Food, Fitness and the Working Mama

Remember the days when you were 25, worked part-time at a job that required a great deal of physical exertion, spent an hour every day at the gym working out followed by a 30 minute sauna, went on a 2 mile power-walk every morning and evening, and walked to work, the co-op, the bar?

Remember looking in the mirror and seeing the same young face you were born with, before feeding two babies left your breasts sagging, stretch-marked and lop-sided and your lower abdomen stretched out like a piece of hide pulled from the head of a large drum?

Remember being able to tie a scarf around your chest and call it a shirt?  Having size 30 pants fall off your hips and require a belt?  Being able to wear a tank top without the support of a bra?

I remember it all too well and struggle with the reality of my transformed life every day.  Although I can't stand how aging looks, I am willing to trade off a little of my appearance for the wisdom and centering that comes with "advanced" years.  The problem is finding the time to always eat fresh foods and get the proper exercise.

I wish I could end this post with the perfect recipe for whole-body fitness that could accommodate the fluctuating schedule of a working mother, but I suppose if I had that figured out I would patent it, sell it, and spend the rest of my days doing whatever I please.

So consider this a cry for help.

Is it possible to fit in a 60-minute workout at least five times a week without neglecting your children?

What about unprocessed, wholesome lunches for work?  Ideas????

Anyone?

Anyone?

2010.....the year of the final BABY!

I only haphazardly blogged through 2010.  The year saw many changes:

• pregnancy
• fear of Down's Syndrome in our unborn child
• the fearful decision to undergo amnio 
• seeing our baby's little penis and knowing that we would have a son
• the joy and relief at discovering that our son had no genetic disorders
• the decision to embrace natural childbirth and leave my trusted OB at 30 weeks pregnant
• doing self-hypnosis via the Hypnobabies homestudy course (if you know what a skeptic I am, you will know what a huge leap of *gasp* faith that was!)
• carrying a large baby past 41 weeks without any desire for induction
• going into natural labor for the first and last time the same day the USA won a match at the World Cup
• giving birth without any medical interventions!!!!
• welcoming our beautiful son, William Christopher, into the world
• my husband losing his job
• my daughter potty-training without any threats or coercion at 3 years old
• my wonderful 5-month maternity leave with the greatest long-term sub on earth (thank you, Michelle!)
• my return to teaching and the homeroom from hell
• the realization that I may get pink-slipped
• the need for my husband to abandon his role as a stay-at-home dad and look for work
• my struggles and triumphs as a working mother and intuitive parenting practitioner/advocate

That's it in a nutshell.  Stay tuned for my resolutions and plans for 2011.....

Losing my SAHD?

Despite the financial disadvantages of living off one meager, maternity-leave lessened teacher's salary, I have really enjoyed having my husband at home the past few months.  It has been invaluable since my return to work last month--laundry is done mostly during the day, dinners are prepared with no stress and little to no night-before prep work.  There are only two people to get out the door each morning instead of four and I have the luxury of taking Zumba class at the gym on Mondays and Wednesdays after work.

Upon returning to work, I learned that there will be some pretty serious layoffs coming.  Given my measly four years seniority and my ever-popular teaching endorsements in secondary language arts, drama, and reading, I was advised to brace myself for the worst possible outcome.  Part of the preparation was finding a second source of income, hence losing my SAHD.  Initially, we decided it wasn't worth it for him to even look for work until the spring or early summer so that Li Li could spend his first year at home with a parent but given that we need at least some money to pay the mortgage each month and access to a health plan for our family, he has begun his quest for new employment over the past two weeks.

Yesterday, he had a phone interview.  The reality set in that we may soon be getting four individuals out of the house by 6:45 every day.  It also occurred to me that I will have to give up my workouts........that means I will remain fat indefinitely.  Ugh.  My dilemma is this: stay fat and get my kids from daycare by 4:30 (closing time), or get the kids by 3:20 on Mondays and Wednesdays and take them to the childcare at the gym until 5:30 (more childcare and less Mom/Dad time).

I know most, if not all, of my current readers are SAHMs, so while I ask for advice, I understand you all may not have any to give.  But perhaps you know someone who has managed to make it work.....with the exercise and all.

Suggestions are welcomed.

Battling Exhaustion

As the recession continues, those of us left in the workplace are working 2-3 times as hard to cover the workloads of those laid off.  Add a new baby and a toddler into the mix and it makes for one constantly tired and crabby mom.  What's even worse for those of us in the education field is that our federally mandated "standards" and government determined "progress" toward those standards continue to increase as our staff decreases.  So we are left to do more with less.  There are definitely not enough hours in the day to accomplish all the data collection, analysis, and meetings on top of planning instructions, keeping gradebooks up to date, filling out daily behavior reports, calling parents.......ugh.....the list never ends.

So today my post is disgracefully short, but I need to fit in a shower, making and packing breakfast and lunch, cleaning and packing the breast pump, and getting ready to lead a meeting all in 1 hour.   Ha!

Breastfeeding and the Working Mother

As I continue to breastfeed my second child while teaching full time, I've come to realize how few teachers actually pump milk for their children once they return to work.  In the 3 1/2 years I've been teaching at my current location, five other women have had children and returned to teaching before their babies were 6 months old.  Only one of them breastfed and pumped after returning to work.  The truth is, it is hard to pump milk when teaching at our over-crowded school.  There is no opportunity to close the door and pump in the classroom while grading papers.  Every classroom is used every period.  In fact, every single room in the school is used for something: an office, a classroom, a meeting room.  There is only one place left.....the bathroom.

According to Oregon law (and federal mandates put into place by the new health care reform) an employer with more than 50 employees must provide a space other than a restroom for mothers to express milk and the breaks necessary to do so.  I do get the opportunity to pump every 4 hours, but that is my prep time which means I have to do the grading that would have happened during those breaks on my off-time.  Also, pumping every 4 hours is not enough to feed my 5 month old son pure expressed breast milk.  His daytime bottles are mixed half-and-half with formula.

As I browsed the list of employers who have been recognized by the state of Oregon for following, and pioneering, the mother-friendly workplace guidelines, I noticed not a single school district was listed.  Am I the only person that finds it appalling that public organizations devoted to the care and development of children do not support breastfeeding mothers?

So the plan isn't going all that well

Keeping up with my blogging and my workouts while working full time is quite the challenge.  I'm not letting myself off the hook, just taking this first week to get adjusted to a much more compact schedule.

Pumping milk is also more difficult this time around as I am so much busier and have more responsibilities at work than I did 3 years ago.

All complaining aside, work is going well.  My top-tier classes are planned through winter break, so now I am focusing on my small-group intervention class.  It is definitely busy.  Fortunately, I know more than half my students from last year, so it was like I never left.

And that's all I have time for today!  Tomorrow is my Weight Watchers weigh-in and I'm scared.

The SAHD

A few months ago, I read an article (can't remember where) about the increasing number of stay-at-home dads.  The reason?  The mass amounts of lay-offs due to the recession.  Apparently, more men than women have found themselves unemployed and therefore, staying home with their young children. 

Now that we are faced with having two children not yet school-aged, the idea of spending $2000/month September--June for two years, getting a toddler, a baby and two adults ready to go by 6: 45 am, and spending the evening in a scramble to wash bottles, prepare dinners, nurse a baby, and do laundry, clean bathrooms, etc sounds like my version of hell.  Mind you, my paying job requires me to deal with large numbers of 12 and 13 year olds for 6 hours, so there is little patience or energy left to manage the juggling act required to keep the family running.

Before you ask yourself: What is the husband doing?  Sitting on his ass drinking beers, farting, and playing video games?  I will tell you the answer is: No!  He is scrambling to prepare dinners for the crockpot, do the dishes, clean the cat boxes, pick up the dog shit from the yard, do the laundry, etc.  Thing is, even with two of us flying around the house at break-neck speed, the place is still a wreck and we are left stressed and exhausted. 

One possible, albeit financially precarious, solution to the problem is for one of us to stay home for two years until Zoe is in school and Nameless is 2.  Traditionally, it is the mother who quits her job, but in our situation, that does not make sense.  I am a public employee which means I carry our health insurance with very little out of pocket,  I have PERS (public employee's retirement), and I build seniority on the union payscale, not to mention that I earn 34% more than my husband does.  Last night, we realized that during the school year, all but $300 of my husband's monthly salary will go to to daycare.  If he quit his job, it would be an annual loss of $10,000.  I could earn back at least half of that by teaching summer school and SUN school classes, we would save approximately $1000 annually by not buying a transit pass for him to go to work, and we could switch to cloth diapers and wipes, saving an additional $500+ yearly.  Of course, we would still need to cut some "luxuries" like eating out and buying fancy foods, but we would have more opportunity to expand our garden and grow and can/freeze more food.

We have decided to take a "wait and see" approach to making this decision.  Exactly how much more hectic will it be with the new baby?  Is it worth the risk of not being able to re-enter the work-force?  Fortunately, a huge male ego is not a factor.