New Olympic Sport

Not more than 1 hour prior to this were we talking with the Testas about how uncanny it is that babies love to aim for anything but the burp cloth. Our girl did us proud.

The "Stay At Home Mom" conundrum

You'd think that being a mother in modern times would be a easier. Our generation of women proved we could be anything we wanted to be and many things simultaneously. When we started having babies, it was supposed to be the best educated and best prepared group for motherhood. Yet the guilt, anxiety and exhaustion of trying to fulfill this prophecy made some of our ranks competitive, doubtful and judgy. Lots of discussion started about the "Mommy Wars," pitting women who remain in the workforce against those who stay home. All this rhetoric makes everyone feel defensive and that whatever situation you've got isn't quite good enough.

I'll admit making this decision was not easy for me. For all of my adult life, I worked hard to earn respect and credibility as a highly competent digital media professional. Then all of a sudden, I was on the doorstep of another role I had always aspired to (being a mom). But I had no idea of how being a stay-at-home-mom (or as I like to say "domestic project manager") would fit me or how to reconcile my professional self with being the kind of mom I wanted to be. So I knew I had to get back to basics. While mulling it over, I realized there were just 5 fundamental questions I needed to ask myself.

1. What can we afford financially?
I created a budget in 2007 when we started thinking about a baby and figured out that we could meet our financial responsibilities with one income. Not everyone can do that, I understand. Sometimes it's a matter of living within one's means but for others it takes both salaries to make the mortgage. In this economy most people on the bubble are not eager to jettison the second income. I definitely needed assurance we could do this before I committed to giving up my job. But indeed our life would need to contract and the discretionary spending would have to tighten up considerably. To this day though, I am still feeling my way through our budget and seeing what things really cost. I'll be honest, it's been a challenge to alter the spending behavior of once having had two incomes.

2. What effect will this have on our child?
Before we had Sidney, Ken and I discussed what we liked about our own childhoods and both of us had moms who stayed home in the early years. I vividly remember the comfort I felt when I would be at home with my mom or come home from school & she would be there. Also, she would go on field trips with my classes and would volunteer at the school. I knew that I would want to provide that for our child too.

From everything I have read, the first 3-5 years of a child's life are the most important in setting the stage for confidence, curiosity and a multitude of fledgling skills. Especially since it took great effort to conceive her, I was determined that one of her parents would get the privilege of experiencing these hard-fought milestones.

3. What effect will the decision have on me (my aspirations, my sanity, my desire to be a good mom)?
I wanted a new challenge and I certainly got it. This is the hardest job I've ever done with 10-12 hrs a day including weekends and both physically & mentally demanding. But it has rounded me out as a person. I didn't know I had the compassion, creativity & patience that I do. For me, being a mom at home showed me that.

As for my future in the workforce, I am linked to many of my former colleagues via Facebook, Linked In and keep in touch directly too. While I am most comfortable with high tech, I have also been interested in project management and non-profit work. I look forward to working for a company I believe in when I start again and it could be in any sector as far as I'm concerned. So it's a big question mark what will happen to my career next.

I do miss the constant, daily adult interaction and am amazed at how "small" my world has become. Being interested in technology, things change very fast so I skim a few technical blogs so Ken and I can chat when he gets home about the industry. But I've heard stories about how women who leave the workforce are looked down upon. In terms of my own professional identity, I worked very hard my whole life in school and in the working world to earn the respect of others by delivering results and learning new things. What I hear myself talking about now completely amazes me. Just yesterday I detailed the ingredients of a slow cooker recipe, described Sidney's poop, groused about other mothers at co-op and had a few hours of rambling narrative directed at my daughter about what we were looking at any given moment.

I have joined a few parenting groups, attend foreign language story times and have enrolled us in an infant co-op so that there are things to look forward to & other people to interact with. But most important for Sidney & me, amassing a new community of friends and associates who are focused on raising children.

4. What childcare options do we have?
With the closest immediate family 3 hours away, we would require a non-family member to watch Sidney if I worked. It's very expensive to get good care and naturally competitive with many like-minded parents vying for limited spots. The economy sucks right now but even before, most companies (except some few enlightened ones) really don't accommodate working families. It's short-sighted and forces people to choose job or family.

5. What work options do I have?
It seemed the right timing to ride off into the sunset after my maternity leave. If there was a way to command a completely flexible schedule with minimal part-time hours, I wouldn't mind staying somewhat connected to a workplace but I just don't see it right now. This choice comes across pretty black and white but maybe that's because the American society sees it that way: either you're in the workforce or you're not. Yes, there are people who have situations that are the perfect balance but it's a rare thing.

In my friend Sarah's yearly letter to friends and family, she said this of her pregnancy though I think it could be applied to parenthood in general:
"And your body pulses with a cocktail of new hormones like "relaxin," which while sounding lovely, makes your joints stretch in ways that would impress Gumby. Along with all the physical stretching, though, it's the mind that bends the most. What about my career? My travels? Our ability to feel spontaneous and independent? Pregnancy challenges us to face uncertainty and changes in a life pattern we've come to cherish."

And so my mind is bending to embrace the new priorities as each day passes and Sidney grows up. I feel undeniably fortunate to have this chance to participate and witness it first hand. As Shannon reminded me, though Sidney will not remember much of this time, I will. So I just need to remember that on those rare, tough days when the routine gets a little tedious or the girl is fussy.

Slow Cook(ing)

I will be the first to admit, I don't like cooking and I'm not good at it. I like eating but when it comes to the joy of the preparation, I say "meh". My dad, mother and brother are all good at meal prep. They have "skillz" and seem to revel in their creations. I have mentioned my brother before, the spice master, who is impressive in his expansive cooking repertoire. But I guess I saw cooking as a gender trap. That's kind of a lame reason to not learn but I figured if I ever became good at it, that role would be mine and I'd be stuck in the kitchen forever, The End.

Well here we are in the New World Order and somehow I have become the person who makes 99% of the dinners--mainly because Ken is tending to Sidney in the final hours before bedtime. I don't begrudge him that because it's really the only dedicated time he has with her on weeknights and I finally get a break from the 10-12 hours I've been on duty.

So the meal prep responsibilities fall to me and in light of aforementioned amateur abilities, we have frozen prepared meals at the ready. Not Hungry Man dinners, actual dinners that are awesome but frozen. We've sampled from Designed Dinners, Delicious Planet (Organic but pricey) and our current favorite Savory Moment (who also deliver said meals to the house). And the interesting thing is that they are portioned, seasoned and ready for about the same price as if we were to buy the raw ingredients at the store and prepare it ourselves.

I am also reminded of the old adage: give a person a fish, they will eat for a day or teach a person to fish, they will eat for a lifetime. In my case: give a girl a website and she'll eat for about 2 weeks or give a girl a slow cooker and she might just do something resembling cooking. And that is what happened. Austin gave us a slow cooker cookbook for Christmas and Mom got us an enormous party-size slow cooker in January. We have tried two recipes thus far. A chicken curry noodle dish when Mom was here and a Beef Barley Stew tonight. Ken called it goulash--and technically he is right but it does not sound appetizing. I called my brother just now and asked him if everything in a slow-cooker is supposed to taste "the same"--in that none of the flavors are distinct. He said, "I'm pretty sure if you eat ice cream it will be cold so when you cook something in a slow cooker, yes it's all going to taste the same." Funny guy, my brother.

I realize something else about slow cooking that is surprising--I don't like the smell of the food when it's cooking. We have a tiny house, granted, but maybe it's the volume or the manner of cooking but the smell of the food fills the house. The curry thing smelled okay as it was going but it was pungent and this last one had (among other things) paprika, ketchup, beef broth and beans--uggh it did not smell great. Tasted okay but needed some salt. The problems I have...

Remembrance

In June 1997, my great aunt Susie Sakai gave a talk to students at Skyview High School (Bev's school) in Vancouver, WA about the Japanese-American Internment during World War II. Bev gave me a DVD of the presentation a few years ago but it was only this week that I popped it in and watched it. My aunt spoke for an hour and a half in great detail about what it was like to grow up in the Yakima Valley and then as an American citizen to leave her family home behind and be summarily imprisoned for the crime of being Japanese during a war with Japan. She spoke about her internment camp experience in Heart Mtn, Wyoming and the troubling conditions within its walls. She showed slides of famous images from that time and talked about the lawsuits and the much delayed reparations that were ultimately made for such an unjust act.

This photo really struck me:



A resilient people, the Japanese-Americans. I think about how they basically had all of their assets stripped from them, were imprisoned for 3-4 years then released back into a hostile and racist post-war US of which they were citizens. But despite this, they and their offspring made the most of their situations and moved forward. I have a lot of respect for that. It seems to me that they somehow funneled the anger and betrayal that must have been so painful into bettering themselves and their stations in life. All of my relatives were farmers before the war but remarkably all of the children of my grandfather's generation went to college--even the girls--so when they had to start over, they at least had something to work with.

As great as the content was, I have to be honest that the camera work was distracting and Ken & I started to make fun of it. Sometimes it would zoom in so uncomfortably tight on her face or just lose focus randomly. But the entire time I was watching, I felt that I was seeing it for the first time. At the very end, Bev can be heard thanking everyone, including the video camera operator who was a WSU student and was given some sort of award by their department as student of the year. At that moment my chest seized and I said, "Am I the camera operator?" Not only do I not remember the presentation but I shot it badly! Ken looked at me incredulously and just at that moment the camera panned to the very back of the room where Bev's says 'Susie's family' was sitting. Thankfully (mercifully) I was sitting there next to Austin and my grandmother so I clearly couldn't have been the camera operator. But it is disturbing that I was in the room and 13 years later have no memory of it whatsoever. Wow.

This chapter in history can never be forgotten for the lessons it teaches us about our country and what it means to be an American. Thank you to Bev for putting this in a digital medium so that we'll never forget--even if we're in the room.

Grocery store opening: highlight of the week

I'm not complaining but since becoming a Domestic Project Manager (aka Stay at Home Mom), the caliber of my daily excitement has definitely changed. For today's big outing, Sidney and I went to the newly opened QFC grocery store here in Ballard. I was trying to think of a place that was:

• free
• had parking
• would be interesting to an infant
• sold croutons.

Voilà!

I do all the grocery shopping for the family and while I once loathed it, now it is an outing I look forward to. First it's incredibly stimulating to Sidney and that makes me feel better about her being strapped into her infant seat for that length of time. Second, I get to pick out the food I like since I'm the picky eater and have specific brands of things I prefer. Third, the day I discovered Whole Foods is the day I felt like a young girl in love again. For the record, we seldom buy groceries at Whole Foods but it doesn't stop me from going there and cruising the aisles like a star-struck groupie. If there is a heaven, it looks like Whole Foods. It's probably because everything in that store is either organic, natural, cage-free or was spoken to nicely before it became food.

But today we went to a brand spankin' new QFC. We were there midday so besides parents and young children there were a great number of "retired folks" milling about. Nothing wrong with that except don't get stuck behind them in the aisles or at the sample table. A sample to avoid: the freshly made California roll. They have an amazingly compact sushi station there with Asian-ish looking folks putting stuff together but it just didn't taste fresh. On the plus side, they have an enormous wine section and their bakery is impressive. I also marveled at how energy efficient their frozen food aisle is. Usually you'd want to camp out there on a hot day but when we strolled down, it was roughly the same temperature as the rest of the store. Nicely done.

There were lots of extra employees on hand since I think they just opened a few days ago. (Nope, actually yesterday.) So they were still painting a mural in the parking garage and getting some things figured out. One major drawback is the parking. Though they have it under the store, it's tight. You think the Ballard Trader Joe's lot is small, this is worse. I would not suggest heading into the underground unless it's not very crowded like at midday or late at night. Thankfully they had several of their extra staff members who were extremely friendly and cheerful down there to help direct traffic. One guy (I kid you not) offered to fetch an elderly shopper's car, valet style, as she was coming down into the parking area with groceries. And she took him up on it.

So good for you QFC, I don't know if you can maintain that level of service, but more power to you. But if we're going to compare prices, I was shrewdly eyeing items we constantly buy: formula, diapers, wipes, cereal, yogurt, croutons. And sorry to say QFC's prices are higher for the exact same brands as our current favorite store, Ballard Market. This QFC does have some organic/natural selections but not enough to substantiate markups on everything. The boutique grocery stores have better artisan and organic selections with still better prices--so it looks like despite all the bright and colorful aisles, we'll still be trolling the aisles of our old store.

So Long and Thanks for all the Fish

Today I resigned from the high-tech job I've been at for 10 years to stay at home and raise our daughter. I am tripping a little nostalgic as I look back over the Aughties (00-09) and realize it was spent entirely at this company.

During my tenure, I worked in 3 different divisions on many different things: like “run-and-gun” field producing, helping keep ABC News streaming on 9/11, managing the first streaming media service on Cingular and getting mobile games off the ground as team member #3. During that time, I survived an earthquake, grew to adore Finland, met & married my husband and became a reluctant expert on "Twilight."

I also met famous people like Jon Stewart, Jeanette Lee and Randal Pinkett.





I flew to Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Jose, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Atlanta, New York, Boston, Washington DC, Helsinki, London, Vancouver BC & Toronto for various trade shows, client meetings, event productions and work functions.

And made many great friends throughout the years...















So this kind of decision does not get made lightly. As a person who defined herself by her career prior to motherhood, it didn't seem like an obvious choice to give it all up. But Ken and I talked alot about it during the pregnancy and we both remember when our mothers stayed home with us. The comfort and richness of our childhoods during that time and the desire not to miss anything about Sidney's childhood inspired us.
So if we could make it financially, there was no reason not to. I worked up a budget with only Ken's salary against expenses. I pared it down and pared it down until a realistic lifestyle was maintained but the numbers worked.
It just took so much effort, time and heartache to conceive our baby in the first place that the idea of leaving this child with someone else to raise her, struck me as the ultimate paradox. I realize most people don't have the option and I'm not judging working parents. We are grateful everyday for the chance to do this. But like anything worth doing, it comes with a sacrifice. This blog entry is actually an homage to that.

Party School

I just finished listening to a recent This American Life podcast about Penn State and it's status as the #1 Party School in America (Princeton Review). It chronicles the rather large problem of excessive binge drinking and all the delightful behavior that comes with it. ("Excessive binge drinking"--is that redundant?) Anyway having attended what most people consider a party school (WSU), I recognized the scenarios in the story (drunk kids peeing on lawns of local townspeople), student "types" (obnoxious drunk girls & spaced out guys) and the tragedies (a student falls to their death or dies of alcohol poisoning).

Drinking and college go hand in hand--there's no way around it and I won't deny that I had a great time. Maybe I was lucky or smart or a little of both but nothing regrettable happened in my college experience where alcohol & partying were concerned. I knew I was there to learn & work toward a career so the social aspect was a benefit not a requirement. But I developed a partying strategy to successfully navigate the scene:

1) Act more drunk than you actually are. This was not difficult for me due to the Asian Flush. Within one drink, my cheeks would be lit up like a Christmas tree. Still, you can maintain control and have a good time.

2) Leave before the downturn. There is always a point in a party/gathering where the fun climaxes and then everything/everybody gets ugly. Leave before then and keep your happy memories.

3) Have backup. Especially as a gal, it's unwise to go alone to a frat house or a party where you don't really know the people very well. Also avoid walking around late at night on a college campus by yourself.

4) Know your limit/pace yourself. Why do you need to do 5 shots in 5 minutes? What is the point of that? Do college kids think that despite a virtually endless supply of alcohol available in a college town that they might be capable of drinking it all? I never understood that.

I guess I'm feeling sort of apprehensive about this now that I have a kid and I'm squirreling away money for her college education. All of a sudden this isn't all fun and games anymore, college students can get seriously messed up or dead from binge drinking or activities stemming from it. I would not want to deny her some raucously awesome magical nights in her future but it sure looks different from this side of the table now. And yes, I know I have a while before I need to seriously think about this but it's never too late to save so never too late to worry.