Aw, crap, 3 months, really?

Where have I been for three months?

Well, with the kids, I guess. It was a failed experiment. It was a worthy one. I wanted to be the working mom who was able to meet the kids at the school bus alongside the (seemingly-smug) stay-at-home moms (why do I judge the stay-at-home moms as smug when I didn't want to be stay-at-home, even having a problem being at home as much as I am?) and say, "see, I can have both - work, and family." I wanted to be able to pick up the kids, get dinner started, worked another hour or two on the computer, while the kids played with their neighbors and dinner cooked, and have it all.

Like the rest of motherhood, the fantasy was vastly different than the reality. I would feel frustrated leaving work in the middle of a project, and feel exhausted picking up the kids rushing away from work. And then, once home, it was supremely hard to get started on work again. And then, when getting focused on work, hard to be interrupted every five minutes by the kids. I felt I was losing at every turn - not doing enough at home, not enough with the kids, not enough with work.

So the little guy, Reed, is back to his old daycare where they love him (we did not dig Montessori (too much "work" not enough "play" - they're just kids, let them be as wild and crazy as they can be) and we're pitching the after-care at the school to Quinn as a "bonus" fun thing he gets to do (and so far he's buying it).

We couldn't afford it, of course. But, as they way things go, I got a raise just after I increased their daycare - just enough to cover the extra daycare, not quite enough to pay the bills, but that's how it goes.

And what the hell is up with the economy anyway? I thought it was bad when I was searching for a job...now that I'm the hiring person I get just how bad it is - for an $11/hour job we had 50 applicants (the posting was open one week), everyone was qualified, half were over-qualified and of them I hired a Masters in Communication, because, hey, we're redoing our website too, might as well take what we can get. But, fuck, it's saying something when the most entry level job has near-executives fighting over it.

So what does this have to do with our reunion? nothing. not much anyway. It's just what's been getting in the way. Life.

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to view my birthmother's blog on the same topic, go to mothertone

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