Balance

On most days of my life as a working mom, I work for balance. The part time gig helps me achieve a somewhat delicate balance tempered with some guilt, a little frustration, and often a bit of stress. But it's balance. I have an intellectually stimulating job I enjoy (most of the time). I get more time with my children on my three day a week schedule than if I worked the slave hours demanded of a full time lawyer. All in all, I feel like my life has achieved a successful compromise that works for me as a person and as a mom.

The balance doesn't work when one part of the compromise pushes back. On Friday, work pushed back into my family time. I had a client with an emergency, a serious holy crap this is going to cost them a ton of money emergency, who needed me on a 10 am conference call with 5 other people. I found out about the mandatory call at 8 am. I had no child care and I was at home with three children. There are clients with whom I can swing the whole "please ignore my kiddies screaming in the background thing" during our work call, but this was not one of those clients. This was a client who could not even know I HAD any children, let alone that I was about to discuss very important things while also caring for said children.

Ten minutes before the call, I turned on a movie for the boys, gave them popcorn and a bag of marshmallows as a bribe, and begged them to stay in the playroom for the next fifteen minutes. The fear in my eyes was enough to get them all to agree with me. I ran and hid in the laundry room for the call.

The call went a little longer than fifteen minutes. After forty-five minutes, I could hear Griffin getting antsy in the playroom. When his bellows for me turned into screaming wails and he discovered my hiding place in the laundry room, I did the only thing I could think of - I hung up the phone as fast as I could. I placated the kids quickly, bribed Griffin with a juice box (grape juice, hello stained carpet!) and ran upstairs to my closet to take part two of the call. After reconnecting, I took a deep breath and calmly told the client that my cell phone had inadvertently dropped the call.

I thought the worst was over when the call ended. I took the kids outside to play and promised to make the morning up to them. When I checked my work email later that day, I got an email requesting that I travel to New York City for meetings on Monday. Then I got a call from one of the higher ups at my firm regarding some issues with another client. I was on my third conference call of the day when Brennan slipped off the slide and wailed in my arms as I held on to the phone with my shoulder and head.

It was insanity. It was beyond stressful. And it made me ready to say fuck it all, I am done.

There are times when you try to please everyone and you end up pleasing no one. This is how I feel when my work-life balance gets out of whack. There is too much need and not enough of me to fill the need - from work or home.

I had a nice old fashioned meltdown later that night. I gave Chris enough of a scare that he told me I was off duty on Saturday - from work and home. He got up with the kids in the morning so I could sleep in (until 8:30 - that's almost the middle of the day in our house!). He took the kids out of the house on a field trip to Home Depot to give me some quiet time at home. He even took the kids out to dinner while I met some girlfriends for too much Italian food and good red wine.

I desperately needed that little break. It convinced me I have the strength to get back into my life and regain some of my hard won balance. And if that doesn't work, I leave for a week long vacation on Tuesday. Balance seems easier with a little sand between your toes.