Extended family vacation

I wrapped up an eventful week at work early for my cousin's wedding. Weddings, actually. It's common in my community for people who marry others of a different religion to have two separate ceremonies.

(JW and I didn't -- we had an interfaith ceremony and had to do lots of arguing to get everyone on board. From the beginning, we both agreed that we were blending our lives, and our wedding ceremony was the place to start. We both felt that if you have more than one ceremony, it's as if only one is "real" and each side can say it's theirs. While I'm reminiscing back to our engagement, the night that he proposed we also both agreed, without any prior discussion, that we wanted to get married at Manning Chapel at Brown, our alma mater. It felt like a good sign that we both had the same thoughts about our wedding, and it did turn out to presage a marriage where we're nearly always on the same wavelength about important decisions. But anyway, this post isn't about that.)

This cousin went a step further and had not only two separate ceremonies, but also two separate receptions. Two full weddings, on two consecutive nights. My side of the family descended on Charlotte, North Carolina en masse for these events.

Friday, our alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. and we had the kids in the car, headed to the airport, before 5:30. The flight was only an hour and a half and both kids were content to watch videos and chow down on snacks. (I learned that X is a big Dora fan. K eschewed the in-flight entertainment because he might see something scary, and opted instead for downloaded Jake and the Neverland Pirates episodes on JW's computer.) When we arrived, we headed for my cousin's house.

K had refused his usual pre-flight Dramamine. He was fine on the plane, but by the time we got out of the car in Charlotte, tears were streaming down his face and he looked thoroughly green. He spent the next couple of hours sobbing and pulling at his ears. Meanwhile, X managed to lock himself in one of the bedrooms. I ran back and forth between K, who was in the bathroom trying to throw up, and the half dozen relatives in the hallway attempting to pick the lock.

JW eventually managed to get the door open and rescue X. K took a long nap and felt better. The boys spent the rest of the afternoon wrestling with their older cousins, and then we dressed up and went to the wedding. It turned out that the first wedding was basically for the groom's side of the family -- Western clothes, lots of Jesus talk, dry reception (which JW was pretty upset about) -- and the second wedding was the Indian wedding. The wedding was a bit of an ordeal for us and my brother and sister-in-law, since between us we had four children between the ages of 11 months and 6 years. I spent most of the time running after the kids and barely got to eat dinner, let alone watch the ceremony or enjoy the reception.

Friday night my baby nephew was sick and screamed the entire night. Around 4 a.m., I got up and downloaded a white noise app. Nephew was quiet after that and our kids got up at 6, so it didn't help.

Saturday none of us had much energy. We hung out at our house all day. There were no toys, so the kids had to be resourceful. K and his cousin M colored and cut out masks, which they used to put on a play. Act 1 consisted entirely of the two of them falling down repeatedly and yelling. Act 2 featured an exciting fight scene. X spent over an hour quietly cutting pieces of paper into teeny tiny shreds, which were repurposed as snow in Act 3. The play fell apart in Act 4 when M wanted Cement Man and Goggles Ghost to fall in love and K would have none of it.

Saturday night was wedding #2. My brother and I had learned a Bollywood dance for the occasion. The bride had choreographed an entire "flashmob" routine for the guests, with a step-by-step YouTube tutorial. We plotted ways to make it an actual flashmob: get everyone to jump up about 20 minutes into the ceremony and break into the dance; recruit everyone we could find at the hotel bar to run in just for the dance and leave again immediately after. But on their second night of insufficient sleep, the kids tore around the dance floor like crazy during dinner, and then we had to leave before the meltdowns got bad. It didn't end up mattering whether the wedding was "dry" or not, since the second night I think JW and I together managed to drink less than half a glass of wine. We were too busy chasing after the kids. I didn't even get to eat dessert either night. What's the point of a wedding with no ceremony (that I got to see), no dancing, and no dessert (substitute "drinking" if you are not me)? The moral of the story is: Don't bring kids to weddings, even if they are invited. I love my kids, but it wasn't their scene. The weddings would have been really fun if they weren't there.

Sunday we spent the day at my cousin's house. With the big events out of the way, this was a laid-back family reunion. It was fun. The boy cousins spent most of the time wrestling again. JW took the boys swimming and got a bad sunburn.

Sunday I also got a text from our contractor, announcing that he was going to come by on Wednesday to set things up, and that he planned to start demolition in a week so we needed to get everything out of the kitchen.

Today we flew back home and immediately started on the kitchen. Tonight we sleep in our own beds for one night. Tomorrow we head to the in-laws' house for more family togetherness -- JW's sister and her family are coming up for the week, so we're going to extend our vacation and see them. More cousins! More chaos! My sister-in-law's kids are 2 and 3, so I'm expecting a cuter yet more exhausting variety of kid chaos.

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Real life in biglaw: "making it work" and "having it all"

Excerpts from an email exchange with a friend, posted here with her permission. She left her large firm and is currently practicing in a happier environment.

Me: One of the associates who's pregnant said she wants me to "teach her how to be a working mom." HA HA.

Her: OH I KNOW, RIGHT.  When I left, I had a PARADE of young female associates in my office, going "BUT YOU WERE MY ROLE MODEL FOR HOW TO SURVIVE THIS."  And I was just like, LOL OMFG.

Me: To be fair, it seemed like you were making it work for a long time. Or rather, even though it was tough, you seemed like you still thought it was worth it and were reasonably happy with both your home life and work life. No?

Her:

Yeah, I think I gave a lot of people the impression that it was working.  And I think many days and weeks, I was able to fool myself too.  But when I look back and remember what was going on, it's kind of striking how many separate near-breaking-points there were.  How tortured I felt about the full-time/part-time thing.  And how much I used to kind of hate myself for feeling despondent when all these people kept telling me how I was supermom and superassociate and "going to make partner."  I'd be like, except why do I want to jump out the nearest window?  And I blamed myself a lot.  It didn't work very well.  I just pulled off a good illusion.

Me:

Hmm, I don't think I ever understood the extent of that. I knew you went through rough patches, but my interpretation was that you were always on that righteous path to partnership and ultimately you were okay with it, even if you were conflicted. And that you finally left after realizing that no matter how much you give, it's never going to be enough.

I really feel you on all of this. The string of near-breaking-points, glossed over with "it is what it is" and "I can do this," and the praise for having it all when, if you allow yourself to admit it even for a moment, you're actually unhappy and if this is having it all, you don't WANT it all. And especially the blaming yourself for all of it.

Her:

Also, inertia and fear are powerful forces.  I spent a lot of time thinking that staying was "worth it" because statistics SAY I will not survive Biglaw, and I cannot ADD to those statistics. I stayed for lots of reasons.  I didn't know what else to do.  I didn't know if anywhere else would be better.  I was ashamed of giving up.  I still wanted to believe in the system, and in the merits of partnership.  I still wanted it all to be FOR something.  None of these decisions is simple.  Some days I was happier than others.  But looking back, I think it only "worked" when forces outside my control allowed it to work (e.g., it's a slow week -- extra play time with the baby!  Deadline extended!  Client cancelled project!)  But anytime things got Biglaw-y, it fell apart fast.

 

Me:
This too. Although I already added to the statistics once (leaving engineering for law) so I got most of my angst about that over with last time.

I have had partners say to me explicitly that I need to be a role model. As in, I say, "There are very few female corporate partners at the firm period, and none with young children," and they say, "That's why you have to stick with it and be a role model, to show that it can be done!" Except... if nobody else has done it, and I don't want to do it, maybe there's a good reason for that.

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Phone call with X

I had an entire phone conversation with X! (Why phone? Working late, of course.)

Me: Hi X! It's Mommy!

X: HI!! I TALKING MOMMY!

Me: Did you have a good day?

X: YES!!

Me: Did you go to the playground?

X: YES!!

Me: Are you eating dinner?

X: YES!!

Me: What are you eating for dinner?

X:  I EATING K EAT DINNER! DADDY DINNER!

Me: I love you!

X: I LOB YOU???

K: Hi Mommy!

X (in the background): AAAHHH MY PHONE! I TALK. MY TURN. I'M PHONE!!

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Minor me update

After failing to think of a single blogworthy thing in my life when firing up the ol' browser window for yesterday's post, I came up with a few small items. For the sake of breaking out of a non-blogging period, here they are:

1. Commuting. I recently switched from a driving commute to a public transit commute. I thought I'd miss driving, but so far I like the T commute even though it's a lot longer. I get to zone out, or get work done if I'm so inclined, and get more outside time (which may not be so much fun come winter). If I have a few extra minutes on my way in, I can replace the last leg of my subway commute with a nice walk through the city and over the harbor.

The main downside is that dropoff is a pain. The other day X insisted on walking to school and then would not budge, no matter how much I cajoled and threatened and tried to physically pick him up and haul him to daycare (he FINALLY ran, but in the opposite direction). Never underestimate the power of a stubborn toddler. It took us half an hour to walk about 1/3 of a mile. Then I got K on the bus with me to go to camp and the driver missed our stop. We arrived late and wandered around for a while before finding anyone. Two hours after leaving home, I walked into my office. Anyway, camp is only four weeks.

2. Work. I've been supervising junior associates more. I now know how it feels to be the one giving the assignments. Among other things, I have a much better idea of the importance of regular communication and status updates, and why when I was a junior associate, partners would give me the tiniest edits to make on documents when it would have been much easier for them to just fix it themselves. And I understand the value of having someone you can trust to go off and do something correctly and seek appropriate supervision. Also, the junior associates are eager to do things that I find really boring, like anything to do with securities and corporate governance. (You know, the stuff that corporate lawyers do.)

3. Running. For a month or two now I've been waking up early to go running. At first I'd just go for short runs around the neighborhood. Then, mainly due to late nights at work, I'd wake up later and later and my runs would get more and more half-assed. Like, I'd only have 15 minutes before the kids woke up and I would jog halfway around the block and walk the rest and call it a day. Recently I started driving over to a local park where I run a loop around a reservoir surrounded by forest. It adds a little time, but now I actually enjoy waking up early and going for a run.

4. Yoga. I've also been doing a 30 day yoga challenge and loving it. It's only about 15 minutes a day and has been a gentle but effective reintroduction to yoga. After not doing it for a while, it always seems daunting to start up again but it's so worth it. It's the only thing that consistently helps with my chronic wrist problems.

5. Nonprofit. I am now (well, officially as of next week) the president of the local nonprofit whose board I joined a few years ago. Turns out that if there is no money or prestige associated with a position, all you have to do is show up and do stuff and you will be pushed into taking over. I resisted the new commitment at first, but I do care about the organization and enjoy being involved. So I ended up accepting, and was surprised at how quickly I switched over to thinking strategically instead of just working on discrete projects. I think it'll be good.

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Kid update

Haven't had a lot to write about lately. Life continues, more or less the same, summer edition.

X is talking more. Yesterday he told me, "I stepped on a Lego guy." And lo and behold, stuck to the bottom of his foot was a tiny Darth Maul. He has also been making up his own words, which he says to be funny. They all sound like "hubees, poodees, nunees, tugees," or lately "cloak-clok." X likes to say, "Ready set go!" before he does anything. He insists "Hold my hand!" when he's walking with K, but doesn't want to hold my hand unless he's forced to (crossing the street or parking lot). And instead of "I want," he says "I'm," as in "I'm corn. I'm milk. I'm go outside."

X is pretty consistently pooping in the potty. Typically for X, he's doing things the opposite way from how K did them. K peed in the potty when he was a bit older, but had to be repeatedly bribed to poop in the potty. It doesn't occur to X to pee in the potty unless he already happens to be near it with his diaper off. That's okay with me for now. Changing those diapers is easy, and I don't really understand the utility of potty training for kids who are too young to reliably get to and use the potty by themselves. Frankly, diapers are convenient. I don't want to have to stop and try to find an acceptable toileting area when we're out and about.

K started camp. He likes it. The first day he had a scary experience in the pool. According to his version of the story, nobody noticed or helped him when he was going under and choking. I should follow up with the counselors on this. Unfortunately, since he has my genes, the 4-foot pool is deeper for K than for the other kids his age.

Nothing much to report about the grownups, so I guess that's it for now.

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K's first solo trip

I miss K, which is ridiculous since I normally wouldn't see him until later anyway. The grandparents came and took him away for a few days. I feel like a little piece of me is stretched out on a rubberband. Not so much a piece of my heart, more like a piece of my intestine or something that I just assume is always with me without thinking too much about it. Turns out I'm fine with going away from him, but I don't like it when he goes away from me.

I thought I'd be sick of him after last week. I took the week off from work and we hung out together. Tuesday was his last day of kindergarten. (Monday I finally got to have the me-day I didn't get for my birthday. I ate falafel and ice cream and browsed in a bookstore and saw "This is the End.") We spent the rest of the week lounging around the house, running errands, visiting the Museum of Science, playing air hockey and pinball at the local arcade, bowling, and hitting baseballs in the backyard. Over the weekend we went to the playground, swam at Walden Pond, played at the Children's Museum, and made lemon blueberry ice cream. Every day, K danced around and yelled, "Summer vacation!"

Last night, I told K I thought X would miss him most of all. K cried a little and said, "He loves to hug me! We play and wrestle together every day. Give X a big hug for me, okay? I'm really going to miss him!" I thought X would be sad and confused with K gone, but K would be happy to have all the attention to himself (and nobody destroying his stuff). They've really become good friends over the past few months.

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Good luck work day

I am having this amazing day where my work keeps going away. Two-hour conference call? Rescheduled after 15 minutes. Two different high-priority agreements that we've been negotiating for weeks? Everyone decides to accept all the changes and sign. Trio of related agreements that I have to draft more or less from scratch, and have been putting off? Client says the deal isn't going to work out and he doesn't need them anymore. I got a couple of new things, but nothing urgent. YAY.

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