Where I’ve been

The last couple of months have been a whirlwind, full of sturm und drang, and signifying much. It’s difficult to know where to start, and what to put on the blog at this point. But with the momentous changes underway in the Holz-Russell house, I feel like I should put an update out there.

Here’s a blast of the essentials:

• Eleanor speaks in full sentences, likes to “make jokes” and loves flowers.
• I got a new job. It starts July 1st.
• We have toured or will tour eleventy thousand childcare centers.
• Katie and I went on our first no-kid vacation. (It was awesome.)
• We tried snowboarding. (It was not so awesome.)
• We dabbled in potty training. We thought we were ready. We weren’t.

Deciding to go back to work has been hard. In fact, I wasn’t even planning on it until my dream job showed up on my doorstep, a job I would have been looking for two years ago if I hadn’t made the decision to stay home and take care of Eleanor. Now that I’ve received and signed the offer letter, I feel like I can announce it: I have accepted a position as Education Technology Coordinator at STRIVE Preparatory Schools.

I’m sure I will spend the next six months (or more) processing this move. I’ve certainly spent the last few weeks processing what this will mean for my family. But I know it’s the right decision. Eleanor is ready to hang out with new people, and I’m ready to get back to work.

It’s funny. I’m sure that a lot of blogs reach this point, particularly those about parenting. Life decisions happen, and they take you away from the snapshot writing captured in a blog. I think that’s why it’s taken me two months to get back to writing. I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that I wasn’t really covering any new ground by writing about my experiences as a stay at home parent. And knowing that I’m moving into a new phase of my life (as is Eleanor) has made me hesitant to commit any thoughts in writing, blog or otherwise. I’m honestly not sure I’ll continue blogging about fatherhood. I don’t know if I’ll have the time or mental energy once I go back to work. It’s been hard to have the mental energy already, just thinking about going back to work and all the preparation that’s gone into it.

I spend a lot of time wondering if my daughter will remember any part of her first two years of life, hanging out at home with Daddy. Will she remember the library storytimes? The weekly strolls through the Denver Museum of Nature and Science? The tickles and pretend naps on the couch or the bed? All the book reading? On demand, all throughout the day?

My wife keeps telling me that it doesn’t matter if she remembers, because we will tell her the stories. I hope that’s enough. Sometimes I wonder if she’ll forget the bonding we’ve had for two years, or if it will be like muscle memory, and it will always be a part of our relationship. God, I hope so.

I have no regrets about staying home the last two years, and it’s taught me so much about who I am and what I value. The reverberations will sound through the rest of my life. However, I’m looking forward to spending most of my day talking to adults again. I miss adults. I miss them. So. Much.

Spending your day with a hyper-verbal, precocious toddler is a precious, unforgettable experience. However, I’d like to have conversations that don't involve naming objects I’m looking at or objects I’d like to build out of Play-Doh, like snakes, balls, kitty-cats, pancakes, etc. My current balance of conversations is completely out-of-whack. Heck, I’d like to talk to somebody about baseball during the day. And I don’t even like baseball that much.

I will start my job in July, and I think I have at least a few more posts in me before that. If nothing else, I must write a post about the search for child care. I feel like I could have a whole blog dedicated to our search. It has been...challenging. Two more months until our world changes again. I have to keep reminding myself that life is a constant state of personal world changing. But these world changes are a blessing, and I know we’re on the right track.

Stay tuned.

The duality of it all.

(Guest post from Tara Lindburg)

So let me start off with it...my greatest challenge. My greatest challenge is to be able to do it all, knowing it isn’t possible. When I write the word “all,” I mean the duality of being a full-time working parent.

I love how a superhero can move in and out of their life and their persona with such ease. Diana Prince is able to turn in circles and become Wonder Woman. I spin in circles at times, hoping that it will turn me into Wonder Woman and make the challenge of “trying to do it all” easier...I just keep getting dizzy. I want to be able to switch between being a working adult and being a parent. It is so different in my world.

Before I became a parent, I had high expectations that being a full-time working parent was going to be easy...totally fine. I would drop my child off at daycare, the one I picked for the amazing-ness it had, and go to the career that I loved and felt fulfilled by. The best laid plans, as they say.

The kink in my plan came when I met my child.

I doubt my experience is as unique as I would like to think it is. But, when I met my baby for the first time...I was forever changed. (Meeting my second baby for the first time...still had that “forever not the same thing” going on.) I gained a new title...Momma. Not as impressive as CEO or President, but still pretty cool, right?

I have been doing this full-time working parent gig now for almost five years. The challenge lies in the duality of it all. Early on I lived with guilt that I was missing out on some milestone. What if she crawls while I’m at work? What if he says his first word to someone else? I hated that guilt and worry. I have chosen to believe, and maybe this is my denial of reality, that my kids did all their milestones in front of me and their daddy first. I have the baby books to prove it.

I also worried what others would think of me working and I let what some said defeat me and guilt me. “Are you upset that you are letting someone else raise your child?” “Do you feel like a part-time parent?” My early years of guilt for every moment spent working and not with my child has passed into periodic moments of guilt when my kid is sick and I can’t take that sick day due to my work schedule or when what is needed is for my child to sleep in but that is not in the schedule -- I can’t be late. That guilt I am still working to overcome.

There have been days, after the kids are down for bedtime, that I am in tears sitting on the couch because I have not “done it all” nor have I “done it at all well.”

I am not always as nice to my kids as I desire to be. Sometimes, my kids move at the pace of snails and refuse to cooperate in the morning. She doesn’t want to wear that shirt because she doesn’t want to look like a baby. She can’t find the shoes she wants to wear, not the pink ones, the Hello Kitty ones. He can’t find Iron Man and once he finds Iron Man he needs his name on it because they have to have their names on their stuff to take it to preschool. Pack the backpacks, fill the water bottles, break up a fight over the water bottles, and pack the car. “Let’s go we are going to be late!” She has to go potty and he needs to be changed. Finally to the car and she forgot her backpack in the house. He is angry to be buckled. She is having trouble buckling and is now crying in frustration. I may just join her. Driving to school, disagreement because she is looking out his window, mediation. I sigh as we walk into preschool. I feel like I have already had “a day” and we just got here.

Before all you read is me “crying in my beer”... I have, I hope, in the last five years, figured a few things out. A community of people, grace and forgiveness are staples to the life of a working parent.

A community of people. My kids are better for the community they are a part of. Their community includes my husband and me, as well as extended family and friends. Their community also includes my work community. Early on, one friend took care of my daughter after I came back after maternity leave and brought her to school every day at lunch for me to feed and spend time with her. I have had more than one family pass on clothes their kids have outgrown (it is nice stuff.) Just the other day, I had a mom I know stand at my car with both my kids buckled and let me run back inside to grab something I left in my classroom. Her response when I asked her for help: “Go, I’ve been there. They’ll be fine. I’ll sit in the car with them.” That mom saved me 20-30 minutes of getting my kids out of the car, walking into the building and walking back to the car and buckling.

My kids interact daily with adults that love and care for them. I am a teacher at a school that has a staff preschool. My kids are in preschool with other staff kids. Their classroom is across the hall from my classroom. I am able to stop by and see my kids once or twice a day just for hugs. My kids are thriving in preschool. My daughter is so well prepared for Kindergarten next year.

A community of people loving and caring for my kids.

Grace & Forgiveness. At times I think my kids must think, “Momma is difficult.” I know I have times I think my kids are difficult. I have to give myself grace when I am difficult with my children because I work. And grace and forgiveness for my kids, knowing they don’t understand this whole working parent thing. To them, I am just Momma. I also have to ask for forgiveness from my kids, when I am not quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry (James 1:19) because I am “trying to do it all.”

So, my greatest challenge still remains in the duality of it all. Before you read this and say, “what a downer,” please know that even though it will continue to be overwhelming at times, I will survive. The great moments with my kids are worth it all. My encouragement in the duality of it is please find a community or be part of a community for someone else. Also, let grace and forgiveness freely flow in your house, in your car and in your relationships.

Tara Lindburg is a teacher at Academy Charter School.  She shares her house with her great husband Chad, her two amazing kids, Annika and Soren, and 3, (yes 3) greyhounds.

I'm a mom.

(Guest Post from Gayle Bell)

I’m a mom. This is a huge part of my identity, but it isn’t the whole of it. I’m also a professional. So, I’m a working mom, but that doesn’t capture all of who I am either. And really, it doesn’t differentiate me from any other mom. ‘Cause, let’s be honest, all moms work: diapers, laundry, dinner, bath time, bed time, doctor appointments, etc.

With my induction into the mom world, I felt pressured to choose a side. There is a war raging between the stay-at-home moms and the “working” moms, and you’d better arm yourself and storm the field! Are you going to commit forty hours a week to a purpose that contributes to the world around you? Or are you going to contribute to the world in the most important way by being a mom to your children twenty-four hours a day?

I refuse to take a side. Both sides infuriate me.

I am a mom twenty-four hours a day. No parent stops being a parent when they step into the office. You still check every message on your cell phone just in case something’s happened. Your heart smiles and breaks a little at the same time when you look at the pictures of your darling child or the most recent art project from daycare that adorns your desk. Parenting never stops whether you work outside the home or not. And every parent is contributing to the world around them. You certainly don’t have to go to an office to do that.

Even if you do choose a side, you’re still not safe in the ranks. Are you a working mom who wishes she could stay at home, is riddled with guilt about it, but has no choice? Or are you an empowered woman who can have it all by being the perfect mom and a high-powered professional, setting an example for your daughters to emulate and your sons to deeply respect?

Again, I will not arm myself. Right now staying at home is not an option for me, but I don’t see that as necessitating a sense of guilt. To be honest, I’m not sure I would want to stay at home if it was an option. I like my job, I believe in what I’m doing there, and yes, I want my daughter to know she can be a strong, independent woman with a career, if she chooses that. But I also don’t necessarily think I have to have a career to teach her that.

I will not arm myself because I’m a parent and a human being, and I recognize that all parents—all humans—face struggles. Parenting is hard, gloriously hard in a most fulfilling way, but stinkin’ hard. So, no, I won’t battle with other parents about the best way to parent. I don’t have expendable energy to invest in a battle, and I certainly don’t want to drain other parents of their precious energy. Parenting is hard, and I see it in every beautifully frazzled parent I meet. Parenting is hard, but it’s a hell of a lot easier when we shoulder the burden together. No, I won’t arm myself to battle you, but I will bend myself to get beneath your load with you so we can stand up together and march on as parents.

Gayle Bell is a mom to 1-1/2-year old Tessa and wife to Jason. She runs the College Achievement Program at Denver Academy, an independent school for students with learning differences.