Talking my way out of a circle...

It is easy to get caught in a loop that seems to have no exit. I feel that way about my work life right now.

In the fall I'd like to work 4 days a week earning enough money to pay for daycare and bring money in over and above that.

Right now voice teaching at Harvard is my only concrete thing and that has some significant cracks. My former thriving studio of 22 students shrank down to 14 this term and 6 of those just graduated. There are some other issues in the form of space to teach. I have space for full days Weds and Thurs and a partial day on Tuesday, but nothing on Monday. The teaching is also only for 20 weeks of the year. Not exactly a full year's work.

Now, I could conceivably find another school to teach at for 2 days of the week and just try to fill two days at Harvard. However, applying for a voice teaching position means I need 4-5 songs prepared to sing as part of the interview. The obstacles here are: I still have reflux and not much of a voice. Practice time is also non-existent in my daily life because I am with Ella all day. I'd hoped to do some voice lessons this summer, but my voice teacher is about to have vocal surgery and isn't sure when she'll be back to teaching. I need to get my voice looked at but have to make an appt. and then find a sitter - which has thus far not worked so well for things like the dentist where I've had to cancel and reschedule several times just so I can go. If I need to do speech therapy to get back on track how do I find a way to get there at least once a week? Given all that how do I get my voice back?

Right now daycare centers are signing up for fall 2010. I'm in the position of needing to commit to daycare which will range in cost from $1200-$1600 a month without knowing that I have guaranteed income to at least pay for it let alone bring the over and above in. So how do I sign up for daycare?

Despite spending a lot of time each day contemplating (worrying, fretting, whatever you want to call it) about my work life, I can't find a way out to make things work. Are these obstacles that can be overcome or do I throw in the towel on the world of singing and voice teaching and look for a regular 9-5 desk job? I hate the idea of walking away from something that I'm highly trained in and pretty good at but what's a girl to do?

Add in to all of this my frequent somewhat desperate desire to feel like myself again in some part of my life. I don't know what piece comes first and go in circles rather than stepping off the continuous loop to take a step forward.

Not So Much

Last night was interview number 2 with the Bubs Foundation. I like what they are trying to do. Much of the position would offer an interesting professional challenge. The board members seem friendly, committed and like good workers. The big, big problem, is that their conception of the job is one that would only require 3 hours a week. BUT they want the moon. They seem to have no sense of how much time anything will take to do things right and move the operation from grassroots to something that could be rolled out nationally. They also have limited funds and probably need to do some fundraising targeted at funding this position before really rolling it out.

I need a job that will provide me with 2 days of work starting either now or in the fall and will pay me enough to make it worth putting Ella in daycare. And, sadly, this position ain't it.

It is back to the drawing board on the job front.

Whining for a moment

Here's my whiny moment: I CANNOT get rid of the last 8 pounds of pregnancy weight. I've upped my exercise and try to go 4-5 days a week and the scale does not budge. Instead it dips a few pounds, goes back up and so on.

Over the past 6 months I've tried to adopt a more laid back attitude about the weight loss, telling myself, it'll come off in time etc. etc. But, here we are entering the summer season where I have, count 'em, ZERO items of summer clothing that fit on my bottom half. As it is, I have 2 pairs of pants and one pair of jeans that currently fit me and they are now a bit big because I bought them 5 pounds ago. I have some t-shirts from early pregnancy that I can wear, but I'm still nursing a bit so my upper half is also not its regular size (and, Oh. My. God. the sag!!).

Let me be clear, I do not think I am obese. I am well aware that I am within the normal weight range for someone who is my height. The issue is I have a freakin' closet full of clothes that I like and cannot wear. If we were completely wealthy I'd probably just say screw it and go buy a wardrobe of clothes for this size and then I'd just have them. But, I'm not, and don't feel like we have a ton of extra right now for me to invest in clothes. It seems most expedient to just lose the weight, but my body is not cooperating (or isn't yet).

While I know I'm not fat, I also know not being able to fit into my regular clothes makes me feel bad about myself. I don't feel particularly attractive in general right now, what with the constant bags under my eyes, bits of spit up etc on me in random spots (cuff of my pants right now from a little projectile spit up while E was in my lap), dull skin. When I so much as mention any of this to the hubs I get a response in his annoyed voice about how I look better than most women who haven't had babies etc. Because he seems to get annoyed with me whenever I bring it up, I tend to keep it to myself, but once in a while, I spill and talk about it. It never has a good ending.

Today I went and bought another tshirt, but I tried on pants and the shape of my lower half is just weird and places I used to purchase pants, have pants that don't currently work with my shape. So, back I go to do some working out and attempting to lose the remainder. Several people have also mentioned that your body holds onto a bit while you are nursing, so hopefully as this month winds down and Ella is switched over to bottle feeding some of the rest will come off (at least my boobs will shrink, right?).

Eeesh, if women have to go through pregnancy and childbirth, you'd think mother nature could reward us with bodies that just return to size quickly and easily in repayment for what we just made.

I'm pre-sewing in my head

About a year ago, I bought some fabric on a whim. It was a bunch of colors I loved, in batik style. The fabric sat around and periodically, I'd pull it out wondering what to do with it, look at it for a few days and then put it back.

About 3 months ago, I realized I had taken a photo when walking down my street on my way to the airport to fly to Paris in 2005 of some ivy that was hanging on the elementary school wall. The colors in the picture were just darker versions of the leaves as they turned color. Fast forward to two weeks ago and you'd find me in the fabric store with picture in hand, looking to get more fabric. You see, my mother-in-law turns 70 next week and I thought I'd make her a little art quilt that used the fabric and somehow took inspiration from the picture.

Here's the rub. My little creativity streak still has a desire, but no ability to coalesce. I have looked at the fabric, looked at the picture, looked at the fabric, looked at the picture...well, you get the idea. I CAN'T COME UP WITH ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE DAMN FABRIC.

Now, the birthday is closing in and the extent of what I've done is cut out a template of some ivy that I found on google images, but I didn't love it. I keep thinking about it, but no idea really seems to strike me as the 'ah ha that's what I'll do' idea. Boo.

Maybe something will come to me this weekend, but I'm gonna have to work fast to pull it off.

More from the Annals of Breastfeeding

I find this fascinating.

An important bit of info to this story is that the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that babies be exclusively breastfed for 6 months and then continue for at least a year.

A friend of mine is a pediatrician. She has a baby and just went back to work and needs to pump milk for her daughter When you pump you need to do it every 4 hours that you are away from your child. So let's say you work an 8 hour work day, that is 2 pumping times. Though your pump will remove all the milk in 12 minutes or so, there is set up time, cleanup time, storage time, so really you need to allow 1/2 an hour so you can do it all and not spill what you just made.

Her employer told her she could pump during her lunch break - probably many women do this. You get a hands free bra so you can eat your lunch while hooked up to the milker. Not the nicest way to spend your lunch break but so be it. For 8 and a half months you can spend your lunch break locked away in a room pumping milk.

However, they wouldn't allow her to take more time to pump. When she pushed they said they would give her more time, but dock her pay...she pushed more and they gave her 15 minutes and no pay dock and told her not to ask for more.

What does it say about the world that the very people who espouse breastfeeding to their patients don't make it easy for their employees to breastfeed their babies??? And, this is in the state of MA, where breastfeeding in public is protected by law.

I just don't get it.

Throwing it all at the wall

This is my new job search tactic. So much of our lives are up in the air that I can't think of any other way to go about it.

I'm just throwing everything at the wall and whatever sticks is what sticks.

To that end, I have an interview next Tuesday for a job I applied to a few weeks ago. It is coordinating an outreach program being launched by the Beelzebub's Foundation. They are the a capella group from Tufts that was on the TV show Sing Off. So many Boston schools are having their music programs cut that this group wants to send teachers in to run a capella programs so the students get some exposure to singing. Sounds interesting to me.

Thursday night I am meeting with the owner of a yoga studio in Belmont about teaching a few classes. She hasn't seemed exactly on top of things and that sends up a red flag, but I'm curious to meet her in person.

I've also started to put out that I could take on private students this summer and in the fall hopefully keep some private students to possibly expand my teaching.

Something in there has to take and come into a work situation that will feel right. I'm leery of being pulled in too many directions when I know my real attention is with Ella, but Harvard teaching has reduced greatly and if it can't pay the bills, I'm not staying there. I don't know that yoga teaching will produce much income, but since I'm trained in it, it seemed worth pursuing.

Whatever sticks is where I'm going.

Coppin' a 'Tude

It has taken my just over five months, but I think I have finally gotten to the point of knowing what perspective I need to have on my life right now. There's no doubt I've dealt with some hard stuff in the past. In each situation I've reached a place where I decide that I'm going to emerge from the experience stronger than I've ever been; rising like a Phoenix from the ashes.

So, here I am in a very happy place but also a very hard place. No doubt life presents some challenges these days. I can, and did last night, get myself turned in such circles. I find myself wanting so badly to be who I was before; to have my body back, be in shape and able to do the yoga I did before. I want my voice back to be ready to sing for job interviews and do concerts. I want to know where we will be living and what I will do for work in the fall so I can figure out daycare for Ella. It seems, at times as though everything hinges on everything else - my physical fitness plays a role in the support for my singing, nursing Ella keeps the reflux around and that effects the singing, not knowing about work makes looking for daycare tricky and on and on and on. Last night after getting myself worked up, I managed to have freaky anxiety dreams for most of the night.

Today, while teaching, I realized that I must adopt the attitude of coming out of this experience stronger than I've been before, physically, mentally and spiritually. Being the person I was before isn't an option because now I'm Ella's mom and I wouldn't give that up for anything. I can, however, be a new version of me who brings new depth to her singing not only because I've had such a profound experience in becoming a mom, but because I've experienced my body in a new way though being pregnant. I can approach yoga with a new appreciation for my body as well. Recently, I got Sarah Powers' new book, Insight Yoga and it offers just what I need now in my yoga practice. As I sang today at work I discovered some new colors and also found that I was more willing to explore the expression of the emotion of the song.

So, let it be noted. I don't know who I'll be as I emerge from this major life change, but like the Phoenix, I'm rising and moving onward and upward.