The Illness that Will Not Die

Okay, the title is slightly hyperbolic.  But I've been sick for 9 days.  First it was a bad cold.  Bad enough that if I'd been expected to be places (like class) I would have canceled.  By Thursday I thought I'd turned a corner.  Then on Friday I went to campus for a full day of things (candidate interview, special collections, lunch w/chair, podcast for journal) and ended up feeling worse.  And then yesterday I decided it actually warranted a trip to urgent care as it's becoming sinus infection-y, and I'm tired of not catching that until there is goo coming out of my eyes.  Turns out I also have a double ear infection.  I was prescribed Augmentin and told not to take it for another few days, you know, because these things are often viral.  I know antibiotics are overprescribed and all.  But I also know me, and I rarely feel this horrible.  Like, I think the last time I felt this horrible was maybe when Tiny Boy was one and everyone in my household ended up diagnosed with some form of bronchitis.  So hopefully it will go away.  So far my ears still hurt, my face hurts, I've gone through I can't tell you how many tissue boxes, woe is me.

But, also, the weekend was pretty good.  Saturday involved gymnastics class (Tiny Boy) while I finished reading a novel, a trip to the art museum and crafts, ice cream, haircuts all around; after Tiny Boy went to bed, LG and I watched Gilmore Girls because apparently she's into that now.  Sunday was our usual Whole Foods shopping trip, and the all afternoon Urgent Care Extravaganza, followed by Tiny Boy playing legos/Playmobil/Batman while I cooked root vegetables and chicken soup and LG went to play practice (a friend is putting on a production of Annie, like, with actual scripts; they have been doing some version of Annie since they were maybe 7).

Today I did manage to cross the big ticket items off my to do list, and some smaller ones, but, man, I feel horrible and really do not want to be back on campus for yet another interview tomorrow morning.  We'll see what the night brings...

Post Because I Skipped Yoga Today

Somewhere around 6:00 am, when it was clear I wasn't falling back to sleep (Tiny Boy had woken me at 4:45 to cover him and then called repeatedly until I threatened to detain him from his school field trip, which I totally would have done) I decided I was skipping yoga.

I like yoga, I do.  But the class is about 30-45 minutes too long--the teacher recently tacked on an extra 15 minutes, and she generally doesn't finish on time--which is tantamount to giving up the bulk of my morning (between the drive and the getting dressed and the class itself) which today was just too much on under 6 hrs sleep.

I decided if I wasn't going to yoga, I needed to do something with that time.  That's included (a) watching 20 minutes of Madam Secretary, which is the new thing I'm watching, (b) writing toward Shiny New Project (which I don't generally do on Fridays), (c) submitting old work, (d) doing my five minute email triage, (e) writing this.

I still have an hour before I need to leave for campus.  An hour!  So I'm going to start working on my annual review materials, which are due next week (ugh ugh ugh).

I'm contemplating tracking my time next week, because I'm interested in seeing how much time I'm spending on things other than Shiny New Project(s) during my work hrs.  More on that soon!

Slowing Down and Getting Stuff Done

I had a good first week on the grant.  Tuesday ended up being a snow day for LG, so not optimum (I can do some amount of work while she's around, but it's really not the same quality as having the house to myself).  Friday was a campus day (I was there 11-4 with nonstop meetings/appointments.) But over the course of the week, I wrote on Shiny New Protect #1 daily.  I also sent off an essay revision, which required a fair amount of revision and retooling.  I did some domestic work (cleaning and paperwork) though not as much as I'd planned.  That is, I think I found a pretty good pace.

I was privy to a conversation the other night--academic women talking about the difficulty of getting work done while mothering (on the one side) and others talking about the usefulness of the NCFDD program and the like (on the other side).  And what occurred to me is that (a) neither of those is my narrative and (b) it seems increasingly that having an "ordinary" narrative of balanced work life feels taboo.  If we're moving away from the problematic 'you can't get tenure unless you work [fill in the blank of high hours] per week,' I think we've swung far in the other direction of the difficulty of doing work (and by work I mean research, that is the work that we are really paid for and required for promotion).  Maybe this isn't broadly true, but it's certainly what I see in my own program.

While I'm not one of those prissy writers I know who requires long expansive time of retreats and hours of silence to get work done--I mean, I did my daily writing on a Whole Foods grocery bag because I'd forgotten my notebook on Friday--I also see that freeing up mental space (by not teaching, by minimizing email checking and service obligations, etc) is unquestionably valuable to beginning a project.  This is the first time in years, I think, that I can just read around and see what happens.  That is, I can always work on my research, even in those fifteen minutes here and there.  But that's unquestionably a different kind of work, more about maintaining skills than it is doing the "deep work" of asking the hard questions.  I don't know, honestly, that I've done this since graduate school.

So starting Tuesday, I'm going to build in an hour per day of unstructured reading time (I say reading, but one of my plans here is also to look at art books and maybe even watch experimental films).  I'm excited.

Day 1

I am very pleased with how Day 1 of Doing All the Work panned out.  Accomplished:

• Writing and submitting abstract for new edited collection.
• Daily requirement for Project #1.
• Reading (poetry)
• Reading (criticism) and note-taking for essay revision (now due Fri).
• Miscellaneous tasks via email (probably 30 min total).
• Beginning the onerous flex spending paperwork.
• Multiple loads of laundry.
• Taking a walk in the cold.
• Escorting LG to Target to acquire pants, as due to a combination of Teen Factors she is down to about two pair of jeans that actually fit that she will also put on her body.
• Making homemade macaroni with Tiny Boy, who has lost TV privileges indefinitely.  (OMG our evenings are so much better without preschool screen use)

It is now just past nine.  LG is finishing her reading for class tomorrow.  I will follow suit.  And then to bed!

Making the Most of Time Granted

I'm strategizing how to make the most of a semester with leave from teaching responsibilities.  I received a grant to buy out both my classes, ostensibly to finish two (related) book projects.  This does not mean I never have to show up to campus.  (In fact, I will still be on two major committees, responsible for an undergraduate organization, and overseeing two student research projects.)  So while I have a reasonable sense of how to structure my time over the summer, say, it's less clear to me what to do now:  how to negotiate getting my work done with being a decent departmental citizen and hopefully feeling less rather than more stressed.  How to make sure I can still have the occasional lunch/coffee/whatever with a friend, without such social events encroaching on my research plan.  In my head, a day not on campus might look like this:

8:30 coffee/breakfast/read for project #1
9-10:15 work on project #1
10:15-11:45 work on project #2
11:45-12:30 take a walk/lunch
12:30-1:30 read theoretical stuff for project #2
1:30-3:00 work on project #2
3:00-3:30 household stuff
[LG home/handle email or dinner prep/hang out?]

I think days I need to be on campus (i.e. committee meeting) I will also build in library time.  If I get antsy, I might try afternoons at coffee shop/art museum/public library.  I'm going to try to stay completely offline during the day and shift whatever online reading I do to my Tiny Boy rocking chair routine.  We'll see how it goes.

I know Undine recently had a post about sabbatical thoughts (thanks!).  For all you academics, please do send any tips my way!  I feel like I'm pretty good about 'time management' issues but could always use some tweaks!

Life on Sabbatical

If I were teaching this semester this would be just about midterm.  So I thought I'd take a moment to take stock of things and see how my sabbatical is winding up (or down?).

• Despite the whole NOT SLEEPING thing (not to mention Tiny Boy's surgery that happened the first week of the term, and the aftermath that lasted another following week and then not starting regular full-time daycare until nearly a month in) I've actually managed to stay on top of my writing deadlines.  I am not all YAY, MY CHAPTER IS AWESOME or anything, but I've churned out enough (not crappy) pages to be happy.  I've also done a good chunk of work on a conference paper that is also a revise-a-bit-and-resubmit that sounds very promising (deadline around Thanksgiving) and started a few smaller things.
• I think I've struck a reasonable balance between showing up for campus events (like a friend/colleague giving a talk) and staying the fuck out of the department.  Perhaps doing a bit more than I should, but I've also been on various forms of leave for a year, so I'm not completely burned out.
• I'm also aware that I want to keep this not-burned-out state, as I was incredibly angry (all that tenure debacle bullshit) and very tired (10 years as an assistant professor, across my two jobs, and then that whole fertility treatment + high risk pregnancy + new babyness) going into sabbatical.  So:  I'm probably watching a bit more TV and reading less than I "should," but, you know, by the time 8:30 rolls around and I've been awake for a minimum of 14 hours, well, I'm not really capable of coherent thought.
• I am having a very good time in my painting class and I really hope to carve out time when I'm not on leave in which to paint (which probably means giving up TV, but that will be okay).
• There's a whole lot of domestic stuff that doesn't get done:  i.e. I have a list of various home repair projects (a new roof!  tree removal!) that require simple phone calls I put off day after day.  My lawn hasn't been mowed since, like, July (it grows freaky slow, but still).  Other than during pumping sessions--hooked up right now--I really am trying to WORK during the day.
• I also had these great ideas like I'd get all Tiny Boy's pictures in albums and I'd de-clutter the entire house and clean the garage and cook all kinds of new things and, you know, mostly that stuff isn't getting done.  But I hardly feel like I'm wasting my time.  There's just only so much I can do.  And, frankly, that sort of scares the crap out of me for what might happen when I go "back to work" in the spring.  I mean, if I can't manage to call a roofer, how the hell am I going to grade all my students' work?  And am I seriously going to talk to my department chair about becoming an administrator for my major program?  Am I that stupid?  Perhaps I am.

But you know, I'm tenured.  I'm not in the throes of fertility treatment or pregnant (and when you add it all up, well, that's about half of the past decade).  I'm something resembling happy.  And really it will all be okay.  So long as I have a prescription for Ambien.  Sigh.

Night and Day

Well, last night sucked.  But today has been good.

I'm not sure if it's the Prevacid poop or the immanent emergence of tooth #4 but last night saw the return of the all night suckathon.  Really.  I could not get him in the crib at all, after he woke inconsolable a mere hour after going to sleep; after that, he wouldn't sleep without my breast in his mouth.  I let him CIO when he decided, despite a horrible sleepless night, that 5:30 was a reasonable time to start rolling over me and babbling and smacking the window.  After an hour of crying, we both slept for another hour, and LG was late for school (oops!).

I'm giving it until tomorrow and then I am (a) calling his pediatrician to discuss this phenomenon and perhaps getting a referral to a ped GI and (b) putting one or both of us on probiotics (anyone have experience with this?).

But it's a work day, and I have energy, and I've gotten plenty done.  1000 words on the book; plus another chunk on the conference paper; read and took notes for tomorrow's writing session; come up with a list of places to submit things that have been languishing on the computer for far too long; taken a walk; pumped twice; started a load of laundry and put away the previous two.

Things not accomplished:  renewing library books (stupid electronic system kept freezing up), bill paying (tonight!), washing breast pads (I use the utterly expensive and comfy wool variety).  I also collected some leaves that I'd like to paint, as I have not managed to practice for my painting class, so perhaps that will happen tomorrow.

Now I've got to cook something quickly and pick up kids.  I'm starting to crash...

Managing

Well, my still snuffly baby has been back in daycare for two days, and I'm starting to get things done.  It is absolutely amazing how much one can accomplish when the baby is gone for, like, close to eight hours.  I can read and write and cook and take walks and clean and did I say take a shower without rushing.

Then I pick him up and I can't hug him enough.  (Well, I'd like to hug; he'd like to stick his hand down my shirt and nurse for a few hours straight.)  I knew the dinner hour was going to be even trickier than it used to be, so I've been trying to do dinner prep as breaks earlier in the day.  Because, really, all I can manage is reheating.  Today Tiny Boy nursed at daycare when I picked him up at 4:30 and then pretty much nonstop until I put him in the high chair for dinner at 5:30, and then we were in the rocking chair nursing and working toward sleep by 6:30.  So much for drinking from bottles, eh?

Morning has been going pretty well, mostly because LG and I collaboratively work on lunches after Tiny Boy goes to bed.  Then in the morning one of us just needs to make a sandwich.  We leave at 8:15, which is fifteen minutes later than she did taking the bus, and she walks across the street to school from the daycare parking lot (there's an adult crossing guard) while I get him settled.  By 9:00 I'm home with a cup of coffee and a battle plan.

It's going as well as could be expected, I think.  But I am so freaking tired.  And I know it's just going to get harder come January.  But really I'd just like to put the world on pause and watch TV for like 8 hours straight. 

Good night, folks.

Fantasy, Reality, and Future Plans

I started blogging in earnest back in the fall of 2008.  When I think about what my life was then, compared to what it is now, well, I'm suitably amazed.  I've gone from assistant professor, fertility patient and mother of one, to associate professor and mother of two.  If I never really imagined that it would take almost three years and an egg donor to get pregnant (and stay pregnant), I also did not really know what challenges life as a single mother of two would hold.  I mean, I knew it would be hard.  Being a parent is hard, no matter how many adult hands are at your disposal.  But lately, on an almost daily basis, I find myself wishing not for a husband but, perhaps, a live-in nanny or housekeeper.

A year ago, on a weekend morning, I could sleep until 9:00 or so while LG happily watched cartoons.  These days I'm lucky if Tiny Boy lets me go back to sleep after his 4:00 am nursing session.  I find it hard to cook, to clean, to make phone calls, frankly, to do anything except when he miraculously stays in the crib.  He can't be contained safely in the pack n play, the exersaucer, the high chair, or any other baby containing apparatus.  And when he's playing on the floor, well, he needs supervision.  Much more than a TV watching 8 year old can or should supply.

And here, of course, is where I must insert the disclaimer that I recognize how fortunate I am.  I wouldn't trade Tiny Boy for anything, and if you don't believe me, well, you should have seen what I looked like last Sunday at midnight sobbing in the ER, clutching my diaper-less, catheterized baby to my chest.

Still, holy fuck I need a break.

*

That said, I've decided to plunk down $100 and a weekly two hours of my childcare time to take a painting class.  I figure the next time I'm on sabbatical will be when Tiny Boy is at least seven (seven!!).  And, really, am I going to work on the book every hour the kids are at school?  I am under no obligation to do any service work this semester (although I will remain in touch with the student organization I oversee, basically because no one else will do it).  Otherwise, my answer is no.  There will be plenty to do when I return in the spring.  I want to do something that will allow me to grow as a person, beyond mother, fertility patient, and professor.

*

I've been really lucky in many ways that Tiny Boy will be 10 months when he starts daycare.  I've reached the point that I'm looking forward to the long stretches of time in which to write and read and have quiet time without kids.  Still, he seems so little to be out in the world, away from me for the bulk of his waking hours.  Our whole schedule (such as it is) will change come Wednesday.  And has hard as it is to have to resort to Fake Walks and all kinds of insanity to get through naptime, I'll miss having time to cuddle and play with him.  Those minutes are so precious and I'll need to figure out where to carve out some time in the roughly 4-5 hours (crazy!) that he'll be home and awake when I'm not getting kids dressed and fed and handling routine daily maintenance stuff.  Because when the kids aren't home, I really really really need to get this book done.  If I don't do it now, it's not going to happen.

*

It was a long night again, with three long nursing sessions and both of us restless.  But right now dinner is finishing up (corn on the cob and baked sweet potato, to go with the crock pot barbeque chicken I made the other day) and the kids are playing a few feet away, shoving some cars around and making music.  These kinds of days make up for the nights.  Thank goodness.

How Many ER Visits Can Gwinne Make in One Year?

No, that's not really a rhetorical question.

First there were the bats and the rabies shots.

And then there was the Ceiling Fan Incident of 2012.

And then last night Tiny Boy didn't stop puking so the resident on call told us to head to the ER in case he was dehydrated.  (Perhaps we should have been given anti-nausea medication before we left the recovery room?)  We were there until nearly 2:00 am.

How about that plan to SLEEP after surgery?

He's on another fake walk with Gram and I'm going to see about a nap for myself.  Not really how I'd planned to spend my first official day on sabbatical.

Things That Are a Colossal Waste of My Time

1. Sitting in on a graduate student's class that is, I kid you not, 100% student presentations.
2. Judging an undergraduate research forum in which half the presenters don't show up.
3. Going through files of colleagues who fail to organize or remove out of date material.

See, I don't mind these various responsibilities.  And in theory they are enjoyable parts of my job.  But when it means leaving my 5-month-old with a babysitter?  I'm annoyed, to say the least.

Academic Single Mother by Choice Times Two

(or, A Disjointed Update on the Goings On of the Past Week)

Combine LG's spring break, me being on campus 4-6 hours daily, my mother's visit, and Tiny Boy not sleeping and you have a recipe for something beyond exhaustion.

If this is what things are going to be like next year, holy crap, I might die.

*

In some ways my mother visiting makes things much easier, as it should.  She rocked Tiny Boy while I read with LG; she took LG out to the mall while Tiny Boy stayed home and napped.  She stayed home with both kids while I observed a grad student teach at 8:00 a.m.  My mother visiting means that there's another pair of hands. 

But there's also another level of chaos, of someone else's stuff sprawling across my small (one minuscule bathroom!) house, of someone else's basic needs and preferences.  Like, my mother refuses to use cloth diapers on Tiny Boy.  I'm not asking her to wash them.  I'm not even asking her to do any complicated folding (I've got a stash of diapers that are basically like cloth disposables, in terms of how they go on).  But she won't do it, even though she has no problem putting a sheet that's been peed on in the wash.  How is a cloth diaper any different?

*

I'm feeling old.  I've been out of grad school 11 years.  I look at the grad students in our program and they seem ridiculously young; indeed, they could be as much as 18 years younger than me (though I don't think anyone of them actually is).  I'm not one of them anymore.  Hell, I'm not even junior faculty anymore.  Weird.

Occurred to me this week how much of my job involves judging others.  Writing contests, faculty merit review, grad student teaching observations.  And I don't like judging others, despite the fact that I am an INFJ on those personality inventories.

*

Tiny Boy isn't sleeping.  Or he sleeps so lightly he just rolls around and I don't sleep.  I spend probably an hour in the rocking chair in the middle of the night, because I figure if I'm not sleeping, he might as well.  It's been this way since birth, some weeks/nights better than others, for reasons I still haven't been able to figure out.  I thought the side-lying nursing/swaddle combo had changed things, but even that doesn't always work.  And then on nights he sleeps better, my own sleep patterns are so messed up that I'm awake anyway.  That makes doing intellectual work incredibly difficult.

*

I realize my maternity leave is substantially better than what some folks have.  14 weeks (an extra two because of the c-section) is long enough to get through the squalling newborn phase.  And if my job involved something mindless and repetitive--say, washing dishes all day long--I'd be exhausted but I could do it.  I'm not having trouble doing my own mindless work, like crossing entries off a 500 item spreadsheet to get it down to 200.  But putting sentences together?  Concentrating on complicated texts?  Not really happening.

I'd guess at this point I'm doing the roughly 50% of my job that involves teaching/service--which is actually all service right now--but not the 50% that involves research/writing.  But squeezing those hours into 15 hrs of paid childcare, plus what I can do during naps and after bedtime, is really difficult.

On Wednesday, I went to a grad class in the morning, met a friend for lunch, went to a department meeting and had 45 minutes in which to pump milk and get across campus for another grad class...and a student stopped me in the hall to see if I could talk.  (Umm, no.  My kid's life depends on me not talking right now.)

*

I've reached starvation mode again.  I haven't weighed myself in a couple weeks, but the last I checked I was down to 106 (and now can wear pretty much all my pre-pregnancy clothes).  It seems like I'm eating all the time but I can't get enough calories in to stop losing weight, and I really can't afford to lose anymore (with LG, I got down to 93, which was bad).  I think it mostly has to do with my metabolism going haywire and milk oversupply.  What I need isn't paid childcare, it's another few months of leave and a housekeeper who keeps me fed.

*

I have a two hour meeting in the morning, and then we're going to my mom's for Passover.  Tiny Boy's first road trip.  I haven't packed, or even made a list.  I haven't finished prepping for the meeting.  I haven't done much of anything in terms of cleaning the house.  But I think I've been awake since about 3:00 last night.  I've got to stop typing this, email a grad student, and go to sleep before this baby wakes again to eat.  (I'm keeping myself fortified with peanut m&m's and a big glass of water.)

Just four more weeks and then it's summer.  And then, hopefully, I can actually get some work done.

Help, Please

Theoretically I've got two weeks left of leave, and I have yet to find a workable childcare situation.  Although Tiny Boy is in many ways an easier baby than LG (thank goodness), he's clearly not a sleep-while-mom-works kind of kid.  Right now I've got him swaddled and sleeping right next to me, but we're going on the half hour mark and that's the longest nap he's taken in days.  I spend more time trying to get him to sleep than he does sleeping, but that's largely the subject of another post.

Anyway....I think my plan is to have a mother's helper type person come in so I can have some regular time in which to work.  But I'm not ready to just leave the house without him.  Trying to figure out a number of hours.  Two a day sounds good, but if that two is filled with at least one nursing session, that's not a whole lot of time.  So three, I guess, but that's really more than I'd like to pay for.  And then there's the question of when.  My best writing time is the morning, but that also seems to be the most consistent for Tiny Boy's sleep (that is, if I get him down easily and he naps, it happens first thing in the morning).  And most of the work events I know already I need to attend will be afternoon ones.

I'm also contemplating hiring someone to clean, because I think I'm at the point that not-clean-house is more upsetting to me than hiring help.  Because if my productive time is as limited as it is, why "waste" it on domestic labor?  And for those of you contemplating academe and mommyhood, check out the new book Professor Mommy which, while not earth-shattering in terms of any of its observations, at least attempts to fill in the gaps left by Mama, PhD, which it discusses in the intro.

So, help, please, figure out this hired help situation...

Wading In

I am very slowly wading back in to work.  I've got a few more weeks on the maternity leave clock but am feeling the tug of the job.  That fact surprises me.  I mean, I always knew I'd feel the pull to get back to my career (esp. the writing and reading) but given all the drama surrounding my tenure case, I sort of figured I wouldn't want to have much to do with my actual job.  But I found myself emailing my chair the other day, in response to his call for nominations to serve on big committees next year, putting my name forward.  And I've been in touch with folks from the (three) student organizations I oversee/work with.  And started writing again.

Slowly, at my own pace, mixed in with the laundry and diapers and adventures in the stroller.  Still haven't worked out the mother's helper thing.  And I'm currently typing with one hand, with Tiny Boy sleeping in the crook of my left arm.  But this is temporary, and theoretically I could be at my job another 30 years.  For now, here is where I mostly want to be:

Another Post About Maternity Leave

It's been a weird year for me, work-wise.  Fall semester I had a grant that bought me out of my classes, which turned out to be a great thing, given the IUGR situation and early delivery.  For the first half of the semester, I wrote and researched (as I was supposed to), attended faculty and committee meetings, worked with a student organization, organized a couple campus events, sat on the editorial board for a journal, put my own writing in the mail, wrote recommendations, answered a zillion emails from students, etc.  In short, I did my job.  And much of that came to a grinding halt by midterm, once I started going to the OB's office 2-3 times per week and generally freaking out about Tiny Boy's impending arrival.  So I "lost" or "wasted" (or something) several weeks of my grant time, and the last month I was on maternity leave.  And then a chunk of my maternity leave took place over winter break, when I would have been "off" anyway. 

This is a long way of saying that it's only now that classes are back in session and I'm not that I feel like I'm actually "on leave," even though I won't be in the classroom at all this year.  I'm constantly rethinking how I want to use this time.  Obviously, Tiny Boy is my priority.  I'm also finding I have more time with LG, as she's not in aftercare (again, because I'm not in the classroom).  On Monday I picked her up from school and we went to the library before dinner, something that wouldn't happen if I weren't on leave.  There are days I can't do anything but tend to Tiny Boy's immediate needs, the days I can't put him down and he only naps as long as I can keep him in a carrier, the days he cries and fusses and we take walks around the block so he's quiet and, hopefully, falls asleep in the carseat, only to wake as soon as we get back in the house.  Then there are days like today that we get out of the house and run errands (vet app't) and he naps in the carseat and doesn't need to be fed, like, every 1.5 hrs and I do loads of laundry and straighten the house and even manage to read (or blog!).  What I haven't done is anything resembling real work (beyond those couple student recs) since he was born (and I got tenure).  None of my own writing.  No reading for the book project.  I'm not feeling the slightest bit guilty about it (okay, maybe just a bit).  But, seeing as I'm about as far from a SAHM as you can get, and I find myself one at least for these next six weeks, really, what do I do with myself?  That is, I suspect that as Tiny Boy becomes slightly more predictable, I might use the computer for something other than purchasing cloth diapers and commenting on blogs.

I'm also thinking about childcare for the second half of this semester, when I'm technically back to work full- time.  Obviously I'll get babysitters when I need to go to campus for meetings and such (though I suspect there are a few committee things I could bring the baby to, so long as he'd recently nursed!).  But do I suck it up and pay a sitter for several hours every day to ensure that I get my writing done?  Or do I work around his naps, type while he's strapped to my chest or playing on the floor?  Still working on that one.  Work-guilt says one thing, my wallet says another.  What I know is that I'll get that book written and in the mail, because I already have everything else I want.

On Maternity Leave

Maternity leave for staff and other non-faculty folks at my university is very straightforward:  6-8 weeks short term disability (assuming you've given birth) plus 6 weeks parental leave.  Maternity leave for faculty technically involves an identical time component...but obviously doesn't track with a semester system, which means there's all kinds of negotiations and variations that happen from department to department.  (I have to say, I really liked the policy at the SLAC where I taught when LG was born:  a full semester at 80% salary.)  Anyhoo...what's particularly odd in my situation is that I'm already on leave.  While it matters to the university--in terms of where my salary comes from, I think--if I'm on disability or not, it makes no difference to my department.  What that means in practical terms, though, is that my grant time sort of disappears (no one in HR or my department chair could make any sense of this).  If I'd actually been teaching this semester, I'm pretty sure my OB would have had me on disability weeks ago and someone else would have been teaching my classes; there's no way I could have been doing full time on campus things and being at her office as much as I am.  (I'm also guessing there would have been a high blood pressure issue, as every time I've gone from campus to her office it's insanely high for me)

The point of all this rambling is I'm not exactly sure (a) when to consider myself really on medical/maternity leave and (b) how much/what do I want to do during that time.  Case in point:  another student emailed me to ask for letters of rec for grad school.  That's a couple hours of my time and probably a trip to campus to pick up more letterhead.  If he had material to me today I'd get it done prior to Thursday and then forget about it.  But what happens if I deliver on Thursday/Friday and his material shows up, as it probably will, sometime next week?  Obviously I'll be writing a letter with a newborn attached to my breast or, hopefully, asleep in his crib.  But what if he's in the NICU?  (Yeah, okay, enough with the 'what if's' but you know what I mean.)  I was honest with him:  said I'm happy to write the letter but he should know I'm expecting a baby at any time now, so my ability to get it done on time is somewhat questionable.

When LG was born I was in my third year on the tenure track.  I felt guilty about not working.  I also felt--after the first 10 weeks, anyway--that I was going a bit nutty just staying home and being LG's mom.  (I suppose it didn't help that LG cried what seemed like nonstop.  Come to think of it, now she talks/sings nonstop...)  I met with thesis advisees (at my house) within a few weeks of her birth.  I brought her to a couple department meetings (it was a department of 7; I could even leave her with my dean).  I didn't worry about writing/research, but that wasn't the emphasis of the college in terms of tenure and promotion.

Now...I'm not quite sure what this post-baby time will look like.  Assuming I get that final bit of approval, I'll be tenured.  My major job responsibility here is writing/research, which I've planned, anyway, to put off until my leave is officially up (around March 1, depending on when I deliver) unless I get a revise-and-resubmit or a similar situation with an immediate external deadline.  My involvement with student organizations should be minimal, though I'm guessing there will be a lot of email triage.  My departmental service can be avoided altogether until after maternity leave (though who knows, I might be compelled to go to a meeting or a job talk or something).  I've thought about putting one of those "out of the office" auto-replies on my work email...but I'd rather those auto-replies didn't go to people like my colleagues or university presses and the like.  If they could be directed specifically to students wanting things, that would be awesome.

This post is getting long...but I guess I'm wondering, esp. from you academic readers out there, how you've handled situations like this.  I'd really like to be with Tiny Boy, and LG too, during leave, not mentally elsewhere.  But can I do that without the guilt?