On being a mommy and a working lawyer.

I tend sometimes to take for granted how very fortunate I am. Not only do I have a happy, healthy child, but also a good and satisfying career and a solid, secure marriage. I am blessed, especially, that my husband is sufficiently secure in his masculinity that he had no problem giving up his job to stay home with the babygirl so I could keep working. And it took a while to achieve a relatively seamless integration of work and motherhood, but I think I've more or less gotten there.

This is largely possible because of the particular job I have. I am permitted to work from home one day per week, which I do on Wednesdays. (Thank you so, so, so much, super-extra-cool boss o'mine!) This is very important, because my job is so far from home that I have to wake up at 4AM to be able to start and finish my day before rush hour traffic in either direction. Wednesday work-at-home means I don't ever have to wake up at 4AM more than two days in a row. And even though I'm working, I can take breaks and lunch with my babygirl and my hubby. Little moments of happiness scattered through my otherwise-mundane working day.

Truly, I appreciate that I was not the one who had to stay home with the baby. Because, you know what? Even though I truly value every minute I get to spend with her, I still get bored sometimes. Especially now, in the winter, when we cannot go out and enjoy our big backyard or the park across the street. I have always gotten bored sitting at home, especially in the winter, and the mere fact that I now have a child there with me has not changed that fact. I could not handle being home all the time, whereas hubby is a homebody and doesn't seem to mind. Thanks for covering the home front, sweetie-pie.

That being said, I still miss my babygirl every day that I have to go to work and be away from her for basically 10 1/2 hours, including travel time both ways. She is always on my mind, if only in the back of my mind, as I am doing my work. She is my motivation for efficiency and thoroughness. I am always thinking, "I have to rip through this so I can leave on time to get home to babygirl." "I have to get this right the first time so I don't have to stay late fixing it while babygirl is missing me at home." Hubby and babygirl call me once a day at work, on my cell phone - I call it my "baby call." He and I say hi, and catch up on minutiae of the home front, and then he passes the phone to babygirl. She puts kisses on my picture on the screen, and says MAMA MAMA MAMA MAMA and DOGGY DOGGY DOGGY, and presses buttons in my ear, and laughs when I make raspberries. It is the highlight of my day.

And just to help me through my day without her, I've put up pictures of babygirl all around my office. There's at least one picture from every Kiddie Kandids sitting I've taken her to in her lifetime, and there's been a lot, starting at 3 1/2 weeks old. Here's some pictures of my office, just to give you some idea of how thoroughly my babygirl has permeated my professional environment. To be fair, some of the pictures are of other kids - my nephews, my buddy G's two kids - and some are of other grownups and even my dog, but 90% of them are of the babygirl.







I hope I can be a positive role model for my babygirl as she grows up. I hope she will see that a woman can be a mommy and still have a life of her own. I hope she will see that a mommy can support a whole family on her own. I hope she will have a relaxed, peaceful, balanced, happy mommy who doesn't need to pin the weight of all her hopes and her dreams on her kid(s) instead of achieving at least a few of her own ambitions. But at the same time, I fear that my hubby will spoil babygirl for all other men - after all, her male role model stays home with her, makes her the center of his life, cleans the house, does half the cooking, and is warm and loving and nurturing all at the same time. In short, my hubby is everything a man used to look for in a wife. How likely is she to be able to find a man half as good once SHE grows up and has her own hopes, dreams, and ambitions to fulfill?