Christmas

Hope you all had a merry Christmas. I just mailed the Christmas cards today, so be patient, yours is coming.

We spent just over two days - Christmas Eve day and Christmas - at Travis's parents place in Barnum. It was a really hard visit, actually, since Emily was so easily overwhelmed and I had a hard time sharing her. The second night, she was awake every other hour pretending to want to eat but then screaming instead of eating, so I was really tired on Christmas. She had so much milk on her that her whole face and neck was sticky by the time we came home last night. Her head was sticky, too, but that was from cow's milk. She was sitting on my lap when I tried to take a drink, and just as I started to tip the glass, she sneezed. Now, you have to remember that when she sneezes, she throws her arms up over her head and pulls forward, so she got her little hand behind my glass and then yanked it forward. There was milk everywhere. So as I was trying to mop up the milk, she somehow got her hand on my glasses and pulled them off my face!! It's okay - you can laugh, and if it had happened to anybody else I would've laughed too, but I was too tired to put up with being laughed at, and I just about lost it. I kept it together until I went to change my clothes, but you all know how well I hide emotions, so although I didn't say anything I'm sure they all knew I was pissed. I wasn't mad at Emily - she doesn't know those are her hands, and it wasn't her fault she sneezed at that moment. But I was mad that I got laughed at. I hate thinking about what a terrible parent I must look like by appearing to get mad at my infant. It wasn't her - it was the incredible lack of sympathy. I hate wearing my glasses but I can't wear my contacts anymore because they don't correct my astigmatism which has gotten worse since Emily was born. It's so frustrating. And I felt like I was being thrown one thing after another and doing my best to deal with it, but as soon as I had a glaring failure, everyone laughs. It sucked. But it really was a nice Christmas in Barnum, if you discount all of my own personal issues.

So my poor girl had a really hard time with all that excitement. It seemed like I would just get her calmed down, fed, changed, and happy, and someone would want to hold her or play with her. By the time she came back to me she was screaming, poopy, and too wound up to eat even though she was hungry. My mom says I was just the same way, which is nice because I have a little help from her knowing how to help deal with it, especially when we visit Rockford, but hard because I know hard it is to be that overwhelmed little girl. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, especially not someone who is as special to me as Emily. I wish she didn't have to start from scratch on the issues that I've spent my life trying to deal with - sensitivity, insecurity, etc.

Friday we go to Rockford for Johannsen Christmas, which will be fun with the gift opening that night. The next day, though, extended family descends upon my parents' relatively small house, and it's bound to be chaos. Don't get me wrong, it'll be fun to see everybody and it's really special that all of us can be together in the same place, but I'm dreading how hard it will be on Emily. I guess I'll stay in a back bedroom while she's awake and visit with people while she sleeps, and try to keep her in as quiet of surroundings as possible. I guess we're not really all together if I'm hiding in a back room, but I'm going to try to do better at "protecting" her and putting her first this time.

Okay, my daughter needs me. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

What a rollercoaster!!

Okay, so I have finally worked something out part-time with Deere, but it's not at all what I expected it would be. In my frustration, I sent an email to another Deere unit in the Des Moines area called Intelligent Vehicle Systems, where they make the satellite navigation systems for other Deere products. The opening they had was for a gal (Molly) who is going on maternity leave in February who also works part-time (this is her 2nd kid). They were thinking that January could be a good time for us to overlap, and I could pick up the ropes to work for her until she comes back in April. Her job is to analyze warranty data, so she works a lot with QE's, supply management, and test engineers. The position is actually within the Product Verification and Validation group (PV&V). In working with those other groups, by April I should know where I might fit into the organization with another part-time position so Molly would have her job back when she returns. The manager of the PV&V group that I spoke with was very supportive of young moms working part-time, and sang the song about how if Deere wants to stay competitive and diverse they'd better get with it and make things flexible for their employees, and the plant is making a big mistake to not do that. I was SO happy to hear that! And the last great thing about this position is that in a few months, it's totally open for me to decide that it isn't working, and instead of transitioning to a new department I could quit without feeling like I was abandoning someone who went out on a limb for me to get a part-time position. Or I could continue.

So just when I thought I was getting this figured out, I called the childcare provider that we had liked the best (also named Molly, ironically) to tel her I'd like to spend some time at her house today or tomorrow (since that's all I have left of maternity leave - how fast it went!!!). She said she had determined her part-time rates, and that they are $10 less than her regular full-time weekly rate. Because that doesn't seem like a good deal, we've started from scratch on the daycare search. I talked to Molly again this morning that I was still looking, but in a pinch I hoped she could be my provider because I did feel really good about leaving Emily with her. Basically the discussion didn't go well, not because she isn't a really sweet person but because she's trying to defend her business against people who take as much as she can give her. It was awful for me to realize that I was being that person, because being a musician I can totally understand that people will take as much as you will give - and then think you charge too much. So I don't know if it's going to work out with this Molly.

It's so frustrating. Just when childcare looked promising, the job wasn't working out. Now that the job is working out, the childcare isn't!! I wonder if it's even worth it, except I really did have a good feeling about starting at AMS. But then there's moments like this morning, where Emily stopped nursing just as my milk let down to look up and smile at me. There was milk running everywhere - dribbling out her mouth, all over her face, down my arm and my side - and I didn't care one bit because my beautiful little girl was smiling at me.

And so the saga continues. What a mess.

More frustration

My work/not work decision has come down to whether Deere can offer me part-time work or not. After all the hard thought and careful planning I had put into my decision to go back to work part-time, I thought I would feel glad to leave the final say in someone else's hands, just so the pressure was off. But now that that's coming about, I'm afraid I'll wish I had more say.

I went in to work today, just to show Emily off to people. It was fun to see everyone again, and especially fun to have them say how beautiful my baby is (who wouldn't enjoy that??). Long story short, I won't be able to work part-time at the plant. The policy says that they will promote part-time work and encourage managers to help employees in that situation, but they also have concretely fixed headcount numbers. This means that in order to work part-time, a manager needs to either split one full-time job between two people or reduce the position to part-time, essentially forfeiting half a person. No manager in their right mind would forfeit half a person worth of manpower, and they sure wouldn't want the hassle of dealing with two part-time people instead of one full-time. So of course all the managers said no. One of those managers that was contacted told me today that he was initially excited about finding a part-time spot for me, said he had a quantity of work that would be a good fit for me and for the organization, but he was told from higher-up that he couldn't add half a position. It's ridiculous, since now that work will just be forced onto other unhappy and overworked full-time employees, who will probably also consider finding new employment. When will Deere get the picture that it's not the middle of the farm crisis anymore?!?! People can find other good jobs now, and they're not promised a fat pension upon retirement, so why be loyal to Deere? By not offering part-time work or onsite daycare or onsite workout facilities or actual health insurance (instead of "health care plan" bullshit), they're going to lose out to companies that do offer them. Deere is screwing over their youngest generation of employees by not having HR policies for the 21st century, and in doing so they're just screwing themselves.

*sigh* but I guess that doesn't matter so much to me anymore.

I will be so relieved to have the decision made, and if I stay home I can't wait to be looking forward to getting in a routine with Emily and jumping wholeheartedly into my new career. The part really is killing me is that I am not worth the effort for Deere Des Moines to keep. I'm highly educated, motivated, and I'm really good at my job!!! I'm good at being a QE, and I'm a good metallurgist. But not I'm worth the effort to keep. I'm trying not to take it personally, since I seem to be a victim of ridiculously backwards policy, but it's hard, since it seems to have so much to do with what people are willing to do for me.

There are two things left to check. I have an awesome contact at corporate who actually does think I'm worth keeping, and she is going to see if I can do corporate labwork on a part-time basis from the lab at Des Moines (at which point my self-confidence begins to rebound. ahh...) I would be able to work in the lab, doing what I like best, and NOT have to deal with Tom or any other production-related crap that comes along. That's a big maybe, but at least it's a good option. There's also another unit in Urbandale that works with satellite navigation for agricultural equipment, and they seem to be one of the more forward-thinking units in the enterprise. I have emailed their HR dept to see if they can do anything for me, which would probably just be plain old quality engineering work. Either way, I will not be going back to work for Tom. It would be just plain unhealthy for me and Emily.

And since this should be a blog about her, I'll add a bit about what she can do now. On her picture website (see link at right) there are pictures and video of her holding her head up, which she can do for several minutes if she's put down on the floor while already looking up. So cute! But then she gets really mad, which is not quite as cute. :) Right now, she is cooing at her fish-gym on the floor, so I'm going to go play with her. She is so fun to play with, making sounds and faces. At least nobody can take my favorite job away from me!!

Milestone

I guess if it was a milestone going up, it's a milestone coming down. 150 lbs!! yay! and without really trying - unless you count limiting dessert to one helping "trying."

And, Emily really doesn't have any kneecaps. I've always wondered if that was true about babies, and it is! She does have lusciously fat legs though. :)

No right decision

It's 7:15 AM, and I've been awake since 4:18 when Emily was hungry. She went back to sleep around 5 (such a good girl), but I couldn't relax again. It's so hard to sleep when you've been awake long enough to not be sleepy, but not long enough that you're tired again. I probably dozed some of that time, but most of the time I was still mulling over how to make this stupid decision about going back to work. I know - it's the perfect time to make life-changing decisions, in that foggy realm of semi-consciousness. It's not like I've come up with anything better in the daytime, though. I've asked everybody I know for advice, and my list of pros and cons has expanded considerably because of it. But it is no more definitive for me, except my desperation is growing to the point where I just want the easiest, least-stressful way out of this limbo.

Several things happened yesterday: I started working on some arrangements that my bro-in-law asked me to do for a Varieties skit at ISU. Basically, he needs 4 songs arranged for a small pit orchestra - pretty fun. I had forgotten how much I enjoy doing those arrangements, and how satisfying it is that I feel like I'm good at it. Then I got a phone call to play a gig tomorrow night in a quartet, which is also a throwback to my college days and a fun deal. I got a letter in the mail from the Des Moines Symphony saying I could again audition to be an extra, and although it would be a lot of work to be ready to audition by January 8 and there's no guarantee that I wouldn't be right back auditioning in the fall, I might do it. And then I got an email from my boss saying that my position "will not be considered for part-time." He postponed the meeting we were supposed to have until January, and when I told him I needed a decision on part-time work before then, that was his response. I talked with my dad about how to proceed, whether I should try to find another manager who I could work part-time for at the plant or go another round fighting for my current position. It was nice to have someone definitively say that I absolutely cannot put myself through the stress of working for Tom anymore. Whatever I do, I've gotta get out of that department.

I can't devote any more sleepless nights to this decision. It seems pretty clear that my life will be plenty full without a job at Deere, and that there isn't anything that great waiting for me there if I wanted to go back. The job I had been enjoying a year ago is essentially gone, when considering how much of my enjoyment of it stemmed from having healthy management, fun coworkers, and the self-confidence that comes from job familiarity. Since all of that is gone or very much diminished, I can't really go back to it anyway.

Gosh, it sounds like I've made a decision. We'll see how long that sits well in my head. As always, comments are very welcome. solicited, in fact!

Work sucks.

I got my performance review from my boss. I had talked to him before I left for maternity leave, and apparently he retained nothing from that discussion. His comments were full of questions that I had already answered when we talked one-on-one. If he hadn't waited 6 weeks to write his comments he might have actually remembered what I had told him. Worst of all, he rated me down in the category of "adapting to change." I am so upset about that that it's made it hard to sleep. I mean, in the past year, I've had a new manager, new coworkers, new responsibilities, and even operated with NO manager for a while, and successfully completed everything I worked on - while pregnant!! And, since the fiscal year didn't end until Oct 31, I accomplished everything a month ahead of time. The most frustrating part is that it's keeping me up at night, and I just have to CHILL OUT. I mean, Emily slept 6.5 hours last night without waking me, and I slept less than 6 of that because I couldn't settle down. I am most angry that I let this idiot get to me - which is a Catch-22, of course, so I just go around in circles.

So I'm trying to do what I can to get comments changed and corrected, and to do so I have to go in to work. Fortunately, Trav's brother Pat is willing to watch her while I go in to work. He was going to drive from Fort Dodge just to spend an afternoon with her anyway, so this works out well. Still, it sucks that I have to make special arrangements to get my boss straightened out when he should've had this all done before I went on maternity leave.

I'm not so excited about going back to work...

scatterbrain

Every once in a while I get a thought in my head worth blogging about, but when I do have a two-handed moment, I can't think what they were. It's just as well, since I had a very sobering experience tonight, having nothing to do with motherhood. Travis and I happened to turn on the TV and see Andy Rooney. I haven't seen him in years, not that I ever did pay that much attention to him, but he's gotten REALLY old! Like, skin-falling-off-his-face old. And he had such tremendous insights as "I don't think anybody calls the fourth of July 'Independence Day' anymore; we all just call it 'The Fourth'," and "I don't think even the Labor Unions make much of Labor Day anymore'." He gets paid to spew crap! And I was inspired to blog. Anybody else enjoying that irony as much as I am? Even if it is at my expense. :)

So, after hearing Rooney randomly leak his decaying brain juice, I felt like a little piece of my brain had in turn rotted away because I insulted its intelligence. I hope I haven't treated you to the same experience in my blog over the past year. I don't know how much I'll continue blogging, but if I ever can get a significant thought to stick until I can get to a computer, I'll add it. As Emily grows, I'm sure there'll be more bragging to appear on this site.

This isn't a farewell or end, just a warning that the updates will be less frequent. Thanks to all of you who've been so encouraging to me from afar. I am so glad I started this when I found out I'd be Emily's mom someday. Isn't that wild? I'll be her mom forever. It's crazy scary and incredibly cool at the same time. :)