Welcome home

I was away last week on travel for work. The morning I left I had to get up at "oh,god"-thirty in the morning to catch my flight. Later, when Little Bit woke, DH said he started playing with his toys. Then, Little Bit picked up his toy phone.

"I calling Mommy...Hello, Mommy!...I love you. Bye-Bye."

He said hello to me on the real phone later that day and told me he loved me, but the rest of my trip he refused to talk to me on the phone. I shouldn't take it too personally though. He does the same thing to his grandparents when he's watching cartoons.

I missed DH and Little Bit a lot. Little Bit asked about me everyday. Sometimes DH had to carry him around the house in the middle of the night to show him that Mommy wasn't hiding somewhere. Once he knew for sure I wasn't there, he let his dad settle him back to sleep.

Little Bit has the habit of repeating the last word or few words of most anything you tell him. He's repeating the words with a question in his voice. Maybe he picked it up from me. I repeat his words in a questioning voice when I'm making sure I understood (translated) his toddler-ese correctly. The repeating can be cute or annoying depending on how many nerves are left (i.e. "You're getting on my last nerve."). He also prefaces many of his statements with, "Hey, Mommy?" or "Hey, Daddy?" to make sure we are listening to what he's going to say.

DH relayed a variation of this occuring every day I was gone:

Where Mommy?
She went on the airplane, to see the rocket. She'll be back in threeeee days. (Hold up 3 fingers.)
Airplane?
Uh huh.
Rocket?
Yes. Remember, we watched it yesterday. It went "whoosh!" up into the sky!
Where rocket?
It's flying up in outer space. The mommies and daddies on it are working on a satellite. They'll be done soon, and will come back down and go home to their houses.
Flying?
Yep.
Home?
That's right.

When I got home from my business trip Friday afternoon, I found a sick little boy. DH had been watching over him all day. He had a virus and hadn't been able to keep anything down. He lay on the couch watching cartoons. I sat next to him where he could put his feet on me, and I could reach over to pat him comfortingly. I was telling DH about my trip, when Little Bit piped up.

"Hey, Mommy?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"Stop talking." (Said in the sweetest little boy voice you can imagine)

DH and I fell over laughing. Little Bit was trying to watch his cartoons, and I was talking! Never mind that I'd just returned from being gone all week. I was interrupting his cartoons.

Little Bit had a few crackers and some water before bedtime and was able to keep them down. He woke later in the middle of the night asking for milk. I (silly mommy) gave it to him. He promptly gave it back all over our bed where he was sleeping between DH and I. Welcome home and happy birthday to me. (Yep, it was my birthday this last Saturday. Little Bit's is next week.) Thankfully, Little Bit woke up Saturday morning his usual bright eyed self.

The cranky saga continues

I told my manager yesterday that I had a medical diagnosis for what's been going on - PMDD. At first when I said "PMDD", he got the hint of a smile, like maybe he thought I was kidding. I continued on seriously, that the difficulty concentrating, the migraines, the debilitating symptoms every month were all symptoms. Looking back, it really pisses me off that maybe he at first thought I was joking. Like, ha-hah, I've got really bad PMS. No, it's not a fucking joke. Has your wife gone through menopause? Then you should effing know what hormone imbalances can do to someone.

The other thing that pisses me off is that yesterday he suggested we look into finding me another position to rotate into, since I'm on our lead's "list". What the hell?! We just finally got an intermediary on our side of things to help "translate" what the lead wants. This intermediary has been a huge, huge help the last few weeks. The intermediary told me that he thought any reassignment for me was on hold, pending how things work with him interfacing for us and translating. I'm pissed that it sounds like my manager is no longer in my corner. At least, the intermediary is in my corner. Maybe he can convince the lead to wait and see how things go. I don't know what will happen. I just need to continue to produce.

Yesterday afternoon, I was overwhelmed with a flood of despair. It all seemed to be too much, too big. I wanted to go home and curl up on my bed, in a dark room, and hug a stuffed animal, and try to sleep. To disappear. But I don't have the "luxury" of doing that right now. So, I concentrated on one thing at a time -- open the file I needed to work on, start copying and pasting info from another file. One thing at a time. It worked. I was able to get a decent amount of work done. And I felt a bit better this morning, having gotten some work done.

A Morning in the Life

Every night before bed I think, "Tomorrow I will get up early. It'll be great! I won't have to rush to get ready, and I'll get to work early." The reality is that I'm just not a morning person. I love my sleep. Alarm clocks are not my friend. So, I wake up late, realizing that I forgot to turn on the evil alarm clock. I set Little Bit up in front of tv watching his favorite cartoons. I hurry through a shower, then find some khakis and one of my go-to tops to throw on. On the days when DH can take Little Bit to daycare, I don't end up quite so late to work, but I'm still late. The flextime excuse can only take you so far. When I have drop off Little Bit, there's an extra 30-45 minutes tacked onto my morning routine. First, I have to bargain with Little Bit to change his diaper. "If you want to keep watching cartoons, then we need to change your diaper." Next, I suggest a shirt for the day. If he insists on wearing his pajama shirt to daycare, oh, well. He's only two and a half. Try to find some clean pants for him. Are they in the dryer? Darn, forgot to run that load last night. OK, yesterday's jeans aren't too bad. Dust them off and wrestle them onto the boy. If Little Bit protests turning off the tv in order to leave, I offer him a job to do. He's still in that 'wants to help' stage, so I milk it for all it's worth encourage him. Would you like to feed the kitty cats? Or, would you like to carry my coffee cup? (Don't worry...it's empty. I tank up with coffee at the bagel shop on my way to work.) I drop Little Bit off at daycare. All the little girls (and the few boys) in his class crowd around him when we come into the room. He's already very popular (lord, help me when he's a teenager). They want to see what he's brought with him (sometimes he insists on bringing a stuffed animal). The classroom teacher asks if he's had any breakfast yet. The answer is usually no. I can feel the stink-eye she is giving me, while she's thinking, "You're bringing that boy in here this late and he *still* hasn't had breakfast?" Mommy FAIL. They now know to either save back a breakfast for him or plan to get him some cereal when he arrives. Oh, yeah, sometimes his hair doesn't even get combed before he gets dropped off. He *hates* to have his hair combed; it's not always a battle I want to fight. So, the cowlick sticking up in the back just adds to the overall pajama top, slightly dirty jeans look. He's going for a grunge vibe. Yeah, that's it. After a stop for bagel and coffee to go, I slink into work, hoping that it hasn't been noticed that I'm late. It is noticed on the mornings I slink into our weekly staff meeting after it's started. The topic -- how it's now expected for us to be in at 8am. No more lenient flextime. Awesome.

Home again

While I was away, I called home every night at Little Bit's bedtime. He would say, happily, "Mommy...Mommy...Mommy!" I'd ask him if he had played ball that day and he'd say, "I play ball" or "I slide". When I said, "I love you", he said back, "I love you, Mommy." {Here's where my heart melted into a puddle of goo.}

It was so amazingly awesome to be able to 'talk' to him on the phone and to know that he understood that his mommy was coming back. Eight months ago, when I turned down a business trip, he was just too young, I thought, for him to understand I'd be back and too young for me to be able to leave for a week. But he's a big boy now, and this business trip was just for three nights. We could do it.

During the first two nights I was away, Little Bit did ok. He would ask where I was, but accept when DH told him that I was away on an airplane and would be back in so-many nights. Little Bit began to expect my call each night. If the phone rang near his bedtime, he got a big smile and became very excited. On the third night, my last night away, Little Bit had had enough. He kept asking for me and had trouble being settled down to sleep.

I flew back home yesterday. I was very excited to see Little Bit, figuring he would be ecstatic to see me. I was looking forward to that moment when the huge smile of joy lit up his face, and he came running to hug me. I was at home when DH returned from picking Little Bit up at daycare. Little Bit came inside the house saying, "Ride bike outside!!" Basically, he seemed to notice me, like - oh, hai - and kept running to get his tricycle. DH said the look on my face was priceless, like, whut? I certainly didn't expect that reaction.

We all went outside. Little Bit rode his tricycle, walking his feet along as he sat on the seat (he's still working the the whole pedaling thing), while DH and I walked behind him.

On the walk back home, DH reminded Little Bit how they had talked before bed the last few nights about mommy being away on the airplane, but that mommy would be back, and here I was. Maybe Little Bit had been playing cool, because he was annoyed I had left. If so, I was forgiven now. The distraction of his tricycle could last only so long.

For the rest of the evening, Little Bit wanted Mommy. He wanted me to carry him when he was through riding his tricycle. He wanted to sit on my lap while we ate dinner. He was glued to my side or in my lap as we watched cartoons before bedtime. That was a balm to my slightly injured feelings. He did miss me. I soaked in the warmth of his small body next to mine.

Not too long ago, I was settling Little Bit into my lap for storytime before bed. I exclaimed as I hefted him, "You're getting so big!" He said, "No big boy," and snuggled in closer to me. {Here's where my heart melted into a puddle of goo.} Right then, he didn't want to be a big boy. He wanted to be my little boy. I reassured him, "You'll always be my baby." I hugged him even closer.

Wordless Wednesday

At the launch pad.

The Mommy Track

So, here I am with another of the choices faced by moms who work outside the house. My manager is offering for me to attend/observe a week long training at Kennedy Space Center. I would be coming up to speed, related to becoming a focal for our team on this work. I would love to go observe the training. Seeing astronaut training in person at KSC? Heck, yeah!! But that would mean being away from Little Bit for about 6 days. Before becoming a mom and before marriage, I was all about business trips. I got to travel and stay in hotels and eat out all on work's dime. Plus, I got to participate in usually interesting work. It was great.

Now, though, I can't imagine being away from Little Bit for that many days and nights. He still needs me too much. I need him too much. I need to see him at the end of the day, to hear his laugh, to hug him close.

Last night's "Canterbury's Law" on TV had several scenes of the main character remembering when her son (about 5-7 years old?) disappeared - a mom's worst nightmare. And it was *her* fault, related to work even. (Damn those writers! for playing on a working mother's guilt.) She answered a call from work, looking away from her son playing on the playground. When she finished the call, he was gone, a black van pulling away in the background. The feeling of that scene and its horror haunted me. In last night's dreams, I was, at one point, desperately looking for Little Bit. When I found him, safe with friends, just on the other side of the house, I hugged him tight and kissed his little face.

I want to go to the training for work, but right now, I just *can't*. In the pull between him and work, Little Bit wins.