You Can't Go Home Again

Unless you are an OSU alumni. And then you really should come back to Stillwater for America's Greatest Homecoming, along with the other 60-80,000 people. And even if you aren't a former Poke, it's great fun.

Grandma and Grandpapa came to visit last weekend and we had a lot of fun taking them to Walkaround and showing them around Stillwater. Aunt Kris, Uncle Neil, and cousin Avery also joined us. Walkaround really is Stillwater at its best. Though somehow we mostly only got pictures of A eating a cookie...

The decks are truly amazing and take so much effort on the part of the students.

Homecoming 2014

Here are a couple of pictures from years past.

2009

2011

What's more common than PPD?

Postpartum anxiety: more common but less recognized than postpartum depression

You don't actually know what you're doing, do you?

I recently wrote a piece on postpartum anxiety for my friend Samantha's blog, Dr. Psych Mom. There are so many topics that seem taboo, especially related to mental health or difficulties as a new parent. This is the kind of post that is certain to get calls from family (ahem, mom) or close friends, upset that I hadn't shared this experience with them. Hopefully this post helps explain that, too. More than anything, I hope sharing my story provides some validation for others who have been through it. 

Becoming a parent is anxiety provoking. People who never worry suddenly become stricken by fear that they will accidentally drop their newborn baby as they stumble from room to room in a sleep-deprived state. Common/“normal” fears include hitting the baby’s head, forgetting the baby somewhere, something being wrong with the baby, or being a terrible parent. Sometimes, though, anxiety can become paralyzing. This was my experience. In general, I am not anxious. However, things changed after having my daughter...

Outsourcing

In a previous blog post I mentioned that I've been reading a lot about outsourcing and wondering how that would look for us.

Baby A is shocked, too.

A major stressor has been our front yard. Since Chad started working in OKC, it has gotten out of hand but our schedule is such that we never had the time (or energy) to deal with it. Chad has wanted to hire someone to put down some stone work for awhile so we decided to have them just work out the whole front bed. I would ask you not to judge but I know that isn't realistic!

I also had someone come in to hang out with A last weekend so that I could go in to the lab for a writing meeting. 

I've discovered that I don't need to look outside the house for outsourcing though. Baby A is quite the jack/Jill-of-all-trades. 

She can do the driving. 

And the cooking. 

And baking. 

She loves feeding the puppies. 

And saving our money. 

She can handle my pleasure reading. 

I may even have her start running for me. Though she needs to learn to keep her shoes on. 

Happy half-birthday to A

Dear sweet girl,

You are two and a half years old already. You are right in the middle of toddlerhood; there's no question about that. But you're also just an amazing little person.

I laugh every day at the funny things you say and do. You're also clearly a little ham, often saying "I'm so funny" (I know what you must hear a lot!). You talk all the time, keeping a running commentary on what you're doing or thinking. You are starting to get to an age where I can ask you questions and you can occasionally provide a reasonable answer. Your memory is amazing to me. I just can't believe the things that you remember and talk about.

You are doing really, really well at school. You are such a little helper. Not surprisingly, you love to follow rules and make sure others are doing the same. Your best friend is Hayden but you also love Saum and Luke. One day recently you excitedly burst out that "Josie was a tiger in the tunnel!" I have absolutely no idea what that means but it made you happy and that made me smile. You talk a lot about tigers these days. Sometimes you say that you're a scary tiger and you chase me around the house roaring.

Amidst all of your playing, you seem to be learning a lot, too. You know your basic colors and shapes, parts of the body, and animal sounds. You can count to eleven (though you reliably skip four and six) and like to 'sing along' with the ABCs. You can recognize the letters A, I, and E but think most everything else is a D (though recently you've been saying "tuh" for T so I think you're getting that one down as well). You now can tell people your mommy and daddy's names as well as your first and middle name. In the car, you often tell me to go and when I don't you say "Have to wait for cars, mommy" and more recently "red means stop." I don't think you know what either of those things mean since you're still rear facing but I must have said them enough that you recognize the pattern.

You love to run and will say "I running fast, mommy!" You went through a phase where you loved doing somersaults, too. They made us a little nervous since they sort of looked like you might break your neck at any moment.

Emotionally, things seem to have stabilized a bit. While there are still days that I lose my patience, you're in a good place right now. I hear that three is a tough year (threenagers) so we will just have to navigate that together. You still get upset when you don't get your way. It's hard to watch your face fall and to hear you say "mommy/daddy hurt me".

I don't want to talk about how well you sleep through the night but I will say that you've mostly given up naps on the weekend. We instituted an hour of 'quiet time' where you stay in your crib and look at books or play with your farm animals or cookie/cupcake baking sets. Sometimes you also will do that in the mornings, which is nice. You still love playing with your dolls, your kitchen set, all toy cars, and your "aminals." You really love going down slides. Lately you've enjoyed baking as well, which has helped a bit with your fear of the mixer (though you still note it's too loud, mommy. hurts ears).

You are still a little slow to warm up in new situations and with new people but now you sometimes surprise me by talking to strangers.

The biggest difference these days is that you just don't eat. You would eat junk food all day if we let you. Of course we don't, but sometimes I am tempted. Occasionally you will eat pasta (you would eat mac and cheese most any day, I believe but of course we can't do that either), you'll eat green beans, and sometimes you'll have cheese, cereal, raisins, fruit, or pancakes. We are sort of at a loss. We know that this is developmentally normal but at some point, I feel like you are going to have to start eating something other than fruit snacks. You're still so teeny tiny. I weighed you today and you're still at 24.5 pounds. While you can wear a few things that are 3t, you also can wear some skirts that are 18 months. That makes changing clothes for seasons a little trickier (so does weather that fluctuates from 50 to 90 to 60 in a week, though). You've been wearing the same shoe size for what feels like forever.

Your favorite song is Old MacDonald ("moo song, mommy"). Whenever we do anything you like (your new discovery of piggy back rides, funny sounds, etc.), you say "one more time" over and over again (I don't think you quite know what that means yet!).

Daddy says his favorite things are your sense of humor and that you are so happy. He also loves your long, curly hair and that you're just so pretty.

In looking back at old letters, the most noticeable and consistent qualities are your curiosity/inquisitiveness, your hugs, and that you love to laugh. It seems that these things are your constant. I hope we can rely on that to stay the same as you get older.

Today you were super excited about having a half-birthday cake. I think this means this should be a new tradition.

168 hours, busyness, and technology addiction

There should always be time for hugs.

I've been thinking about many things in this post for awhile. It isn't related to A but is more of a catch-up on how things are going for me personally and professionally. I think there are lots of good article links as well.

I am reading the book 168 hours: You have more time than you think (Laura Vanderkam). Thanks to Samantha for that recommendation. The book is culminating/integrating a number of different thoughts and challenges I've been considering lately. The basic premise of the book is that we all are given the same allotment of units each week (i.e., 168 hours) and we choose how we spend that time. It really tackles our notions and excuses about being "too busy" to exercise, "pleasure" read, go on vacation, get adequate sleep, etc. I am about halfway through the book and am already trying to make changes based on suggestions I'm reading. [All of those are excuses I regularly make, for what it's worth.]

The pieces that have struck home the most are:

1) 100 dreams: Writing down 100 things that you would like to accomplish in your lifetime is, perhaps not surprisingly, pretty difficult. It reminded me a bit of my goals post. I currently have come up with 87 things. My list includes things I have already completed (e.g., got married, bought a house, had a baby, received tenure), family dreams, big work goals in all of the major domains (research, teaching, and service), and personal goals (in areas like health behaviors, travel, community service, religion and spirituality). I also included some smaller things like shop at ikea and try Trader Joe's cookie butter (which don't quite coincide with financial and weight loss goals but I like balance). 

2) I waste tremendous amounts of time. Much like behavioral activation or acceptance and commitment therapy might have clients do, Vanderkam suggests completing a week-long homework exercise where you track what you're doing throughout the day. It turns out that lately I have been doing pretty well at being productive when I am at work (I would be even better if I kept my door shut but c'est la vie). Since having A, I've struggled in this domain--when I was pregnant, looking at potential baby strollers was more fun than reviewing journal articles; when I was just back to work, I was only scheduling enough child care to cover my meetings and would run home immediately afterward; once A started daycare, I was watching her on the video cameras while pumping and on and on. Basically, I created some bad habits. This is not to say that I haven't been working hard. This is the other place I struggle--actually recognizing when I am being productive. I spend a lot of time thinking about all of the articles that I should have already submitted, grants I have not received, etc. However, in addition to keeping our little family alive and well while Chad is working, in the last year, I got tenure, have been submitting manuscripts, applied for four grants, supervised 5-10 clinical students, developed and taught two online courses, managed my research lab, and taught my regular graduate classes. This is really pretty good. So I should be more cognizant of that. However, at home, I do really ridiculous things like check Facebook while I am folding laundry. I know the importance of engaging in one activity at a time and yet, this is a regular occurrence. Everything takes longer than it should because of this. Most days, A and I are just sitting around playing or watching television, waiting for Chad to get home. I try to do some fun activities and watch her independently play but we both get a little antsy. I think I could use this time to really connect with her more instead of being attached to my phone. I hesitate to even put this on here because of the admission as well as needing to follow through with changing my behavior.

These ideas have really resonated with other things I have discovered in the last year.

• A big one for me is the culture of busy. It is so easy to fall into the busy trap. You may have even noticed that I did it above or frequently do this on blog posts. There is an inherent excitement or feeling of importance with telling others how busy you are or how hard you work. But it's a trap and it isn't helpful. It often leads folks to feel unproductive, inadequate, and unsatisfied. For the record, I really am working on not always responding with "busy/crazy," when folks ask how I'm doing. And I really do want to slow down and enjoy more. If you're interested, here are a few links to interesting articles:

              The Busy Trap

              Let's stop the glorification of busy

              You're not as busy as you say you are

• Another interesting idea that has really captured my attention recently is that of outsourcing. Clearly, many of us are familiar with the idea of local jobs being outsourced to foreign countries. However, I am referring to outsourcing within our personal lives. I recently read an interesting NYT article that discussed one of the common factors amongst successful people was that they outsourced those things that they were not good at, didn't like and/or didn't have time to do well. In general, I have often thought that hiring someone to come clean (or garden or cook, or whatever) would be a waste of money. However, I've been looking at the economics of it and no longer think that is the case. We have recently hired someone to come in and landscape our very sad, very scary front lawn. Getting that taken care of has been on my to-do list since early spring, weighing heavily on my mind. However, I'm genuinely excited now that we have someone who will come in and fix it for us. I can't wait! I love cooking and baking so I know I will continue to do those things but having someone come help with cleaning and laundry might be pretty outstanding and would free up more weekend time with A. Additionally, I recently learned about virtual assistants, who can help with a number of book keeping and other tasks. I would have made a really excellent virtual assistant (I have magic internet apparently) so it is hard for me to imagine utilizing one but I'm in love with the idea. 

• I continue to read, think about, and feel guilty regarding being tethered to my cell phone. I am trying to set more rules for myself (putting phone away when I get home, etc.) and reading hands free mama is often a good wake-up call. As is having a 2.5 year old say "Put phone down mama." Yikes. This continues to be a work in progress.

• The last change I have made recently is focusing more on actually writing at work. It is easy to get caught up in teaching and service responsibilities, email, meetings, and research lab management and not devote enough time to actually writing and moving forward on projects. This summer I joined a 14-day writing challenge through the National Center for Faculty Development & Diversity which gave me some good foundational skills for setting aside time to write, using a timer, and conducting a "Sunday night meeting" to schedule my tasks for the week. This has been incredibly helpful. I am also trying to help my students develop better habits so we are doing a reading series on Writing Your Journal Article in 12 weeks which is going really well. I am about to start working with an online grant consultant which should also be interesting (and hopefully worthwhile!).

So, that's how things are here. If I could get Chad to write a blog post, I think he would tell you that his work is going very well.