never as eloquent as I'd like

The simple reason that I have not posted recently is that I still very much feel as if I am utterly failing at my current profession. It is both depressing and stressful to think that I may very well have wasted the better part of the last decade pursuing a degree only to choke at the very end. But those are the stakes, and I am doing everything that I can do barrel through.

I have immersed myself in the philosophy of don't-beat-yourself-up-tomorrow-is-a-new-day. There are so many days that after all of the stress of getting the babies to daycare, answering aggressive/mean/nonsense e-mails, pumping I just sit at my desk and do ... nothing. And it sucks. But I go back the next day and try again. And I still don't know what the end outcome will be, but the deadlines are looming sooner than ever.

In the meantime, I am trying as hard as possible to compartmentalize. But it can be so hard. On Friday I was exhausted. In bed at 1:30 am, up at 3 am because I was too stressed and hey, still had reading to do for the class I was teaching at 10 am, back to bed around 4:30 am, out the door with double stroller in tow ... class, obligatory lunch with out of town friend (so angry about this. I get guilted into the most absurd propositions like meeting a visiting friend for lunch on her schedule. Of course, I also try not to complain to my friends about the challenges of everyday stuff because it's all so banal), early pick-up thanks to the time change and 4:40 services, a full hour of battling the kids in synagogue alone (including the ever-so-symbolic eyes-averted dash through the men's section to rescue my toddler), long walk home with a toddler who refused to put on her coat, eating dinner while exhausted and repeatedly snapping at my toddler before tucking her into bed, nursing baby to bed and sitting down to ... work. She woke up this morning and desperately needed me and only me, probably because I was quite so short-tempered yesterday. It is very rare that I have an evening like that, and it really doesn't help that the dumpling has had sudden-onset-severe separation anxiety (or possibly just an ear infection?) and shrieks whenever I set him down, even if we're still touching ...

So yeah, things are a bit rough at times.

Other the other hand, some things are much improved. JD and I are doing much, much better together. I am having so much fun doing endless toddler activities with the fusspot (baking, painting, light box, counting, reading, reading, reading, but all that in another post). The dumpling now sleeps a good 3 hours in his own crib most nights, and that is also delightful (his crib, by the way, is 2 feet from our bed so it's not exactly quite as liberating as I could imagine).

There are times when I wonder about this parenting thing. On the one hand I love it and I certainly don't feel that getting up at 4 am to work in order to pick my kid up at 4:30 pm is a bad trade-off (and one trick I am sticking with is setting out a fun activity for the fusspot on her little table before I go to bed every night, no matter how late it is), on the other I wonder whether it is a little too easy to get caught up in the minutiae. Next post: our new Montesso.ri-inspired apartment make-over and crazy NYC moms.