October was an absolutely exhausting month. I billed almost 400 hours last month, which included 5 days (in a row) where I did not go home. I have gigantic bags under my eyes, and there were moments when I was so tired, I thought I was going to puke just from the sheer exhaustion.
This work life is definitely killing my family. Hubs and I are seriously talking about him quitting his job, partly because things are not going as well for him as he would like (there has already been talk that his contract won't be renewed) but mostly because of the strain that having an absentee mother is having on my kids.
Hubs and I are fighting a lot. He tries pretty damn hard to be supportive, but I have a ridiculous job right now that demands me when I'm in the office, when I'm at home, all the time and constantly. I am a slave to my blackberry. He doesn't understand why I don't call home when I'm stuck at the office at 10pm, and all I can say is that the last time I was working in a case room w/ other associates, and took some time out to call home, I literally had someone track me down and give me a reprimand for being unavailable for too long (it was like 10-15 minutes).
My job is psychotic.
I think I've become a little traumatized by this whole experience. I know that other associates at the firm are not billing or working nearly the same hours as I am - I think - either they are trying to make me quit, or they're trying to drive me insane. Well, they're very nearly succeeding. I think I need to stick it out to get my bonus, but then I have some serious retooling to do.
On the good side, I managed to plead my partner to give me two normal days last week (normal, as in leaving the office at 7pm instead of 5am) so that I could (1) celebrate Loo's 3rd birthday and (2) take the girls trick-or-treating. Loo was dressed as a disney princess (I'm not going to mention which one, because I'm too damned embarrassed that she even knows what a disney princess is) and Kal was a duck. Kal has finally started walking after many half-hearted attempts (she's 14months, so that's late-ish, right?). It was cute ushering them from doorstep to doorstep doing the trick or treat thing. We only went down like 3 blocks, but Loo got more candy than she's probably seen in a lifetime and Kalista had no idea what was going on (except that she hated, HATED her duck hat).
As for Loo's birthday party, it was also disney princess themed (ugh, I'm vomiting a little in my mouth just thinking about it), and I ordered about 20 mini-cupcakes (the most amazing flavors - there was oreo cookie topped, red velvet, pistachio, coconut, gourmet hostess, and a ton of others) from a local baker. We had kids from the neighborhood and from one of Loo's playgroups, only 8 kids showed up, but I think a fun time was had by all. Loo got some serious stash for her birthday: her first tricycle and an easel. She's keen on the easel, not so much on the trike. Oh well, so she's an indoorsy type like mommy.
Along with Loo's third birthday seem to come a whole new view of life. There is nothing that is not a negotiation with her anymore. It's really funny interacting with her on this level, but hubs and I know that we have to be careful, because although as one offs, her negotiating prowess is cute, I really don't want to encourage it as a general matter.
She did two things last week, one with me and one with hubs.
She had been really disobeying hubs all night one night, and he was getting pretty darn sick of it. She had two time outs, which did nothing, so finally he warned her that she was asking for it. She looked at him coyly and said, "Are you going to spank me?" When he had no response to her, she asked again, and got no response again. So then she said, "Ok, but not too hard."
Then a few days later, she put on a sleep sack in the middle of the day. It was one of those new fangled sleep sacks that has holes for the foot so that a toddler can still walk around in it. I told her not to put it on, but she was insistent. So then I told her to be careful while wearing it, because the sack was clearly restricting her ability to move and balance properly. Of course, Loo heard nothing of my warnings. She promptly tried to climb up a dining room chair, and promptly fell down and bumped her lip hard against the table. I scooped the crying girl to my room to calm her down, but also to give her a bit of talking to.
Me: "Loo, what did mommy say? Did mommy tell you to be careful when wearing your sleep sack? Look at your feet, see how you can't see your legs? Well, if you want to climb, you have to take off the sleep sack because you don't have legs in the sleep sack and you need your legs to climb. So if you want to wear your sleep sack, then you can't climb up the chair by yourself.
Loo looked at me intently, and looked at her little feet sticking out of the sleep sack holes. Then she stretched the holes of the sack way up her leg and thigh revealing her whole leg. She didn't say a word, just looked at me in a very old, knowing way.
*Sigh*
I don't know what I am going to do with that girl.
I really feel for you. I can't even imagine what working 400 hours a month must feel like when you have young children. When my kids were small, the most I ever had to do was perhaps 120 hours a month, and even then I felt as though I had it tough. When I had to work very late at night and ended up taking a taxi from Tokyo to where I lived, I felt stressed out.
Posted by: Mary Witzl | November 07, 2007 at 06:47 PM