Bucket List

Last summer, the Mad Scientist and I had a long weekend without the kids. I reveled in the luxury of extra time to myself. I vowed in this here spot on the web to take more time to myself. Shortly thereafter, DQ got sick and I remembered why I didn't schedule in time for myself. The problem with all of that is both were right. I deserve to do things for myself, yet I still have to take care of my family.  So, for a while now, I've been trying to figure out how to accomplish that goal.

Then one of my circle of pulmonary hypertension friend's daughter was placed on hospice. They created a bucket list for Molly. When it became evident that Molly wasn't going to live long enough to accomplish the vast majority of things on her bucket list, people from across the country and the globe printed off Molly's picture and took her places and gave her experiences so her bucket list could be completed. In Molly's final days, she laid in her bed with her mom, looking at her picture traveling the world. She did so many things. And she continues to do so.

Molly's story made me think. I can't continue to put off my life until tomorrow. While I spend so much time trying to give DQ a wonderful life, I've ignored that for myself. And even though I tell the kids all of the time that nobody knows when they are going to die, something in me keeps saying "wait until tomorrow." So, I decided to start my own bucket list.


The problem is . . . I don't know what things I want to accomplish. I don't want to run a marathon or climb Mt. Everest. If I never swim with the dolphins or learn to play the violin, I'm okay with that.  So, when I started this blog post last week, all I could think of was one thing--visit Iceland.  But, really, I'd rather sit on a beach closer to home, than jump on a plane for a really long flight. So I took Iceland off my list.  After all, a bucket list should be full of things you feel compelled to do and would regret not doing. While I think it would be fabulous to see Iceland, I'd rather be home relaxing with my family.

And so I continued to ponder what would be on my bucket list. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that there isn't any single thing I must do or I will regret not doing it . . . except spend time with my loved ones. I want time to enjoy my family. I want to be with them and see them enjoying life. I want to entertain in my home, inviting friends over, and make them lavish meals that I can watch them enjoy. Or even have a house that is convenient for just stopping by for coffee in the evening to chat. 

I don't want to miss my kids going to bed every night. I want to hug them and kiss them and tell them stories. But, I still want to get them off to school in the morning and kiss them goodbye.

All of these things are very difficult right now because our house is so small. In order for me to be home at night when the kids go to bed, I have to pack up my work for the night, bring it home and clean off the dining room table just to set my computer down. While it only takes about 15 minutes before and after I work, it is a hassle that I just don't want to deal with for an hour's worth of work, so I kiss my babies over the phone and then again when they are asleep. But, if I had an office at home dedicated to my work, it wouldn't take that long. We don't currently have the space for me to have my own office (my kids share a bedroom!).

If I want to cook for friends, we have to squeeze into my dining room/office. Six people fit, sometimes eight, but that requires some people sitting in the other room! This is not conducive to entertaining.

So, in order to make my "bucket list" a reality, the Mad Scientist and I are looking for a new house--our forever home. I am excited and petrified all at that same time. Please wish me luck and when we have some space, you'll all be invited over for coffee or a gluten free lasagna extravaganza! (Yes, I am feeling better gluten free. Can't imagine going back!)

It's all about balance . . . isn't it?

As a young woman, beginning my life, I was told over and over again that I could have it all. I could be the working mom. I could be a professional. I could do it all. The only limit was my dreams.

But that's not true.

You can't live all of your dreams at once, unless you are incredibly lucky. And let's face it, most of us are not that lucky.

To succeed as a mom, you need to invest a lot of time. To succeed as a wife, you need to invest a lot of time. To succeed professionally, you need to invest a lot of time. To maintain sanity, you need time to yourself.

All of it takes time. But you can't buy time. So you can't buy your dreams. You must choose.  And even if you think you have no choice, you are still choosing. 

Everyone will tell you that the trick is to find the correct balance of each facet of life to feel like you haven't given up on everything.

Balance.

That's what it's all about. Or so they try to make us believe. I constantly read articles on how to achieve balance. They all promise the same thing: if you balance your life, you WILL be happy.

But, you know what I think?

I think achieving balance is bull.  The people who sell us "balance" are the same ones who once told me the only limit was my dreams.  Life makes it difficult, if not impossible, to balance everything. There will always be something tipping the scales and attempting to knock us down.

The real trick is to stay on the line when the wind is blowing you over. You don't have to be balanced all the time. You just have to make sure you don't fall off.

I've been pretty close to falling the last couple of weeks. In order to stay on the line though, I had to let go of blogging and reading blogs for a while.  I hope some of the other things can fall away soon, so I can return to the blogosphere, but for today, I wanted you all to know that I'm still here.

Fraud

I haven't been posting because I feel like a fraud.

In my last real post, Thursday night, I wrote how I intended to make "me time", how I was just going to plan it and make it happen because I am worth it.  Unfortunately, I was quickly reminded the next morning of why I don't normally have me time: the Dancing Queen's precarious health.  We spend so much time on doctor's appointments, therapy, procedures, etc, that "me time" is swallowed up by being a "normal" family, work, and sleep. And I can't just make "me time" happen unless I forgo sleep (much like I am doing right at this moment).

That is why I feel like a fraud. I promised to myself only a couple of days ago that I was going to make time for me and the very next morning, the promise was broken. I don't know how to rectify this or if rectification is necessary, but I do know that I don't feel right.  I feel guilty for declaring that I enjoyed the time away from my kids because for a moment I didn't realize that the Dancing Queen wasn't doing well (because I didn't see her for a couple of days). I feel guilty for making myself a promise (that was told to the world no less) and know it can't be kept (not with DQ home from school two days, three appointments this week alone, then school starting next week).

And maybe "guilt" isn't even the right word. But I don't feel right about my "me" post, but I also feel like I was right in the sentiment behind it. I am worth "me time". I am more than just my family and work, but in order to keep it all going, I have to continue putting myself further behind.

I also don't feel right about wanting to take time away from my kids and taking care of them because it is not their fault either. As much as I didn't ask to be the parent of a special need's child, the Dancing Queen didn't ask to be born with a horrific set of conditions that threaten her life and make everything more difficult, even the easy stuff like, breathing and eating.

And so I feel like a fraud. My statements on this blog last Thursday, while heart-felt at the time, were not quite right. And this blog is merely an extension of me, so I have felt not quite right. I am not that together. It is not as easy as scheduling "me time".

It's Hard Being a Working Mom

You may have noticed that my posting has dropped dramatically over the last couple of weeks. (If you didn't notice, it has.)  My posts have dropped because my hours at work have increased. A LOT. That is a good thing, but it also sucks.

Working a lot is very good because having business is always very good. You might not know this, but the legal industry has been suffering just as much as the rest of the economy. Many, many attorneys have lost their jobs (but not their student loan debt!) Many, many more support staff have lost jobs. So, having work is a very good thing.

Unfortunately, this uptick in work is not crazy busy, not trial prep busy, but it is normal busy pre-recession. The problem is my level of overall fatigue. Because I am so tired from this life we have been living for the last three years, it is hard for me to get up in the morning because my inner night owl wants to come out (or at least stay in bed). However, if I don't get up by 5:30 am, I don't get to work until 9:00/9:30am, which means I have been leaving work between 9:00 and 10:30 pm. When I don't get home until 11:00pm, my night owl really kicks in, making it so much harder to rise the next day. Throw in the Dancing Queen crying off and on all night due to pain from an ear infection that won't go away no matter what we do and continuously bursts and bleeds, and I am one tired mommy.

I know my heart has bled a lot on these pages about how difficult it is being a heart mom and it is. But I don't think it is as black and white as I've been making it out on here or in my head. At least 50% of my exhaustion, of my dreariness, is being a full-time litigator mom. Trying to find enough hours in the day to take care of children (and a husband) while working is hard enough, but I am also expected to do the extra hours required for a litigator and I need to constantly be on call for emergencies and surprise deadlines. I'm not sure how I do it all because I am always so very, very tired.

I had lots of roll models for working moms. My mom worked full-time while raising my sister and I. My aunts worked. Both of my grandmothers worked. That is what you do when you have to put food on the table and one income won't do it. I saw them struggle to balance it all, but I had no idea of the utter weariness of it all. So, when baby fever hit, I knew I could do it because they all had, but I didn't really know how hard it would be (or the toll it would take on me physically).

Add in at least one doctor appointment a week, therapy sessions, and the inevitable trips to the pharmacy, even doing the regular stuff for the kids gets hard. For instance, TRex will begin kindergarten a month from now. How can I find the time to take him to visit the school (when it is open)? I need to be at work during the day and if I'm not at work during the day, I'm at a doctor's office or the hospital. I simply don't have extra time to take him to the school. Yet, he needs to go there.

So, I make time for things like visit schools, making me work later and longer when I finally get into the office. The next day I sleep in later, perpetuating the cycle. The only way to break the cycle is a break. This is why vacations exist. People need a pause button for life. And even if you don't go anywhere, at least you can catch up on sleep. But instead of vacations, we get hospital stays that are more draining than most everything else.

And that is why I am not blogging. If I'm not working or at a doctor's office, I am exhausted without brain power to write. It's hard being a working mom.

Nothing

I have nothing in me. I've started two posts and ended each in the middle of the second paragraph. I feel like saying something, but I have nothing.

This has been a hard couple of weeks and I don't know when it will get better, if it will. I am beyond grateful for the life that I have, but somedays, I think it would be easier if I were irresponsible. I would love to sleep in after a night where I was not woken several times by crying. Then take a long hot shower without the worry that if I don't hurry up, we won't make the bus. No fighting to get the kids dressed, fed, medicated, and out the door. No rush to get to work. No hassles. An adult conversation over a long lunch, without needing to get back to work.  Spending enjoyable time with my children in the evening without any yelling or fights. A quiet and yummy dinner with my husband and a comfy bed to fall into. Repeat that for a couple of days, throw in some leisure reading, and I think I might be rejuvenated.

Instead, I've stayed up too late. The Dancing Queen will most definitely cry out, needing me as soon as I get comfortable in my bed (which is no longer as comfortable as it was 7 years ago when I bought it).  DQ will cry out again around 2:00 am and 4:00 am, then maybe again at 5:00 am. I will inevitably not get up when my alarm goes off at 5:30, so I will rush in the morning, trying to get my kids to move as TRex fights me about using the toilet (really???  who doesn't have to pee immediately upon getting out of bed???).  I will fight with my daughter in an attempt to get her to eat.  She won't eat but three bites of whatever I give her (that she will choose!).  My son will fall out of his seat because he refuses to listen to me when I tell him to sit on his bottom. I will get the kids to school after they fight over whose turn it is to choose the music in my car (because news is not acceptable). And I forgot the foot chase that precedes the car when the Dancing Queen takes off down the sidewalk because she thinks its funny. I will rush to work, where I will be forced to drink the swill they have for coffee because in my rushed morning, I will not have time to make good coffee and if I forgo the coffee, my head will likely explode. I will work, get interrupted by emails from another part of my life. I will spend way too much time on that. I'll eat lunch at my desk. Stay way too late at the office. Get home and eat dinner at 9:30 p.m., watch some tv, then crash too late.

No wonder I have nothing.

One of Those Weeks

This has been one of those weeks that I wonder how can I continue.  Something has got to give.  And it has.  Once again, my health gave away.  I've been sick the last two days.  That is my trade off.  I raise two kids, maintain a marriage, work as a full time litigation attorney, keep a house, yada, yada, yada, but there are only so many hours in a day, so I don't exercise as much as I should.  I don't spend the time that a truly healthy diet requires.  I get warn down from lack of sleep.  And I get sick.  Frequently.

My health is the part of me that people don't see or pay attention to or discuss with me when they look at our life.  I don't see how it can be missed.  I am a short, very round woman.  To me, my health (or lack thereof) screams itself known as soon as I walk in the room.  I've aged at least 10 years in appearance over the last three years.  (I was looking at pictures of TRex's 1st birthday this morning.  I looked soooooo much younger.)  I don't want this for myself, but we are still in survival mode.  We are working day to day, just trying to stay over the water.  That doesn't leave time or energy for more.

Yet, one of the most common things that I am told by people is "I couldn't do it."  People frequently tell me this after asking about the Dancing Queen or learning we've been in the hospital again or just hearing what is on my plate (even other heart moms who know I work full time or know I am an attorney). I guess they don't link my flabby exterior to everything else I have on my plate.

I have two regular responses to this statement: (1) "Yes, you could.  It's what any good parent would do." (2) "I have no choice."  In my head though, I'm yelling: "Give me a break!  You mean 'thank goodness I don't have to do what you do.'"  Perhaps that is pessimistic of me, but I don't believe my family is all that different from any other family, except we won the lottery of bad luck.

There is no known cause for the Dancing Queen's chromosomal abnormality and while it is likely that her heart defects are caused by the chromosomal abnormality, nobody knows for sure.  I did everything I was supposed to do.  I stopped drinking and caffeine before I started to try getting pregnant.  I was on pre-natal vitamins before.  I didn't eat soft cheeses, lunch meat, tuna, canned foods, etc. I didn't smoke and I would leave the room if someone else was smoking.  I did a ton more, but can't remember now (probably cause I am sick).  But the point is, it happened and we are stuck with it and we do what we must because there is no other choice and there never has been.  This is my family and I will make it work because it has to.

______________________________________

Since I have a hard time not being accurate when I write, there is one caveat to the penultimate sentence of this post.  Technically, we were given the choice of all choices when we learned of the Dancing Queen's conditions in utero.  However, to us, there was never a choice to not protect our baby, but that is a post for a different time.

Time

I don't have the time to write a blog.  I don't.  So, please don't expect me to be funny.  I'm not funny in regular life, so I won't be funny here even if I had a ton of extra time.  This is my outlet, my chance to scream for myself.  I've been desperately searching for some other blog to follow that fits all of my things; some role model with a forum in which I can join her and shout out my frustrations in unison.  Unfortunately, I have yet to find the full time litigation attorney, who is also a mom to two kids, with one having special needs.  I follow mom blogs.  I follow mom to special needs kids blogs.  I follow law blogs.  I follow mom law blogs.  Not yet, have I found one who does it all.  Apparently, all of the moms who do it all don't have time to blog.   So, being the glutton for punishment that I am, I started my own blog.  Now I can scream and perhaps provide a forum for other moms learning to walk the tightrope to share in their frustrations, triumphs, and tedium.


Not that my life is tedious, but it's just not what I had pictured when I went off to law school.   The first thing they fail to tell you before you go to law school is that you will not have a fabulous lifestyle as an attorney.  Lawyers don't get to act like Ally McBeal.  They don't get to have fun in the party kind of way all day and there is a ton of work that goes into any brief, motion, or trial.  No lawsuit is filed, argued, and completed in a day.  It takes years.  And those years are filled with reading documents (most of which are irrelevant), reading cases and statutes, taking depositions that can last days and days, resulting in no new information, then putting all of that into a page limited brief, all the while trying to keep clients happy when they think you are just having fun like Ally McBeal.

Don't get me wrong.  I love reading documents, finding the smoking gun.  I really love reading cases and finding the argument that will work.  That is why I am a lawyer.  But, the hours are not fun, especially when kids come along.  In the last two weeks, last night was the first weeknight that I made it home before my kids' bedtime.  The only reason I made it last night was because I left early due to the alleged snowmaggedon that was about to pour feet of snow upon our fair city.  The reason I arrive home so late is:  (1) I take care of the kids in the mornings, getting them off to preschool (my favorite part of the day!); and (2) I can't work from home.  I am lousy it!  So, I stay at work until the work is done or my brain is mush.  Perhaps if I had an office, I could be more productive at home and work after the kids went to bed, but I doubt it.

So, this blog is a place for me write about how I cope with being a mom to a special needs child and a precocious 4 year old, a wife, a lawyer, a daughter, a granddaughter, a sister, a friend, a volunteer, and whatever else comes my way.  It is also a place for me to scream when it is too much because often it is.  Finally, it is a place where I hope to find other moms just like me or anyone else who wants to come along for the ride.