Waxing philosophical on work-life balance and...oh, my knees

It's always really busy during the holidays; this always makes me think about how much time work takes up. Of course, with Keegan in the picture, this has become more of an issue for me than it ever was before. I made the decision to come back to work full-time. At the time my options were basically quit or come back full-time. I did talk my employer into letting me come back 1/2 time until Keegan was 5 months old. This was a wonderful thing. I don't think I could have lived with the thought of my little 8 week old being in daycare and getting sick all of the time.

Even though I made the decision to come back to work full-time, this decision constantly haunts me. There are a million thoughts about the working vs stay-at-home options always buzzing through my head. When Keegan gets sick, I think I could have prevented his discomfort if I stayed at home with him and he hadn't gone to daycare. When Keegan comes home from daycare tired and crabby, I feel like if he had spent the day with me he would have been happier. Sometimes I feel like daycare is raising Keegan. I wonder about the intelligence of having my child raised by a bunch of girls in their mid 20's to mid 30's. The saving grace of this all is my mother. Had she not offered to watch Keegan a couple days a week, I don't think I would be working still. Well, maybe I would be working.

That leads to thoughts of working and many more questions. Is it selfish that I like my work? Is it selfish to enjoy the challenges of work and the camaraderie of my coworkers? Is it selfish to like the extra money that me working brings into the household? Am I wrong for believing that all my hard work to get through college should be put to use on a daily (or at least weekly basis)?

Like any problem there are many aspects to it. Lyle and I discussed all of these issues many times through and came up with some answers that led me back to work. Of course, like any problem, the questions and situation keep rapidly changing.

When I spent those 5 months at home with Keegan, I was not happy. I missed my work and I missed my friends. I began to see how staying home with Keegan would be mentally very challenging. Staying at home with your child is grueling and under-appreciated work. At times I would even resent Lyle because he could go out to lunch and he could talk about interesting things that happened in his day and I couldn't.

This was part of the decision to go back to work for me. Keegan deserves to have a happy, energetic mommy around. He does not deserve to have a depressed and jealous mommy around. My mental well-being was part of me going back to work. The other part of the decision to go back to work was the money. I make good money. With this money I make we can save up for Keegan's college, we can take Keegan interesting places, we can do interesting things, and we can reduce the general stress of the household. Money isn't everything, but it goes along way in keeping a household secure and running smoothly.

Do all of the above out-weight having somebody else raise my child? I guess I really don't know. To be quite honest up to this point Keegan hasn't needed much direction. We have also been fairly happy with daycare. There have been a couple incidents where daycare skipped a nap, forgot to do his diaper ointment, or forgot to give him his morning bottle. I always talk to them about these issues and the issue is quickly corrected. I understand no one is perfect and they have multiple babies to take care of.

As Keegan has gotten older and can do more things I really enjoy being with him. Sometimes it makes me very sad that he does something at daycare or my mom's house before he does it for me. It does make me happy that Keegan is always happy to see me and always crawls over into my lap when he doesn't feel good. I guess I feel like the time I *do* spend with Keegan is high quality. Lyle and I and Keegan get time to sit down and play almost every night. To be honest more than a couple hours of playing can start to get a little bit boring to me. Sometimes I think Keegan has so many toys so that I can stay interested in playing and not him ;-)

As Keegan gets older and needs more direction though I am revisiting the topic of staying at home. Last week I talked to my manager about going down to 4 work days a week. He was very amicable to the suggestion; although he said it would have to wait until after our project gate in Feb. He suggested a compromise instead; he thought I could work four 10 hour days and stay at home on Friday. Since I am already at work 9 hours a day, it is not a bad suggestion. I will try this schedule out starting in the new year (prior to upper management approval). I was very pleased that he was willing to hear me out on this!

Most of the mothers I know that work say that if they had a choice the perfect work-life balance would be to work part-time. Luckily I am at a job that may be able to accommodate this. If that is the case maybe I can stop angsting a bit about the work-life balance and find a perfect balance with working part-time.

Okay second topic...my knees.

I mentioned a couple posts ago that my knees were giving me awful troubles. Well they are better, but still swelling and hurting. So I had a doctor's appointment today. I love my internist; she is funny, concerned, takes me seriously, and gets straight to the point about a diagnosis. So the diagnosis, while not pretty, was as follows.

Both of my knee joints grind; she jokingly asked me how old I was because usually they see knees like this on a 60 year old. This is because of bone spurs in my joints. The swelling is bursitis (not sure how to spell this).
The bone spurs can be caused by trauma (back to marching band maybe) or can be hereditary. No one knows why it happens to some people and not others.

Short-term the bursitis can be controlled by wearing a splinted brace over my knee, icing it, and taken large does of anti-inflammatory meds. She mentioned taking glucosamine might help if I want to give it a shot.

Longer-term it will not get better, only worse. I can mitigate it by controlling the bursitis (see above) and avoiding high impact activities (like DDR and running).

If the swelling and pain continues long term there are two options; surgery and shots. I can get a series of three very expensive shots into my knee joints. These shots help the knee to lubricate itself and should last a year or so. The surgery would remove any bone spurs from the joints, but would probably only be effective for 1-2 years before more spurs developed.

If my knee at any point gives out I am in trouble. It was pretty wobbly last week but it never gave out. She told me that if it does give out I need to call her immediately; they will have to do a scan to make sure I don't need re-constructive knee surgery. She prefaced all this by saying that this is serious and if I don't take care of myself I will probably need knee replacement surgery by the time I am 40.

So, that sucks. I have had trouble with my knees as long as I can remember, I figured it would catch up to me eventually. Oh yeah, and the doctor also said that she thinks DDR is great fun and recommends that I try limiting my sessions to 30 minutes or so and wearing shoes. She would hate for me to have to give up that fun activity :-) I loved the fact that she was straight forward, laid out my options, and tried to do it with a sense of humor!

She also, like usual, asked me about everything else in my life to make sure I was doing okay in every way. She wanted to know how Lyle was doing, how Keegan was doing, how work was, and how I was handling Keegan having to be in daycare. We discussed the whole work/child thing. She sympathized with it all, told me that she hopes the part-time thing works out, and told me that it sounded like I was doing okay mentally :-) She is great about trying to track overall health to make sure that nothing else is causing me undue stress or discomfort. Anyway, my family has heard enough about how much I love this doctor. Anyway, back to work. I will do my utmost to help my knees be better.

Of course we do SIR

Well we did have a night out which was really great. The movie was ok, I wouldn't say it was the best movie I had ever seen, but then The Matrix is pretty hard to beat :). Anyway just another couple quick things. Keegan is as Karissa mentioned walking a lot more since Sunday. I have to concede that it has to do with the fact that Corinne came over and he watched her for quite a bit and probably did learn it from her! Which if you ask me is kind of cool since it means that he can do anything if he just has the right motivation :).

Also Keegan has gotten much better at copying you if you do something funny. Like Monday night Karissa and I were making faces at him, and he would try and copy the face. Now I am not saying that he has complete control, but just a couple of things like making a kissing sound he was able to manage. Of course he has been able to copy sounds for a while, and is getting pretty good at that too. So all in all I think he is progressing very well, and will be running circles around us in no time. Ice skating is coming soon!!

One other funny story this morning. I was getting him ready for daycare, and while I was holding him I went and got his nuk. I gave him the nuk, and he started to put it in his mouth like he usually does, but he fumbled with it and it started to fall. So I caught it, and grabbed on to the edge of hard plastic with my teeth to hold it while I repositioned some stuff to get ready to go. Keegan immediately reached for the nuk like he normally does, which is what I expected him to do. So he grabbed the nuk, and looked at it for a second, then a wide grin stretched across his face and he push the nuk right back towards my mouth. I grabbed it with my teeth like I had before, and then he giggled a little. He smiled again, and then grabbed the nuk back. After that we repeated this little game about 5 times and every time he would smile and giggle. I guess that means he is starting to learn to share, which is cool. Sharing is suppose to be something they pick up around this age, so I am not really surprised by that, but it was just kind of a funny moment.

Night on the Town

My dismal week last week was finally broken after I wrote that last blog. When I got home Lyle has already cooked dinner and Keegan was peacefully sleeping. My shoulder miraculously stopped hurting the next morning, and everything in general seemed much better.

So, the movie, The Golden Compass came out in theaters last Friday. I thought it would be fun to make an effort to go and see this movie some time the coming week. We talked to my parents and my mom agreed to keep Keegan through Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night so that Lyle and I could go and watch a movie.

Lyle and I left work a bit early and met at home. We looked up movie times and then jumped in the car in an attempt to catch a 4:15pm movie. When we got to the theater we found out that between 4pm - 6pm the Carmike theater in Mounds View has their bargain matinée. Tickets were only $5 a piece and, if you brought your own bucket, you could get it filled with popcorn for only 50 cents. Who knew there was so much benefit to going to a movie at 4:15pm on a Tuesday night?

The movie was excellent and afterwards we discussed where to go and eat dinner. Neither of us were all that hungry. We decided to stop by a Caribou. After getting some drinks and pastries we went over to pick up Keegan. We picked him up a little before 8pm and he was sleeping. He went back to sleep easily when we got home. All in all it was a very nice afternoon/night out. Lyle and I are very grateful that my parents could watch Keegan so that we could have an adult afternoon out together. Although I did miss seeing and playing with Keegan a little bit.

As for Keegan...on Sunday we played Dungeons and Dragons. Aaron and Michelle brought Corinne along. We gave Corinne her bday present and Corinne and Keegan trucked around after each other for a bit. This always ends up being very significant for Keegan, he studies Corinne very intently. In the last month or so Corinne has become a very proficient walker. Keegan has been able to precariously toddle across the distance of maybe half a room. He seems to get a bit nervous and then he falls down. Well that all changed on Monday.

After spending a couple hours observing Corinne he figured it all out! At daycare on Monday his teachers exclaimed that he was walking everywhere. Monday night we got to observe this as Keegan quickly walked across the room. He now walks very rapidly, usually between things that he can grab onto. He also is getting better at bending over and picking things up off the floor while walking and not falling over.

Late last week we found out that Keegan had picked up the sign for milk. We don't think he knows what it means yet but he can do that sign very well. So there's your update (disjointed as it is) and an assurance that this week is better than the last.

One of those weeks...

I know people don't necessarily want to read about what a crappy week it has been. I think it would be very therapeutic for me to vent though so, I am going to write about it anyway. With the disclaimer that this entry is purely a rant of frustration you can read, or not read, as you feel fit.

Things have been stressful in general because of all of the holiday stuff that has been going on. We have even tried to tone it down some this year. Still there are presents to be wrapped, etc, etc.

I think the frustration started last week when the left headlight went out in my car. Lyle, Keegan, and I ran to Target to get a replacement and promptly replaced it. The next day it was out again. For the last week and a half I have been trying to remember to replace it..again. Last week I was also trying to finish up a cute yearly calender with pictures of Keegan in it. It was supposed to be a surprise Christmas present but since they were sitting out when Lyle got home on Monday I ended up just giving them to my parents and Lyle.

Of course Keegan was sick this whole weekend which resulted in near to zero sleep for Lyle and me. Keegan is doing better now but is very persistent about eating at 3am in the morning. This is especially irritating because it is only 1.5 hours before we normally get up. He goes right back to sleep after eating a bottle but Lyle and I can't get back to sleep before it's time to get up again. As if the normal mad dash of trying to get Keegan dropped off, get to work, get home, get errands run, and get Keegan to bed wasn't bad enough it had to snow.

I normally love the snow. I still try to tell myself that I love the snow. On Tuesday when it snowed I had gotten into work late because of dropping Keegan off. I left an hour early to avoid a two hour commute home. Instead of having my normal 35 minute drive home (I left at 2:30pm) I had a 1.5 hour drive home. It sucked. But not as bad as it sucked for Lyle. He left at 3pm and didn't get home until almost 6pm. There went the whole night. By the time Lyle got home I was getting ready to give Keegan his bottle and put him to bed.

Then the next morning (Wed. morning) was no better. It took me an hour to get into work (I left at 6am) and it took Lyle over 2 hours to get into work. When I backed out of the driveway this morning and saw it was, once again, snowing. I had a few things to say about that; I am grateful that Keegan isn't picking up any of the words I say...yet.

To make matters worse last Friday I woke up with a horrible pain in my neck. You know how that happens sometimes. Well it hasn't gone away. It has just gotten worse to the point where it hurts up the back of my head and down my arm. It hurts to pick up Keegan and it hurts to drive. Since I am on a rant about bodily pain; let's next address my knees. I have always had bad knees. During marching band my left knee swelled up to 5x its normal size. I was on crutches for 6 weeks and on painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs. So we have started playing DDR a lot. Last night while I was crawling around after Keegan my left knee made a crunch sound and then started swelling. I spend a good portion of last night with ice tied to my knee. Not sure what made my knee give, it could have been the DDR or it could have been all the crawling around on wood floors. I am not sure. It really makes me wonder what my knees will be like when I am 50.

So since the weather, the sick baby, and my body are not enough to throw me in complete chaos; the powers that be have decided that work should uber suck this week too. The only good thing that has happened at work is that I do not have to go out to the plant this month. The bad thing is that they have split our coating run at the plant into 3 parts. 12 hours of our stuff, 12 hours of salable product, 12 hour of our stuff, 12 hour of salable product, 24 hours of our stuff. Now changing the coater back and forth from an experimental set up to the set up for product we actually sell is always a huge endeavor. With this schedule we are not going to get any coating done and the experimentation is going to be so fractured that it's useless.

There are tons of arguments about what should be run and how useful it is to run it. We are already over budget, yet upper management is determined to spend another half million on this fractured experimentation. Now you ask should I be blogging about this; well, trust me they already know what I think about it.

To make matters worse I am the only woman engineer on the team and I have asked to not travel this month since it is hard for Lyle to drop off and pick up Keegan from daycare with his long drive to work. I have traveled a lot lately, I have a 10 month child, and I am the female of the household. I have been getting a lot of accusatory glances and comments of "well, I guess you're lucky you have an excuse to not go." or "well, you won't be there to observe it will you? So why do you care?" I feel guilty about not going out there; but on the other hand I think I am entitled to a little break given all the extra hours and extra travel I have done recently and in previous years.

One of the other female engineers and me were discussing how unfair this is especially during Christmas. I make sure that we get all of the presents, I make sure they are wrapped, and I make sure all the Christmas cards get sent out. I make sure we make cookies and I make sure the Christmas decorations get set up. This is not to say that Lyle doesn't help a ton with all of this stuff, but he does not drive it. I think if I weren't there, none of it would be done. After talking to my male counterparts it seems that this is the case with most of them also. They talk about their wives getting this and that done for Christmas. So, they aren't that concerned about being out at the plant the week before Christmas. Well, unfortunately, not only do I have a small child, I *am* responsible for making sure all the Christmas stuff gets done.

The topper on everything last evening was yet another attempt to help Keegan celebrate something fun for Christmas. I saw a police car coming down the road and asked Lyle if he knew what that was about. He mentioned that it was probably Santa coming around on the firetruck like he does every year. I, was like, well we have to get Keegan out there to see it. I whipped on a coat and slid my shoes halfway on. We threw on Keegan's snowsuit. It really only took a couple minutes. I picked up Keegan and went limping down the driveway with him; my knee an shoulder killing me. We got to the bottom of the drivway just as Santa was getting there. I got Keegan to wave at Santa and...Santa didn't even look at us. We were the only people out there and somehow he didn't see us :-( Keegan liked the lights though, so we stayed and waved at the police car that was trailing Santa. No response there either. Feeling somewhat defeated, yet proud that Keegan had made an effort to wave, I limped back to the house. I heard somebody call "Hey, miss". I turned around to find one that one of the firemen had seen us and run all the way from the firetruck to give me and Keegan a candy cane and wish us Merry Christmas. It made me feel much better :-) That is until I got to the front door and it wouldn't open. Lyle pounded from the inside, while I tried to wrench it open from the front...still no luck. I had to go in through the garage. The door is still broken; we need a new handle.

Oh yeah, one last thing...our computer died last night too...we think the motherboard gave out. I can here money draining out of the bank account from here...

I guess I am running out of steam and I do need to get some other work done. I am just at the end of my rope with work right now and have negative desire to be here. I have to sit through a 3 hour design review this afternoon and I am hoping, with Keegan's new penchant for 3am feedings, that I can stay awake through it.

Having a sick baby sucks!

Everyone already probably knows that having a sick baby sucks. I just thought I would reiterate the fact out of frustration.

After bragging to a coworker on Thursday that Keegan had been perfectly healthy for over 3 weeks, I came home to find that Keegan had developed a fever during the day. This fever persisted to Friday morning. And, though I was tempted to give him some Tylenol and send him to daycare, I didn't. I stayed home with Mr. Crabby, as we have taken to calling him over the last 4 days.

It kind of sucked because I had stuff I needed to get done at work; alas it was not meant to be. Keegan has been unhappy every night because he coughs, wakes up, and doesn't feel good. So there has been a lot of rocking Keegan in the glider at 2am in the morning. He has been unhappy all day. I was thinking about taking him in to the doctor today but yesterday he finally pulled out of his sickness and out of his seemingly chronic crabbiness.

Yesterday afternoon Keegan finally took a nap. Lyle and I collapsed on our bed and took a nap ourselves. After that we were all much happier.

Still it sucks when the baby is sick. You can't do a whole lot to help them out and they can't tell you what's wrong. The only thing you *can* do is be there for them. So, that's what I did on Friday I rocked Keegan, I played with Keegan, and I did my best to comfort the horribly crabby baby. Sometimes I guess that's all you can do!

Thank goodness that he is finally feeling better and cracking frequent smiles again!