half of my heart

Happy 2014! We didn’t do anything exciting for new years eve, but when you have an alarm clock that you cant press the snooze button on (aka a baby), staying up late loses its appeal J We made it to 10:30 and then called it a night. I’m looking forward to the days when we can just let caleb crawl into bed with us when he wakes up early and let him watch cartoons or something while we stay in bed a little bit longer!

After I had Caleb, I took 3 months of maternity leave, and then went back to work part time. I work in the office two days a week and then work from home one day a week. I’m very grateful that my supervisors agreed to let me work part time and so far, I’ve been able to keep a handle on things, although I’m super super busy when I’m at work! It’s a really great situation for me! I still get to be home with Caleb a few days a week but I also get to keep up my work skills and am able to contribute financially to the family. Chad’s mom watches Caleb when I’m working and she loves watching him J I was worried that it would be a burden, but she has grown very attached to my cutie-pie!!

Even though I really do have a great working situation, sometimes I struggle with not being able to “have it all”. When I worked full-time, I was “analyst extraordinaire”. I had ample time to pursue my own research and also learn new techniques. I had lots of responsibilities, and I really enjoyed being one of the “go-to” analysts. I still am able to accomplish a lot part-time, but I don’t have time to pursue my own research or first author my own papers. While I struggle with not being able to accomplish quite as much at work, I also struggle with not being able to be around Caleb when I’m at work.  I get jealous of the time that Wendy gets to be with Caleb and get sad that I can’t do everything with him! Sometimes I feel like because I work part-time in the office and am only home part-time, I do a bad job at being an employee and also a bad job at being a mom! I know that isn’t true- I’m valued a lot at my job and I accomplish a lot even though I’m only 60%… and I’m still able to do a lot with Caleb- I’m home with him 2.5 days out of the 5 day work-week, but sometimes Negative Nancy takes over and I get discouraged (no offence to anyone named nancy). Wouldn’t it be neat to have a time-turner like Hermione so I could be in two places at once? J Although if I were able to just choose one magic power from Harry Potter, it would be the power to apparate… how amazing would that be!  But I digress….

I’ll end this post on a funny note. A few weeks ago, I got stuck in the revolving door on my way to work..! There was a yellow wet floor caution sign right by the revolving door, and I kicked it over and got it wedged in the door while I was pushing it around. Luckily, someone was near me and pulled It out of the door. Clumsy Chrissy strikes again ;)