On the Road Again

Probably the only upside to the economic disaster of the past couple years was that many of us had our travel budgets cut drastically to tighten corporate belts. For me this was definately the case. Both myself and my family became very used to me being around all the time. With the exception of occasional evening conference calls with colleagues in distant time zones I spent most of 2009 on the ground and more importantly home for dinners, baths, and bedtime stories.

Now 2010 has rolled in, not only with the hint of recovery, but for me a new job also. That means I have taken to the skies again and I have been making up for lost frequent flier miles quickly. I set this ridiculous goal in my mind to visit all the sites that I am responsible for in my new job in 6 weeks. This is a self-imposed torture, but I enjoy that part of my job. Meeting with the people who actually add value versus overhead is energizing.

So sadly, having just got home this morning, I am prepping to head out again tomorrow afternoon. I told my 5 year old that I was sorry for having to leave again. He responded, "I don't mind", as if I had just told him I was going to the grocery store. Maybe the LEGOs I came home with this moring were a bit too good of a travel gift?

The volcanic eruption several weeks ago seems to have been my only saving grace and I find myself this Saturday evening hoping that it's current disruption of the airspace in Spain creeps over to Switzerland so that I don't have to catch an aiplane Sunday afternoon. hmmmm. If not, I know they sell LEGOs in the Brussels airport.

Where did the time go?........

So when I originally started working on this post this is how it went...... Well I survived my first week back at work and not surprisingly so did my kids and my husband. The most drama we had were the few tears I shed on Monday morning as I had to say goodbye to Jack-Jack. Things went surprisingly smooth and our biggest challenge was due to the abundance of snow still remaining on the streets and parking lots in our small town.

That was 3 months ago, it is mid April and I'm am now I am just finishing (or starting) this post. The snow is gone and Spring is here. My Maternity leave seems like a distant memory to me.

Getting back to work the second time around was easier. The logistics of the morning were a little more hectic with two, but I had a little more confidence that this time around my husband knew how to feed and care for a baby. Note, that does not mean I always come home to a baby that has been fed and changed, but the possibility exists!

The bigger challenge I have found about going back to work is re-integrating into the work place. I tried to approach the first week with the benefit of knowledge gained from my last return from Maternity leave. Let's face it, my co-workers had gotten used to working with out me for the 4 months. Some picked up extra duties and others have become used to going to someone else for support and other things have piled up and not gotten done.

My approach:
1. Let people know I'm back!
2. Be visible
3. Keep the stories short
4. Don't look for pity

Letting people know I'm back - This is the first thing I did (actually the night before my return) was to send an email out to my organization that I was back. Thanking them for their support and hard work during my leave was the major theme of the message. Letting them know that I was available and ready to get back to business was the second. When I arrived in the office I made the rounds to say hi to people face to face. Since it was the start of the new year and everyone else was coming back from the Holidays this worked out well. This may seem like an obviouse thing to do, but you would be surprised how often it does not happen.

Being Visible, Be Available - The last time I returned from leave I had a harder time getting back in step with the routine of work. My heart was not completely in it and it showed in my commitment to work. This probably isn't unusual for returning mothers, but it can really be self destructive. Not only do you not want to be at work, but the results of your efforts and time there end up not producing results.

Keeping the stories short - I aslo told myself not to overwhelm people with stories about my baby and what we did on leave. I know most people are not nearly as interested in my baby as I am. All those incredibly amazing stories about smiles, gurgles, pooping, and crying that a Mom cherishes may actually be boring and way too much information for others. So I was careful to wait for people to ask about my baby before I shared and then I kept it at a minimum.

Don't Look for pity - Another area I was sensitive to was that no one feels sorry for you after you just took 4 months off. They have been working all that time - duh. The fact that for the first few months I was in a state of sleep deprivation really doesn't matter. Even other Mom's quickly forget what it was like.

So 3 months have past. I'm enjoying my job and being a Mom to 2 boys and a wife to a third. It's hectic at times and often I find I can't even come close to getting everything done I want to. Priorities tend to cut out the nice to do's - like blogging.

Maternity Leave - Taking time

Until you have a baby I think it is almost impossible to imagine the importance of taking time off from work after having a child. At least for me that is the case. Even with this being my second child, I had so quickly forgotton the amount of time a baby takes and the level of sleep deprivation that can come along with feeding, diapering, and caring for a newborn. I am fortunate to have what would be called and "Easy Baby" and a SAHD to help out with our son Dash, but even an easy baby is demanding!

Jack-Jack, my "Easy Baby" is now 8 weeks old. He basically only cries when he is hungry or he is in the process of pooping (Yes, this is what the current focus of my world is. As my 4 year old so eloquently observed - Mom, food goes in here, goes down, and comes out poop!) I rarely have to deal with a crying baby for any longer than it takes to stick a bottle in his mouth. Yet there are still days where I am so tired I feel like it is an effort to walk a straight line. For me I feel like I get "intoxicated" by sleep deprivation. My ability to think clearly is impaired. Even with my husband at home, it still falls upon me, the Mom, to initially do most of the caring for our newborn.

Fortunately I have the benefit of being able to take 4 months of leave to care for Jack-Jack. This is the right amount of time for me. Hopefully, by then Jack-Jack will be sleeping through the night and we will have figured out a routine that works for us as a family.

Time off to care for a newborn is allowed for me by company policy as it is for many people. Taking this time off however is sometimes easier said than done. It is one thing to have a policy that says you can take time off. It is another thing to feel comfortable that you can leave your job for months at a time.

Fortunately I have many factors working in my favor;

1. Boss Support - I can't say enough about this. My boss is unwaivering in her support of me taking time off. It helps that she has demonstrated her commitment to this by taking leave when she had her children. It's one thing to have a company policy, but it means nothing if leadership doesn't demonstrate their support of it. It also helps immensly to see women continue to be successful when they have taken time off.

2. Peer Support - My peers can't step in and do my job since they are plenty busy doing their own jobs, but I know that they are reaching out and providing support when needed.

3. A Great Team - My staff that works for me is really picking up the bulk of my responsibilities while I am gone. Having the right people that you can count on makes all the difference in the world.

Even with all these factors I still second guess myself about going back to work earlier, but I am committed to taking my leave. I owe this to my baby and to myself. I also owe this to other Mom's at work. We all need to know it is okay to take time off, especially for something as important as the birth of a child. My work will be there when I return. My career will continue to move on. And hopefully, more Mom's will find a work place that is friendlier to them finding a way to balance their work and family needs.

Reality Check

I got a good reality check on Multi Tasking in today's busy world while watching Oprah the other day! I am not an avid watcher, but the episode that day featured a woman from the Cincinnati area who had accidently left her 2 yr old in her car and tragically she died of heat stroke. It's hard to believe for most of us that any Mom could possibly do this, but it happens time and time again across the US. I don't hear about it at all in Europe and maybe that has something to do with the lifestyle and culture we lead in the US. We tend to do everything fast, rushing through our day to accomplish as much as we can, and as Women, often taking on more than we can humanly accomplish. Too many of us aspire to be SuperMoms! So yes, this started to hit close to home.

As the show progressed many Moms in the audience shared their own stories of accidents, near tragedies, or mis-haps that they've experienced from being overwhelmed by trying to do too much. Quickly you could see how the audience grasped that these common mishaps were all one step away from a such a terrible tragedy caused by leaving a child in a hot car.

My take Aways from the show

"Just Good Enough" is Absolutely fine: It's not reasonable for us to try to be perfect at all things all of the time. Perfect Kids, spotless house, demanding job, not to mention making sure you are investing time in your marriage. I recently broke down in tears because I did not manage to make the "perfect" Spider Man cake for my 4 year olds birthday. (very silly in hind-sight) I was so upset because I had made really creative birthday cakes and thrown a nice party for our neighborhood friends for his first 3 birthdays. I tried to maintain the same standard this time even though I had just had a baby 2 weeks prior. I ended up making a so-so Spiderman cake that we had after lunch without a party and my 4 year old loved it just the same.


Being There vs. Multi-Tasking: There is no such thing as Multi-Tasking! We just jump from one task to another and don't give our full attention to the moment we are in. I will struggle with this one because I am always trying to maximize my time, but the point is well taken. We often miss very special moments, or even worse, make mistakes, because we are distracted with what we need to do next (or are checking emails on our blackberry). This made me check my priorities to make sure I am giving undivided attention to my family and things I am doing with them when it matters most.

Women supporting Women: Fortunately I have had great experiences with this one. I would say 99% of the women I know both through work and outside have been great sources of support. This includes Moms and co-workers of all sorts: with/w-out kids, WMs/SAHMs, single/married etc. The Ophra show, like a lot of other conversations I have read or heard recently focused on how women tend to tear eacher apart and don't support one another. I'm glad I haven't seen that and will continue to try to dispell that perception by helping out the women I know.

Dad's Role: they get left out of the conversation: I am continuously amazed how conversations around parenting still focus so much on Moms. Dads are (or sould be) 50% of the equation. I think that sometimes we discredit how much they do just because they do it differently than us or set different priorities. I know in my case my husband is a lot less stressed about being perfect and maybe that makes him a better parent than me in some cases. Maybe they are the role models we should be looking at as parents?

Food for thought......

Taking Leave

So I've just had my second child and I am on leave until January. I took a similary length leave with my 1st child and managed to completely step away from the job the 1st time. That probably wont be posible this time around, but I will do my best to focus this time on my family.

It is interesting to see different peoples reactions to what length of leave you plan to take for the birth of a child.

• My Boss: I am VERY fortunate here. She has two children of her own and took leave for both. She constantly reinforces that I should take what I need and that part of my leadership is having developed a good team that can handle things while I am gone.
• My Husband: Can't believe that the company lets someone in my position take as much leave as I plan to!!
• Co-Worker: "Surely you don't plan on taking any more than 6 weeks ......." Oh boy. This guy has a lot of women working for him too. Definately not what I expected to hear out of his mouth. Comments like this make me even more determined to take my leave and come back when I am ready and be as effective as ever!

As I stated in my profile I work for a company that is reputed to be very women friendly. Although our paid leave policy isn't the best, the culture at least supports me being able to take the leave. It's up to me as the money earner to make sure we saved appropriately to let me take the leave I would like too, although more paid time would be great!

I think this is also something that the US sadly falls short on compared to many other nations. I wont quote any stats here, but many other contries have federally mandated paid leave for Moms, some for up to a year! The federal requirement in the US is ZERO!