One of the perks (or pitfalls), depending on how you look at it, is that staying home with kids affords you lots of time to think.  Too much time, one might argue.  I have tons of time to think, ruminate, obsess, and worry, but not much time to actuate anything that I am thinking about.  My mind is reeling, but I am paralyzed.

So what do I think about?

I think about things I want to teach H and E.  I think about the most efficient way to keep a clean house.  I think about whether keeping a clean house even matters.  I think about how I want to fix up the house.  I think about how I should be exercising, and how to fit that in.  I think about things I want to learn.  I think about things I want to read.  I think about short- and long-term career goals.  I think to myself:  Will I ever get grant funding? If not, what then?  How can I be strategic in what I learn about my job in order to apply what I am learning to some unrelated career endeavor, should academia fail me again?  What do I really want to do?  Why do I feel worthless unless I am working?  Why do we feel the need to define ourselves through work?  Why is this an especially big hang-up for me?

As you can see, this is an exhausting line of inquiry.  Coupled with the equally exhausting parade of political debates and heated arguments over the past weeks and months, I am feeling like I just want to stick my head in the sand for a bit.  I’m feeling overwhelmed.

But—-last night was the first night in a very, very  long time where I got an uninterrupted stretch of sleep.  E doesn’t nap during the day sometimes, and at night he is up constantly.  But last night he slept.  For 12 hours.  And when I woke up, I felt a lot better (minus the engorgement!).  I didn’t feel crazed and anxious and grumpy.  I didn’t feel hopeless or fatigued.  Maybe part of my problem is that I am just exhausted, and nothing can feel right when you’re tired.

I’m going back to work in 2 weeks.  Of course I have mixed feelings about it.  I’ll miss E during my special days with him, but I’m also going to benefit from having the time with colleagues.  Feeling productive is going to be good for me.  That said, I’m going to share some anxieties with you about my job.  I had been working on a grant for the past few months.  It is a career development grant, and it requires a training plan, solid resources, sound mentorship, etc.  One of my university’s policies, as I recently discovered, is that anyone applying for a grant must have a full-time appointment.  I am temporary, part-time employee.  I can’t be full-time unless I get the grant.  But I can’t get the grant unless I am full-time.  It’s a problem.  But there are exceptions to this, and the chair of my department can request an exception be granted from the vice president for research administration at the university.  Despite my many appeals to my boss for a letter, my e-mails have gone completely and totally unanswered.  And when I’ve reached out to others in my lab group, I have heard nothing from them.  I am starting to feel nervous, and I am beginning to wonder if my job will be there for me, or if this is maybe not the long-term scenario I had been hoping for.

At the same time that all of this has been going down, my graduate advisor sent me a job ad for a tenure-track position at SMC for neuroscience.  While thoughtful of him, we aren’t interested in living in southern MD again.  After I checked out the job ad, I decided to check out available jobs through the Chronicle of Higher Education for VT.  There is a tenure-track job in neuroscience at a prestigious liberal arts college in VT that I am 90% sure I could get if I applied for it.  The teaching load is 2/2, with the expectation that a research lab would be established for training undergraduates.  I could do the job and rock at it.  Of the 4 courses that they want taught by this hire, I’ve taught 3.  I would be amazing at this, yet I can’t allow myself to apply.  I’ve taught at a few institutions here, and I’ve always come to the same conclusion:  I’m an engaging and committed teacher, but my introversion is incompatible with always being “on” in a classroom.  I have no tolerance or patience for students who are dragging their feet and making excuses, and I hate talking to the parents of the overprivileged, which would almost certainly be a situation with which I’d have to deal at this particular school.  I know these things about myself, so even though this job was the goal for so many years, and I would have jumped at it coming out of graduate school, I have to disengage from that idea of myself now.  It’s not for me.  This is not to say that I can’t ever be in the hot seat and be up in front of people—I love giving talks about research.  What I don’t enjoy is 10+ hours per week of lecturing/leading discussions.  It just is too much for my little introverted brain.  Even after 5 years of teaching, it never got easier.  But the job isn’t just teaching….it’s research too?  Could I tolerate the teaching if I got to have my own lab?  That’s an answer I don’t have.

But there’s more to this story.  While searching for jobs on the Chronicle, I also came across a job for a local educational lender.  They are looking to hire someone who has some statistical prowess and can analyze data related to educational outcomes.  In the local VT talent pool, I’m about 95% sure I could get that job.  It would satisfy my analytical cravings, I would still get to do some writing and a bit of presenting, and although I don’t actually like teaching all that much, I DO enjoy thinking about pedagogical issues.  So should I take the leap and leave the academic path altogether?  It’s a freeing idea.  There’s no going back if I do this, but at this point, I feel like something needs to change.

So the question is this—am I even ready to go back full-time?  I was kind of hoping for a part-time gig for the foreseeable future—ideally until Emery is closer to 2.  But maybe I shouldn’t wait—good jobs are really hard to come by.  Maybe I should interview, just for the practice.  Just to get more information.  It couldn’t hurt.

One of the most important realizations I’ve had lately, is that my flexibility and willingness to try ANYTHING here in VT in order to keep my career going, may have backfired.  When I thought I was preparing myself for everything, I was actually preparing myself for nothing.  I took every opportunity that came to me, but at the same time, I was avoiding making any choices.  I wasn’t saying, “Gee, I really want to do X.”  Instead, I was saying, “I’ll try this new thing because, who knows, maybe it will be important one day for some hypothetical situation/job that may or may not ever materialize.”  I did administration, teaching, bench work, clinical work, animal work, human work, advising.  I’ve done it all.  But which of those did I actually WANT to do?  What is my goal?  My goals have really changed with the situation.  If clinical work was the work where the grant $$$ were, then clinical work is what I wanted.  If there was money for a teaching position, then teaching was what I wanted.  Or at least, these are things I thought I wanted.  Now I realize I haven’t ever even known what I wanted to do at all.  Knowing this about myself is incredibly freeing.

So here I go—off to figure out what works for me.  Watch out academia.  We might be breaking up for real this time.

Little E, who also goes by “The Emanator,” and “The Emster,” is now half a year old.  Wow!  He is an incredible little guy.  He started solids about 3 weeks ago, and has surprised us by enjoying broccoli more than banana.  So far he has had acorn squash, carrot, apple, broccoli, banana, and rice cereal, of course.  Tomorrow we introduce him to peas!  Even though it’s messy, I actually enjoy introducing my kids to new foods because it means I can impart healthy attitudes about eating to them and have their first experience with fruits and vegetables be a positive one.  Just like with H, I am making all of my baby food from scratch, simply by steaming or cooking the food, pureeing, and serving.

E’s very first bite of solid food was delivered by his adoring big brother:

Don’t you love how focused E is in this photo?  Don’t worry…he doesn’t take it too seriously:

E sits well while supported, but topples over after a few seconds if you leave him to his own devices.  He’s rolling EVERYWHERE these days; in fact, he’s kind of adopted rolling as his own default mode of transportation.  His latest developmental milestone from the past couple of weeks is that he now transfers objects from hand to hand.  His babbling is getting more and more speechlike, more and more purposeful, and I often hear a “ma-ma-ma-ma” coming from him when he needs me.  I love that!!  He articulates his right wrist in a really interesting way—he kind of circles it around at the joint, with or without staring intently at his wrist as he does this.  He loves jumping (assisted of course!), reading stories before bed (Baby Faces and Baby Cakes are his two favorites), and watching H play.  E has the best laugh EVER!!!  He is totally cracked up by H.  All the time.  Even during long car rides.  Here are the boys during a typical afternoon.  Funniest thing all week.

I love love love my little E:)

See that?  That’s me being funny.

I’m excited to be going back to work part-time in November (so soon!), although pumping breastmilk in anticipation of this event isn’t exactly how I want to be spending my free time.  I’ve been trying to do it every day during the week for 15 minutes.  I realize how busy I must be, when I find it challenging to get a nice 15-minute block to accomplish this.  But so far, I have a few bags of milk stored up in the freezer.  This week’s efforts will feed Emery for one work day.  One.  Holy hell, how I am going to do this?  I guess the blessing is that it’s only 2 days each week, and by the time I go back to work, E will be nearly 7 months and he will have started solid food by then.

Holden has started his new school year at the EJRP Preschool where he went last year.  There are some familiar faces and some new ones.  He even has some new teachers (we were heartbroken to find out that one of his preschool teachers who also doubles as our babysitter left the preschool to go back to college).  No more date nights for us:(  But so far, H seems to be having a great time at preschool, and he is loving the 3-day per week routine compared to the 2-day per week routine that he had last year.

Here he is on his first day of preschool for the year:

And of course we couldn’t resist a picture with his adoring little brother:

H is so much more mature this year than last.  I’m sure it will be a wonderful last year of preschool for him.  Then off to the elementary school next year for kindergarten!  Yikes!

Little E is 5 months old!  As of his 4-month check-up he weighed in at just over 19 lbs and is 27.5 inches tall, which puts him in the 99th and 93th percentiles for weight and height, respectively.  He’s a big dude!

He is babbling non-stop, starting to sit up on his own, and rolling from back to tummy effortlessly!  He is social and snuggly, and he may have shown us a glimpse of his budding sense of empathy already!  We had a playdate with some friends last week; they have 3 girls who are 4, 2.5, and 8 weeks.  We had propped Emery and the 8-week old up so that they were facing each other and checking each other out.  E just smiled and smiled at her, and wouldn’t stop studying her sweet face.  After a few minutes of this, the 8-week old’s middle sister bounded onto the couch and accidentally scratched her sister on the face.  The little 8-week old scrunched up her face and started crying.  E looked at her and stuck out his lower lip in the most pathetic pout ever, and started sobbing.  It was so clearly an empathic response to what happened, and I was so struck with how early this sort of thing emerges.  It truly is amazing.

Well, I successfully drove myself and my two little guys all the way from northern VT to WV and back again.  We have been back for 2.5 weeks already, and I am only now getting around to detailing our little trip.  The boys were AMAZING in the car.  Seriously, they couldn’t have been better.  They definitely were ready to be out of the car at the end of each leg of the trip, but who can blame them?  I tried to break up the driving as best I could—for instance, we stopped at a park in the Adirondacks and did some swinging and sliding at the playground.  We also had an impromptu picnic at a cemetery somewhere in Ohio.  Sounds morbid, but wow…it was a beautiful day and the cemetery was quiet and CLEAN, unlike the midwestern rest stops that peppered the interstate.  Plus, H got to learn a few things about where people’s bodies go after they are dead, and he even decided to talk to “Ralph” and “Edith,” who were interred next to our beach towel and veggie straws.  H offered them imaginary ice cream and told them stories.  I’m sure if they could hear him, it would have made their day.

We broke the driving up over two days.  We stayed overnight in Rochester, NY at a super cheap hotel, which for some reason, made H eager to the extreme.  He is kind of fascinated with sleeping at hotels.  Even cheap ones with crappy breakfasts, apparently.  When I told him that we’d be getting a free breakfast in the morning at the hotel, he responded matter-of-factly:  “Nothing is for free, Mommy.”

I stand corrected.

We had a really nice time at my parent’s house once we arrived.  And best of all, the visit gave me some much-needed peace.  I spent a lot of time with my dad, and after spending time with him and talking to him about it, I’m nearly 100% certain that he is absolutely fine.  Really.  I think I was given some bad intel about his health, and I am so so so relieved.  The visit was very special for him.  His grandsons are very important to him and he loves them both so much.  I know how much it meant to him to be able to spend that time with them.  I am so glad we were able to make the trek down there.

While we were in WV, we also got to visit my dear aunt and uncle.  Holden got completely spoiled with tractor rides with one of my favorite uncles:

My mom had a nice time with the boys, too.  She is definitely having a very hard time with her health, but there’s really nothing anybody can do to help.  We’re just waiting on pins and needles for November, when she’ll finally get a diagnosis.  Here she is loving baby time with Emery:

During our return trip to VT, we were coming up through the Adirondacks (which are BEAUTIFUL!), and I somehow took a wrong turn (or failed to make a right turn).  Either way, the directions had me confused because apparently 9-North is different from 9N, which is different still from 9N-North.  Confusing.  So we found ourselves WAY north of the bridge that would have allowed us to cross Lake Champlain and arrive safely again in VT.  Once I realized my error, we were getting closer to Plattsburgh, NY, and we were almost directly across from Burlington, VT—with Lake Champlain directly in our way.  The lake is enormous.  Driving around it isn’t really an option, and I wouldn’t have known where to go to even do that anyway.  We may have ended up in Canada, and I have neither a passport nor an enhanced VT license.  Here’s a picture of what kind of problem we were up against:

Luckily, some problems can more easily be turned into adventures than others.  I knew that there is a ferry that can get you across the lake from NY to VT, but I’d never taken it before, and I wasn’t quite sure where to pick it up.  Amazingly, we pretty much stumbled upon the ferry in Fort Kent, NY, paid $17.95, drove our little VW Rabbit onto the boat, and spent a full hour cruising across the lake on one of the most spectacular days of the summer.  Holden was so excited that we had driven our car onto a boat to cross the lake—I thought he was going to lose his shit.  Here’s our little car, getting ferried across the lake to the Green Mountain State:

Twenty minutes after disembarking the ferry, we were in our driveway, hugging our sweet Papa and regaling him with stories from our travels.  The trip was good for all of us.  It was good for the boys, it was good for my parents, and it was also good for me.  I feel some peace that I didn’t have before, and I think it was one solid step towards feeling whole again.