but the ones that do should focus on teaching their kids sex ed and reading skills so they can wait until an appropriate age to have babies and can read "What to Expect" their own selves. Those high schools should then take the money they saved and give it to the neighboring school district, where the school committee spends its time figuring out how to afford new textbooks instead of pondering whether robotic babies are superior to eggs in teen parenting simulations.

School resource issues aside, can you imagine if that kind of data was collected about your interactions with your real baby? If every time you screwed up, a computer somewhere was keeping track? Forget holding the bottle at the wrong angle. Today, while taking the baby out of his carseat and juggling bags on the way into daycare, I bumped his little head right into the doorknob. X wailed for a minute or two while I hugged him and apologized, and then he calmed down and went about his business. He'll never remember that. Thank goodness nobody is recording it in a long list of mommy transgressions and grading my parenting skills.

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Our daily routine

Our pre-baby daily routine:
5:30 If I'm good, get out of bed and exercise. If not,
6:30 Open my eyes to see K standing next to the bed, staring at me.
6:45-7:15 K watches a TV show while I make his lunch, pack his bag, and get dressed.
7:15-8:30 Breakfast. He takes forever.
8:30-9 Get dressed, play.
9-9:30 Walk to school, drop-off.
9:45-7 p.m. Work.
7:30 Arrive home, wolf down whatever dinner I can grab on the way upstairs, give K a bath and put him to bed.
8:30 Eat a little more, get back to work on my laptop.
11 If I'm lucky, go to bed. First email the partner I'm working with to make sure I'm done for the night.

Our post-baby daily routine, so far:
6:00 Wake up, feed baby.
6:30 K gets up, watches a TV show while I hang out with X and prepare breakfast. JW gets ready and goes to work.
7-7:45 Breakfast. X gets finger food, which he manages to get into his mouth about 2% of the time. K gets told over and over, "Please sit in your seat and eat your breakfast."
7:45-8 Get everybody dressed and ready, head out to school.
8-8:30 Drop-off.
9-5:30 Work.
5-6 JW picks up the kids and fixes dinner.
6-8:30 Have dinner and put both kids to bed. X needs to be actually asleep by 7. K should be asleep by 8, but usually that's when we start reading.
8:30-9:15 Wash the bottles and pump parts, prepare lunches, pack up everything for the next day.
9:15-10:30 Free time. Do work, clean up, go grocery shopping, make phone calls, pay bills, watch TV, read, hang out with JW.
10:30 Collapse. JW feeds X a bottle.

This works great, except for one thing: I've only been back at work for a week and my workload is unusually light. I haven't been staffed on any deals yet and haven't had to bring much work home. If I could always be at work from 9-5:30, life would be easy(ish).

The adjustment has been harder on JW than on me, I think. He went from basically no mandatory childcare or house responsibilities to handling the most difficult time of day with both kids on his own. I keep getting frantic calls from him asking what he should make for dinner. (He also has this thing about actually cooking every night. I don't care if we eat clean-out-the-fridge salad, leftovers, or spaghetti and frozen meatballs for dinner, but he feels like he hasn't done his job.) I've had to be more regimented in the morning and spend time preparing at night, but other than that, returning to work hasn't been as much of an adjustment for me as I expected, thanks to my currently light work schedule. I'm dreading that call assigning me to some huge acquisition.

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My baby only wears Prada

I got a 35% off coupon code for Gap.com. (If you go to their website, they are having a "surprise sale" with a random amount off each time you visit.) But 35% off a $20 onesie is still way too much money for something my kid is going to poop on in a week. I am always shocked at these designer baby clothes that cost $20 and up for a single item. Then again, both of my kids were champion spitter-uppers, and maybe if you have a sweet little girl who sits quietly and isn't constantly emitting bodily fluids and trying to shove her dress in her mouth, it makes more sense to buy nice clothes.

I went to the consignment store last week to buy X some pants. (Consignment store and yard sales: $3 and under per item of clothing. If a $1 onesie gets hopelessly stained, I throw it out.) I was surprised that a basic pair of printed cotton pants cost the same as a pair of nice khakis, but the owner informed me, "They're ZUTANO." The store only had two pairs of pants in his size, so X is now the proud owner of designer baby pants. Which he will poop on.

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A Bargain for Frances

We stopped at Food Books on the way home from my parents' house. (Apparently it's really called Traveler Restaurant, but we always refer to it as Food Books because they have a huge sign visible from the highway that says:

Traveler
FOOD
and 
BOOKS 

) This is our regular stop on the way home, and we all look forward to it. While waiting for our food, we go around and look at their selection of books, and K usually chooses a few to bring home. You get three free with your meal.

Today we scored a book called "Be Polite" with Grover on the cover, and "A Bargain for Frances" by Russell Hoban. I am not that crazy about the Frances books, at least not for this age. I like "Bread and Jam for Frances", but I think many of the books have somewhat negative messages that K is not quite ready to process. For instance, I got "A Baby Sister for Frances" before X was born, but we didn't end up reading it because half of it was about how Frances hated her baby sister. The idea that K should hate the new baby or feel jealous never occurred to him, and I didn't want to put the thought in his head. In "A Best Friend for Frances", Frances and her friend Albert and her sister Gloria are all pretty mean to each other, even though it works out at the end. In "Bedtime for Frances", Frances eventually goes to bed to avoid being spanked.

 So I wasn't sure about "A Bargain for Frances." As soon as we started reading it, though, I realized that even though I didn't recall reading any of the Frances books as a kid, I definitely read this one. I didn't remember what happened, but I remembered so many details about the story that I must have read it dozens of times. It's about how Frances' friend tricks her into buying a tea set, and then Frances tricks the friend into buying it back. Like most of the Frances books, all the meanness is resolved in the last few pages. This wasn't enough for K, who dislikes reading about or watching any kind of real-life conflict. He only likes conflict in terms of "bad guys", and hates it on the rare occasion when I try to talk to him about how in real life, there are no "bad guys" and if you shoot someone you can hurt or even kill them. So we will probably pass on "A Bargain for Frances" to someone else.

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Second week back

Still ramping back up. Right now my workload is approximately one-third of what it usually is. Which is good because on the two nights I've brought work home, I have not been able to concentrate on it for longer than an hour. After an hour my brain turns off and I collapse into bed, praying that my children will both let me sleep until morning.

People keep asking me how I'm adjusting to being back. I have given up trying to have an answer for this. Work will change, home will change. I'll get put on a giant deal and never come home for two weeks. The baby will get sick. I'll think there's no way I can continue doing this. Then the baby will get better and my schedule will lighten up. I'll make it home for dinner every night for a week and think everything is fine and why would I ever give up my awesome job (except, of course, for the billable hours).

For now, I'm trying to stop thinking about what our schedule should be like and what I need to do with my career. When X turns one, I'll reevaluate. Near the end my maternity leave, I became convinced that coming back would be a disaster and I signed up for some legal job search sites. I even sent in applications for a couple of in-house positions. But I think I'm going to focus on my current job for a while and try to make it work. Next year I'll have more perspective on my current situation, and more experience in case I do need a change.

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Pants problem

I am finally at peace with my post-baby body. Probably because I don't have a lot of time to spend contemplating it. I read some bogus study recently about how the amount of time you spend grooming is inversely correlated with your salary. Well, I have literally gotten my morning grooming/dressing routine down to two minutes. That's right, two minutes from spitup-covered pajamas to makeup, office-appropriate clothes, and jewelry. Watch out, Warren Buffett.

Unfortunately, my wardrobe is not cooperating with my newfound self-acceptance. I'm a size larger than I was pre-baby. I have exactly two pairs of pants that fit me right now. I can get by with skirts until the weather gets cooler, but then I'm probably going to have to suck it up and lose the weight. Or buy and hem new pants. I'm not sure which would be more painful.

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First week back

Back to reality. One (short) week of work done.

The good news is that I remembered why I like my job. Interesting work, great people, always something new. Plus my fabulous office and salary, both of which make the late nights and stress a lot more palatable.

The bad news is that with two kids at home, I'm just not sure how much longer I can do this. I know that I'll be less exhausted once X starts sleeping through the night and once I stop pumping, both of which should happen within the next six months. Even so, my hours are completely unpredictable and largely beyond my control. We managed before, but now that we have a baby at home, it seems unfair to make JW handle the double-kid chaos at dinnertime and bedtime every day. And missing bedtime most days, like I was doing pre-baby, means the only time I have with the kids is when I'm hustling them through their morning routines and out the door.

I know we all like to be cheery and optimistic about handling our careers and our families. But I'll be frank. I don't think my practice, where I'm at the beck and call of clients and partners and every day brings a new fire drill, is compatible with having a family. I'm not planning to jump ship immediately, but maybe sooner than I had planned. I'll see how it goes over the coming months.

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Trial separation

X's first two days of daycare went fairly smoothly. They reported that the first day he was happy, the second day he was fussy. Both days, he basically ignored me during both dropoff and pickup. Being reunited with his brother, however, elicited eager stares, huge smiles, and belly laughs.

I missed him. I was always a little annoyed when people used to ask me if I missed K after I went back to work. I'd just smile and say, "No, he's happy and I'm happy," but I'd be thinking, look, I love my kid and I love my husband, but that doesn't mean I want to be attached to either one of them 24-7. But when X was gone, I missed his soft head and cute smile and kicky legs. Maybe because I got to spend longer at home with X. When I went back to work after having K, he was just coming out of the newborn stage and frankly I was glad to get out of the house.

Anyway, I wasn't lonely because K was home with me both days. He missed his first two days of pre-K after being sent home with a fever. Luckily, he responded well to ibuprofen and was in a good mood both days. Today he even played by himself while I got a haircut. (He wasn't really sick today, but wanted to stay home. I warned him that he had to cooperate for all sorts of errands and entertain himself during my haircut, and he lived up to his end of the bargain much better than I expected.)

I was hoping to get a day to take care of work preparation stuff (get through my inbox, get my phone fixed, iron my clothes, do all the outstanding home errands, stock the fridge, etc.) and then a day to relax, but it looks like Tuesday is going to be my get-stuff-done day. And then... back to real life.

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And the summer ends

I've had about a dozen blog posts in my head over the last week and a half, but none of them made it through my fingers. So, highlights:

- Today is my last day with X! He starts daycare TOMORROW. I return to work next week. Feeling sad about this, but it had to happen some time.

- X has learned to turn over both ways, and can sit up unassisted for up to a few minutes.

- X is sick for the first time ever. It's just a little cold, but the congestion is bothering him.

- I've been sleep training him, and have been making progress. The key seems to be giving him a big dream feed around 10 or 11 p.m. He's slept through until 6 a.m. a few times!

- K is moving into the pre-K class at school, WITHOUT his two best friends. He loves his teacher and is a little upset about moving. He'll also start soccer in the fall, with one of the two missing friends.

- We bought a new (to us) car! A Volvo wagon. We're donating our ancient Nissan Maxima.

- Last week was our ninth anniversary. Our weekend getaway to Cape Cod didn't happen, thanks to Hurricane Irene. ("Mommy, we didn't have a hurricane. It was a tropical storm." Got it, K.) But we did have a lunch out with X on our actual anniversary, and a date night the next day involving live music and beer.

- Assorted stories:
1. When deciding what to put in K's teacher's thank-you package, I suggested a bottle of wine. K chuckled and said, "I don't think she'll be wanting that."
2. K closed the closet door on his finger. I asked what he was looking for in the closet and he sobbed, "I wanted to look in the mirror to see if I was handsome."
3. I attended the Harvard Mediation Program's annual potluck, where I had a long conversation with an older attorney who declared biglaw inhumane. As I left, I said, "Nice talking to you," and he replied, "Get out as soon as you can!"

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The sumo wrestler

JW's mom has a wallet with four spaces for pictures, just enough for her four grandkids. For a long time there were four pictures of K in there, until the other three arrived in the space of 13 months. When she shows off the pictures, she points to each child in turn and says, "My grandchildren: the Sumo Wrestler, the Brainiac, the Tornado, and Miss Priss."

The Brainiac is K, despite his assertion this morning that "when you recycle boxes, they get crushed up, and then they go to Santa, and Santa gives them to the elves, and the elves make stuff out of them." (Like what? "Like milk bottles and milk pumps." So my instrument of torture comes from Santa and cardboard boxes.)

The Sumo Wrestler is X. X is only in the 35th percentile for height and weight (although considering he hasn't pooped in six days, his weight percentile has probably increased) but his chunky thighs are something to behold. We had to stop using the Bumbo seat because he would get stuck in it. I had to push his thighs down to fit into the little holes, and when I tried to pick him up the entire seat would come with him.

X seems so much bigger and more solid lately. I feel like one day I'll turn around and he'll be a little boy.

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Friday cuteness

First time eating solids

Visit to the Bronx with cousin M 

In the Exersaucer while Mommy cooks

The best picture I will ever take of my boys. (Using my phone!)

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It is what it is

A neighbor told me she was about to have some time off because her work contract was up. She asked when I was going back to work. When she saw my face, she immediately said, "Sorry, I didn't mean to make you think about it!" "Three more weeks," I replied. "I guess it couldn't last forever. I can't complain about a six-month leave, right?" She shrugged. "Work... it is what it is."

As meaningless as that phrase usually is, somehow it made me feel better. It is what it is. We need the paycheck. It's good for me to build up my skills. The baby will be fine. I won't get to see my kids as much. I'll be stuck in an office all day. Work is something that grown-ups do.

I confessed to my mother that I was dreading going back. She said, "You can't stay at home all day. You don't learn anything. You don't do anything. You don't get out into the world. You just cook and clean and run after your kids." I countered that you can have a full life if you're a stay-at-home mom -- you can volunteer, you can get involved in your community. She replied that if you don't work, you're limited to doing the types of things that don't require specialized knowledge or skills. Things that anyone can do if they put in the time and energy. And it's not everyone who's willing to put in the time or energy, so I wouldn't discount those activities, but she's right. The volunteer activities that I've filled my time with this summer -- joining the board of a local foundation, mentoring student entrepreneurs -- are activities that I can do because of my legal skills and experience. And that's sort of how I'm looking at my work right now. As I learn more and get more experience, I'm becoming more valuable as a resource to others. I'm training myself for the future. I love advising people and being involved in my community, but no one wants your advice if you don't know anything special. When I imagine myself twenty years from now, I want to be an expert on something and to be able to contribute that expertise in some useful way. As cute as the baby is and as much as I love spending time with my kids, that alone won't get me there.

People always say how on your deathbed, you won't wish you did more work, you'll wish you spent more time with your family. But does that really mean that your non-family accomplishments ultimately have no value? Don't tell me if you were a Supreme Court justice but you never had kids, you're going to look back with regret. Or if you devoted lots of time when your kids were young to charity work, even if it often took you away from home. Or if you created a successful business with happy employees. Or if you invented something really useful. Obviously, the people you love have to be a key priority in your life. But I don't believe that in the end, nothing else matters. If everybody just tended to their own families, where would we be?

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Challenges of the week

1. Exercising every day. I'm not demanding too much of myself here -- twenty minutes or more, just to get back into the habit.

2. Learning how to play "The Entertainer" on the keyboard. I've been at it for days and I still suck. X doesn't seem to mind.

3. Eliminating X's 3 a.m. feeding. This is the big one.

For a long time X didn't have very consistent sleep patterns -- he'd wake up once, twice, or three times, and not always at the same times. It seemed like he was moving toward waking up once a night, around 3 a.m. But for the past couple of weeks, it's been 11 and 3 every night, meaning he's feeding every four hours around the clock. I know he's big enough now that he should be able to miss a feeding with no problem, so my goal is to give him a dream feed and not feed him again until the next morning.

The first two nights I managed to delay him for an hour or so, but ended up feeding him. The first night I unlatched him the second he stopped actively eating, and the second night I only nursed him from one side and then put him back to bed. Last night I was in his room from 3:30 until 6, but when the sun came up I declared victory. He went from 11 to 7:15 without eating! And unlike the first two nights, I didn't have to take him out of the crib to soothe him (which is counterproductive because then his face is right next to the food source), even though I lost track of the number of times I gave him his pacifier, swaddled him back up, and patted and shushed him back to sleep.

I'm hoping he'll catch on and stop waking up for that feeding. Meanwhile, I'm probably in for a few more sleepless nights.

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A partial list of places I have nursed X

A bowling alley

Ikea

The Museum of Fine Arts

Langdell Library at Harvard Law School, 4th floor reading room

The library

In the car
McDonald's at a highway rest stop

The steps leading to our garage

Restaurants

Various parks and outdoor festivals

On a bench in the bus station

The most rarefied place, I'd say, was Langdell. The reading room is one of my favorite places in the world and you need a Harvard ID to get in, so neither JW nor K has been there with me before (except K in utero). I wheedled my way up there on a hot day when I was hoping to work on an article during X's nap. Of course, he woke up five minutes later. He was calm, but the library was so quiet that his goos echoed around the room. After feeding him, I walked him around the Caspersen Room, which houses a rotating display of legal exhibits. He was very impressed by Roscoe Pound's desk.

The worst place was easily the bus tunnel. Flying solo, I took both kids on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Boston. That was a little too ambitious. This nursing adventure ended up with me pulling X off, grabbing the stroller and K's hand, and running for the bus.

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Five months (for real)

Dear X,

At five months, you are my calm and mellow baby. You gurgle and goo and look around with interest, but we rarely hear you cry unless you need something. You love bright colors and are happy in an art gallery or flower shop. You are solid on your feet and can sit upright for a few minutes at a time if you're propped up, but you seem to have no interest in turning or rolling. When you're on your back, you just lie there unless something catches your eye, and when you're on your stomach you lick the floor and cry. You like meeting people and dole out one big smile per new person, but when your brother is around you laugh and laugh. I can make you laugh, but it requires a lot more effort and the only foolproof way is to kiss you from your toes all the way up to your head.

You started solid foods this week, and you took to them right away. By the second day, you were already finishing up your oatmeal and wolfing down an entire jar of sweet potatoes. (That's right, I said jar. I tried the homemade baby food thing last time and I'm not going back.) I'm trying to break you of your habit of sticking your fingers in your mouth and then into your eye while eating. (Why into your eye? You never do that when you're not eating.)

People keep asking who in the family you resemble, and whether your personality is like your big brother's. You know, when I see you I don't see anyone else. And none of what I wrote above describes K as a baby. You are definitely your own little person and we look forward to getting to know you better.

Lots of love,
Mommy

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5 months (almost)

Doctor's appointment today: X is 15 pounds, 11 ounces. He's up three pounds and three inches from his 3-month appointment. The redness on his face is eczema, not just a drool rash like we thought, which explains why he claws at his face whenever he gets the chance. (Poor X inherited that from me. In hot weather, it takes all my self-control not to scrape the skin off my arms.)

The boys have been getting along very well. X's favorite person in the world is his big brother. When K is around, the baby just watches him and smiles and laughs. K enjoys playing with him and chanting, "What a cuuuuute baaaaby." K has also appropriated most of the baby toys and has endowed them with various superpowers. Unfortunately, K's favorite person is still me, so I can't fully exploit him to entertain the baby while I get chores done. I would love it if the baby's worship of his brother were mutual, Lag Liv style.

Last week I became a trial member of a local gym that has childcare. I've been going almost every day. I like the idea of being a gym-goer, and this place has a pretty serious clientele. Watching others at the gym, for the first time I'm beginning to understand what people mean when they say they "work out" (as opposed to running on the treadmill for a while and doing some stretching and situps). But I'm not sure if I'll manage to keep up this habit after my maternity leave ends, and the gym is pretty expensive. I probably won't continue after the one-month trial.

I also became a member of the MFA, and spent a rainy morning there wandering around with X. I hope we'll go back at least once more before my leave ends. We left a lot of the museum unexplored.

We spent the weekend at the in-laws' house. K splashed in the lake the entire weekend. This is the same boy who cried because his face got wet at his swimming lesson. I'm glad he got over that quickly.

Best news of this week: X can start daycare at the beginning of September! So we don't have to cobble something together (yay!) and I can start work on time (ambivalent).

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Solo weekend

I spent the first few days of the week hanging out with X at home, napping, practicing the keyboard, taking walks around the neighborhood, and recovering from our week out of town.

By Thursday I needed to get out of the house, and went to a playgroup run by our town's Family Network. It was good to get out and see people. Even though X screamed the second I put him in the car and didn't stop until I released him from the seat in both directions, as usual, at least the ride was only four minutes long. X was the youngest one there. I struck up a conversation with the two other moms of babies, but then they started competing about whose kids drank the least juice and I wandered away. I sat under a tree with a few moms and little kids until X started to squawk.

On Friday I was a little bolder and hopped a bus to Harvard Square. I didn't have a clear aim in mind, but when we got there I decided to take X to the Sackler Museum. (The Fogg, which displays modern art, would have been my preference but all the Harvard art museums are being renovated and they only have a small portion of their combined collections on display at the Sackler.) To my surprise, he LOVED it. I have never heard him babble so enthusiastically as when we were walking around those galleries. And as soon as we stepped into the stairwell, he would stop.

JW had to spend the entire weekend working, so it was me and the kids. Yesterday, we stuck around because X was having digestive problems and spent most of the day screaming. We played Hose Sprayer Man in the driveway, took a walk to count satellite dishes in the neighborhood (K hates taking walks unless there is some purpose, like collecting leaves or counting snails or dishes), and tried to help a neighbor find a lost dog.

Today I thought we could go to the MFA, where they have this Chihuly glass exhibit I thought K would love. (Also, they have air conditioning, which I would love!) But by the time we got it together, it was already 3 p.m. and the museum closes at 4:45. So we decided to have an adventure instead. We took the T into Boston and went to the playground at Boston Common. That part was great. The next part, not so much. It was such a hot day and there's a movie theater close by. I suggested we go see the Pooh movie. I told K that if X started to fuss we'd have to leave, but I hoped X would sleep through it. We ended up leaving with a crying child, but not the one I expected. The previews and commercials terrified K, especially a Sprite commercial where a guy's face breaks apart and turns into robotic parts. (Hello, theater manager! This is a movie for three-year olds about a bear who walks around the woods with his friends in search of honey!) At least we got a refund. X screamed all the way home and I ended up nursing him on a bench in the bus station, then pulling him off and running for the bus. Two separate kind women helped me get the stroller on and off the bus.

Other weekend activities: playing and playing and playing with K (who likes to give directions like, "You come down the stairs and say, 'Where's K?' Then you go in the living room. When you hear me laughing, say, 'Who is making that laughing noise?' Then come sit on the couch and pretend you don't notice me and I'm a pillow." K complains that his grandparents, who tend to go off-script, "don't play right").  De-scaling X's head. De-spidering K's playroom. Having the neighbors over for dinner and grilling something all by myself for the first time ever! (More or less. JW took the meat off the grill when I got distracted by K's potty emergency.)

And now it's Sunday night and as usual I'm wiped out and looking forward to Monday. When I'm back to work, what will I look forward to? I have a feeling life will be unremitting exhaustion.

Someone sent a message to one of my parent mailing lists advertising a room in a sunny Cambridge three-bedroom apartment to share with two other female grad students for $600 a month. I keep thinking about that for some reason. It just sounded so nice and simple. I know this is what we wanted, the kids, the big house in the nice neighborhood, the fancy jobs. I wouldn't give up the kids, of course (although it would be awfully nice to have grandparents nearby), and I know the rest is optional. But sometimes our lives seem so needlessly complicated.

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Seven qualities we want for our kids

I'm reading the excellent book Respectful Parents, Respectful Kids, which applies the principles of nonviolent communication to raising children. The central idea is that both parents and children have the same basic needs, including autonomy, respect, love, play, and health, and that parents and children should mutually respect each other, listen for the basic needs behind the requests and statements we make, and work together to meet each other's needs. We should avoid blaming, calling names, making demands, and issuing ultimatums -- even though these are accepted parenting techniques, when we use them we set a bad example and make our kids less likely to cooperate in the long term.

The book discusses the "Seven Keys to Cooperation" in detail. The first is "parenting with purpose", meaning that you should clarify your purpose in raising your children before figuring out what actions to take. At  first I thought, doesn't everyone have the same purpose in raising their kids? But one of the exercises challenges you to list seven qualities that you most want to see in your children when they become adults. Thinking about this, I realized that most parents would have at least slightly different lists. Here is mine:

1. Compassion, for themselves and for others.

2. Integrity: an internal drive to do what they feel is good, right, and just.

3. Open-mindedness: willingness and desire to consider all points of view, to learn from unfamiliar people, places, and ideas, and to change their minds.

4. Critical thinking: thinking deeply, questioning, and analyzing issues.

5. Confidence: feeling secure that they are loved, worthy, and can work to accomplish their goals.

6. Generosity: willingness to give of themselves, to friends, family, strangers, and causes, within appropriate boundaries.

7. Silliness: not taking themselves too seriously and making room for a little whimsy in their lives.

What's your list?

Update:

Here's a list from The Reluctant Grownup.

On the next page, the book asks you how you can demonstrate these qualities to set an example for your kids. As I reflected on this, it struck me that these are all qualities that I have and value about myself. Many that I considered but that didn't quite make the list of seven -- including creativity, humor, and a sense of adventure -- are qualities that I wish I had more of and would love my kids to have, but that I guess I don't consider essential. (After all, how can they be essential if I don't have them?) So this is really a list of the best of me that I'd like to pass on to my kids, and I would guess that's true for most people.

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Home again, home again, jiggety jig

TGIM! K is at school, X is napping in his crib, and all is right with this little corner of the world. Our 10-day trip was fun, but it's good to be home. A quick recap:

Friday: Drove to Grandma and Grandpa's house, stopping on the way for lunch. K stayed awake the whole way, a first. X did not, thank goodness. (We have to time our trips around X's naps. If he is awake in the car, he screams and screams. I had several conversations with members of JW's family in which I revealed this fact and they kept repeating, "But babies love the car!" Throughout the 10-day trip, this refrain kept echoing in my head as X screamed so hard that he made himself sputter and cough. Babies love the car.)

Saturday: 4th of July parade in town, K's favorite event of the summer because the passengers on antique cars, floats, and fire engines throw candy to the kids. Our last time having prime seats on the porch, since the house on the corner is being sold after 100 years with the same family.

Sunday: Big family dinner. I can't imagine not having these one day, even though JW's parents keep making noises about retiring somewhere warmer.

Monday: JW returns to Boston, I stay on with the kids. Before he leaves, we hang around JW's grandmother's house for a while, and then go to a cousin's beach where K forgets he hates being wet and has fun splashing around.

Tuesday: With much protest, K goes with me, X, and Grandma to Adirondack Animal Land, where he feeds goats and deer. (K is such a pain in the ass about going anywhere, even though he has a good time once he gets there.) I cook dinner and Grandpa actually likes it, instead of just politely eating it and declaring it "interesting". Yay!

Wednesday: I ditch K and take X to town for a trip to the antique store with JW's aunt. (My first time driving by myself up at the in-laws'!) We all get soaked in a sudden thunderstorm. JW returns at night, after the kids are in bed.

Thursday: Drive to Dida and Dadu's house (my parents), stopping to visit JW's grandmother on the way. When we get there, we find a family of rabbits in the backyard (once we saw a fox!). K rides his scooter around, helps water the flowers and fill the bird feeder, and tracks ants.

Friday: JW and I get to have a date night! We do our usual: dinner, bookstore, bar (coffee place was closed). I observe many perfectly gym-toned women who have nevertheless squeezed themselves into short dresses a size too small for them, along with five-inch heels, and men who use "fuckin'" several times in each sentence. It's Long Island all over.

Saturday: Into the city for my niece's third birthday party! In preparation, my mother obtains about forty pounds of fruit from Costco and spends the party pushing fruit salad to everyone who walks in.

Sunday: Four destinations before we finally leave for home: two friend and new-baby visits in Brooklyn (one with my HLS buddy PBB, and one with an old friend whose baby is one week younger than X but has about three inches and three pounds on him); a trip to the Central Park Zoo with my brother's family and a high school friend (who just set his wedding date for next spring!), where K is terrified by the 3D Dora and Diego video; and one more visit with Nonna in the Bronx. K is a trouper through all of this, and X doesn't do too badly either.

The kids got some quality time with both sets of grandparents and other family members. And I'm glad we got in multiple visits to both great-grandmothers, who are having some health problems. JW's paternal grandmother had unwittingly been taking a double dose of her medication, resulting in nausea and disorientation. She was feeling better by the time we left, but everyone was concerned about her mental state and what dose she should be taking, if any. JW's maternal grandmother is recovering from a major heart attack. When we rushed to see her a few weeks ago, we all thought we'd be attending her funeral. The doctors said it was a miracle that she survived after her heart stopped for twelve minutes. But each time we see her, she seems markedly improved both mentally and physically, and now there's even talk of her going home this weekend.

And now it's the middle of the afternoon on Monday and I've been grocery shopping and playing with X and catching up on my blogs. Less than two months of maternity leave left. For now, life is good.

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Four months' perspective on work

The first few months after X was born, I was so relieved and happy to be home. I was filled with anxiety over my eventual return to work. All the late nights, the billable hours, the stress. I have no idea how I'm going to make it work with two little kids at home, especially as I get more senior and the expectations ramp up.

Two things have recently made me realize my perspective on work has changed after being out for a while. First, we learned that we didn't have daycare lined up until mid-October. I asked the daycare to let us know if a spot opened up earlier and added, "Even if it's sooner than we wanted, let us know -- I'll just go back to work earlier." I feel more ready to go back now. I'm comfortable leaving X with someone else at this age, and I feel like I should be contributing to the household budget again.

Second, I pulled out my lawyering skills at a meeting of the foundation I joined recently. The day before, I spent a few hours going through all the documents I had, putting together a brief memo of my thoughts, and emailing it out to the committee. At the meeting, everyone had a copy of my email in front of them and referred to it throughout to frame the discussion. Even though I was new to the group and to the issue, I felt prepared and was able to contribute to the discussion, make some points I thought were important, and clarify our action items. I wouldn't have been able to do this a few years ago. I feel I've developed into a good lawyer. I can pick up a new issue, study it, analyze it, and make a reasoned recommendation. Posts like leo's and But I do have a law degree's summarize some of the things I hate about biglaw and confirm that it's unlikely to be a long-term career choice for me. But I've gotten excellent training, done interesting work, and worked with really smart and good people over the last few years. I've never dreaded going to work in the morning. I genuinely like my job, and if it weren't for the billable hours I might never want to leave.

I'm still loving maternity leave, and I still think going back will be difficult, but I'm getting closer to being ready each day. I hope I can return to work without losing this perspective -- that I can enjoy the good parts, do my best, and let the stress and anxiety go a little.

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Routine

After a horrible night during which X woke up every two hours, and needed so much calming that I'd end up spending about an hour in his room each time, I decided it was time to have a set routine for X. He is four months old now and according to my baby bible of choice, The Baby Whisperer, he should be eating every four hours and taking two 1.5-2 hour naps each day. Instead of eating every two hours and being up for an hour and down for 45 minutes throughout the day, and then waking up at all hours during the night.

I haven't entirely succeeded yet, but I have gotten him to consistently (except at the end of the day, when he gets really hungry) wait about 3.5 to 4 hours between feedings and consolidate some of those short naps. And I've been writing down when he eats, sleeps, and poops, which has made things easier, despite JW's efforts to thwart me.

We're now approaching a week that involves three 4-hour car trips and probably three different sleeping locations, none of which are home. We shall see how the routine fares.

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Bottle feeding

Getting K to take a bottle was a priority because I had to get back to work at 12 weeks. When he was just a few weeks old, we'd make sure to give him a pumped bottle every day. He never had a problem with it.

With X, I had such unpleasant memories of pumping that for a while I hoped I could just be there for every single feeding, or give him formula on the rare occasion that I couldn't, and then wean him at 6 months when I went back to work. I guess we could still do that, but I've become more reluctant to give him formula -- the one time we did, I was up half the night with him helping him work out some digestive issues. So I'm back to pumping.

We tried giving him a bottle every day starting when he was about six weeks old. No problem. So we'd let a few days slip here and there, when I didn't feel like pumping. But then days turned into weeks, and eventually we realized he hadn't had a bottle in over a month. It turns out four-month olds are not quite as adaptable as six-week olds, so we battled over that for a few days.

A few days ago, JW proposed taking over a night feeding so I could get some sleep. I've resisted that suggestion before because I feel like his sleep is more important, since he's working. Besides, I was worried that I would become so engorged that I'd need to wake up and pump anyway. But my milk supply is more stable now and I was dead tired, so I agreed. I pumped a bottle and, after a fight, he got the baby to take it. And you know what? After that bottle at 12:30, X slept until 6:15 the next morning! The next night I took JW up on his offer again. This time, X cooperated with the bottle at midnight, and didn't wake up until 5 a.m. (Of course, K woke up both nights around 2 or 3 a.m. Our children are conspiring against us.)

I knew better than to assume X's long sleeps would be a pattern, but it definitely seemed like a good thing. I decided to keep giving him a nighttime bottle, thinking that I could control the amount he ate to make sure he'd get enough to sleep for a long while, and that not getting the breast might discourage him from waking up so much at night. So last night, I gave him a 5 ounce bottle at 1 in the morning and happily went to bed, hoping to not wake up until the next morning. (I had reminded, reassured, and threatened K before bed to discourage him from wandering into our room at 3 a.m. again.) But X woke up at 3:30 crying, and then at 4:30 screaming, and then at 5 I had to feed him. JW had given him 4-ounce bottles, so I thought 5 would be plenty. But maybe it wasn't enough, or maybe it was the fact that I, the food source, was the one attending to him at night again.

Tonight I'll try again with a bigger bottle. No rest for the weary.

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Daycare for X

X has been on the waiting list at K's daycare. I haven't really looked around for other options, assuming we'd get in because they give priority to families who already have kids there. Today they called and said they have a spot open... in mid-October. About five weeks after I'm scheduled to start work.

It's possible that something will open up earlier, and they said they'd call me if that happened. But we need to think about how to cover those five weeks.

We could do temporary care at the Bright Horizons near work, if they have capacity in September. I'd have to commute with X, but the nice part is that he'd be right downstairs.

We could try to get a short-term nanny, or see if the family next door with a nanny would be willing to let us drop off X at their house.

My mom might be able to come. She stayed with us and took care of K when he was a baby, and I know that she was looking forward to doing the same with X. (I know this because shortly before X was born, my sister-in-law called and said, "If you don't want your mom to live with you all summer, you might want to give her a heads up.") She's still working, but she is sometimes able to take long leaves. On one hand, it would be kind of tough having her here -- we have a good relationship, but it's always hard having long-term guests. On the other hand, it could be kind of awesome. My whole first month back at work, I wouldn't have to worry about drop-offs and pick-ups and getting the kids ready in the morning.

These things are always so complicated.

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Business trip, New York trip, and home again

Wednesday morning was my first board meeting for the community foundation. I'm excited to get involved, even though it's already turning out to be more of a commitment that I anticipated. Every day I get at least a few emails requiring my attention, and next week there's a committee meeting to discuss a complicated legal issue.

JW left for OmaHAAAA on Wednesday afternoon and returned Friday night. Wednesday night we went to the neighbors' house for dinner, Thursday I had friends over for dinner (and abandoned them for about forty minutes while putting the kids to bed), and Friday we recovered. X became uncharacteristically fussy while JW was gone -- do you think he's old enough to actually miss his Daddy? I think he's old enough that he's starting to prefer his parents to other people, or maybe he's just more used to us.

Saturday we attended an outdoor birthday party for one of K's classmates, immediately followed by an outdoor town party sponsored by the foundation, immediately followed by us loading the kids into the car and driving to New York. JW's grandmother is in the hospital and the family converged on the Bronx to visit her. We spent most of Sunday and Monday at her house, taking turns going to the hospital (the kids were too little to come). Which reminds me, I need to learn about assisted living facilities and other end of life and elder care issues, partly because I want to be able to help or at least understand what's going on, and partly because I know I'll have to face this one day with our own parents. Anybody know of any good resources?

All day Sunday I felt even more like a zombie than usual, after driving half the night on Saturday and then staying up the other half of the night with X in my brother's Manhattan apartment with glaring lights, sirens, and horns going all night. Sunday night we stayed at my parents' place on Long Island and I got to sleep in until 9 a.m. Then I took an hour and a half nap with X in the afternoon while JW was at the hospital. I had another Flowers for Algernon moment -- for the rest of the day, I actually felt human again. I even drove back home without my eyelids drooping once. But then we went to bed around 11 after arriving late, and I woke up at 11:30 to feed X, 1:15 because K's radio alarm had gone off for some reason and a sports radio guy was shouting at him about Albert Pujols, 3:30 to feed X again, briefly at 5:30 to give JW a shove and ask him to check on the baby, and then up for the morning at 7. At least I didn't have to get up for good at 5:30 like I did when JW was gone. But that awake feeling went away so quickly. This morning JW told me to put cream on the rash on X's left cheek, and I just stood there staring at the baby trying to figure out which side of his face was the left. X is around 15 weeks old. Most women are back at work already after taking their maternity leave. How do they do it? Hardly any babies sleep through the night at this age. I haven't recovered my short-term memory and my brain is functioning at maybe 80%.

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Games K likes to play

Car Superheroes (with his toy cars from the "Cars" movie, which he only saw the first two minutes of before deeming it "too scary"). The red car is Lightning the Queen, with lightning power; blue is Ice Car, with the power to encase other cars in ice; yellow is Color-Changing Car, with the power to change the color of other cars, making them confused; and green is Pear Car, with the power to shoot pears for people to eat. Pear Car originally shot fireballs, but I asked K to make it something less violent. Pear Car can team up with Ice Car to make pear popsicles.

Superhero Family. K's powers vary, although he is always fond of the power to shoot blocks of ice. Daddy is No Pants Man, with the power to make people wear shorts. Mommy is Dessert Girl. X is Super Baby, with the power to nap. I am always tasked with thinking up scenarios requiring the entire Super Family. For instance, someone was bringing cake and ice cream to a party, but he fell and the cake and ice cream smashed all over his pants. No Pants Man can give him some clean shorts, while Dessert Girl and Ice Man work together to recreate the cake and ice cream. Super Baby cooperates by napping through all of this. Or a simpler scenario: someone's pants are on fire and he's really hungry.

The "I'll Eat My Hat" Game. We take turns saying something ridiculous, and the other one says, "If [something ridiculous], I'll eat my hat." For instance, "I'm going to take X back to the baby store and trade him for a monkey." "If you trade X for a monkey, I'll eat my hat."

Rock Band (not the video game -- he likes that too, but our drum set has been broken for a while). When someone points at you, you have to be the singer.

Pirates. Follow the pretend map and dig up the hidden treasure. The map must require you to walk on a tightrope at some point, and to jump in a hole or into a pipe.

Scary Goats. I chase him around making goat noises. (This game originated when K ran away from me and jumped on to the couch with Daddy, yelling, "A scary ghost is chasing me!" Daddy replied, "What's so scary about goats?")

And finally, not exactly a game, but he loves telling knock knock jokes, some standards and some he makes up himself. One day, a long time ago, he came home with one from school: "Knock knock." "Who's there?" "Mr. Yama." "Mr. Yama who?" "Mr. YamaHAAAAA!" We had no idea why this was a joke, but the delivery was hilarious and it became a standard in our house, along with variations ("ObamaHAAA!"). It turned out the guy who plays music at their school on Fridays has a Yamaha amp and he tells this "joke" when it's time to pull out the amp. Today when JW left for his business trip, K asked where he was going. "Omaha," I replied. Then K and I looked at each other and simultaneously said, "Knock knock."

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