One Crazy Toddler Filled Morning

I'm sure I'm not alone among parents in sometimes having mornings which tax my energy to the limit and leave me wanting a nap by 9am. Today was one such morning.

Lately mornings are fringed with uncertainty about when little one will decide it's time to get up.... generally the range is about 6-7.30am which isn't too bad I suppose.... the beginning of the range is much sooner than I or my husband would like to get up - resulting in one of us getting a "lie in" while the other one gets up. But these morning do leave more time to get ready. If I get a lie in little one is usually dressed and has had breakfast by the time I am up and going leaving much more time for all the other details. Or if I get up I get an extra 1 1/2 hours to fit everything in. When little one gets up later we get more time in bed which I always appreciate, but we do tend to rush around a bit to get out the door by 8.25am (my goal to make it to nursery by 8.45am).

This morning little one got up late. At some point in the night she made her way into our bed and kicked my husband out - and waking up when I was ready next to a sleeping toddler was quite pleasant... The first hint of trouble was her not wanting breakfast. By the time I persuaded her to toast and jam my husband got up and was in the shower. I ate my breakfast with little one - while the cat proceeded to wee next to her litter box. Had to tidy that up, and make a mental note to clean the litter before leaving - presumably this was a "hint" from the cat that the litter was a bit smelly. Went to have my shower while husband took little one for a change of diaper and clothes. Next problem - as I get out of the shower I hear screams of "want red trousers.... want red trousers..." (little one's pyjamas).... get dressed and emerge as husband gives up the battle - little one dressed in only a T-shirt she says she "not like" and a clean diaper.... try to persuade her to the pink trousers husband picked out. No go. Offer alternatives (as husband has already done). Refuse "red trousers" on principle (even though they could be either play trouser for pyjamas). Try "new" purple trousers which seem like a go (so I go upstairs to retrieve them) but by the time I'm back they're no good either. Notice laundry basket of little one's clothes not yet put away and suggest she pick something while I make our lunches. Make lunches - little on comes into kitchen with purple dress which I'm allowed to put on her. Continue making lunch while little one comes into kitchen with AquaDraw mat and spreads on the floor. Demands I play with her. Now it's about 8.10am. Suggest little one help me by putting lunch by the door while I clear up - she prefers AquaDraw. Draw round her as she lies on the mat. Clean up. Put lunch by door. Husband puts laundry in washing machine and turns it on. Little one demands raisins I'm putting into container for her going home snack. I say no. She gets it off counter while I'm not looking and eats it anyway. Clean out cat litter. Now it's time to go. Suggest little one would like tights (it's not that warm). Find pink tights in laundry basket - no go. Find red tights - no go. Give up and put pink tights in little one's bag for nursery. Clear at this point this is all delaying tactics to avoid going to nursery for the day. Put on my coat, and try jumper and/or coat for little one. She lies on the sofa and demands she wants to be "cold". Put on my shoes and pick up bags. Little one gets hint - doesn't want to stay in the house alone, but wants to "walk" to nursery (instead of going in the pushchair). Won't put on shoes. I tell her shoes or pushchair. She allows us to put on her shoes (but still no tights). Finally get out of the door (about 8.30am). Have forgotten to clean teeth yet again. On street little one in sandals and bare legs - sunny but a chill in the air. Says goodbye to husband who drives to work. As usual little one (who is only 2 after all) does not walk in the right direction, or at any kind of speed. She wanders aimlessly as we all would like to sometimes. Tells me she doesn't want to go to nursery (as if I couldn't guess). Feel guilty as I would like to do a bunk and play with her too - but couldn't possibly give in after all this fuss. Give her a hug and tell her she has to - she likes nursery anyway. List all the fun things she will do and names of all staff and kids I can remember. No go. Give up and wrestle her into the pushchair - works if you can snap the snaps quick enough. Wondering if neighbours will come out to see who I'm torturing. Husband driving past pulls over to see if all is OK! Finally little one strapped in, so I push her (screaming) down the street. 10 minutes later (well after 8.45am) we get to nursery. Many stares along the way at toddler with bare legs and no coat on slightly chilly morning. Loadly and repeatedly ask her if she'd like tights and/or coat. She almost agrees at one point. She's fairly calm as we get to nursery, but as we go through gate again demands not to go. Ring doorbell and collect stuff together while holding little one who demands "cuddle". She clings to me in her "ladybird" room full of exciting new toys. I point them all out, and explain to staff why she has no tights on. She allows us to put her tights on. She screams and clings to me until we find her "baby" (favourite toy at nursery) then is all smiles and barely notices my exit... It's not yet 9am - but later than it should be and I still have to walk 25 mins to work....

I now this is all typical toddler "terrible twos", but wow it's exhausting sometimes.

Mothers in Science: 64 Ways to Have it All

I recently had my attention drawn to Mothers in Science: 64 Ways to Have it All (pdf download) which is a Royal Society publication made up of one page career/family timelines and profiles of 64 different mothers in science.

The idea behind the book I think is a great one - that we spend a lot of time with depressing statistics about women in science, and often "blame" the disproportionate burden of childcare women often face for the lack of women at the higher levels of science. This has given young women the idea that if they want children they cannot have a science career, or that they must have children at only very specific times to succeed (I cannot count the number of times I have heard that having babies as a postdoc is a death sentence for your career). This book then presents a random selection of women with children who work in science as a move towards "dispelling these myths" and being more encouraging (it's all written a lot more fluently in the introduction to the book).

I encourage you to read these profiles, and if you're based in the UK you can request your department to be sent a hard copy (let me know and I'll send you the email address of the person to ask).

I'm always very uncomfortable to be put up as a role model for mothers in astronomy. I think this is because there seems to be so much uncertainty still over my continuing career in research (by the way I have funding until Sept 2010 - my post on my disappointing funding news was about a chance to stay here basically permanently.... I probably got a bit over dramatic - should remember not to post on days I get bad news!). I also feel that it's cheating a bit - I think I look a lot more together on the surface than I feel on any given day, when I'm quite often absolutely exhausted and working at the absolute capacity to get everything done. On the other hand it is clearly important for students and younger girls to see women in science who have "normal" family lives.... and only by having an increasing number of mothers and truly involved fathers will the culture of research change sufficiently to make it "easier to have it all". I think it'll never be easy.

Tables Turned

Today I had the mother/supervisor tables turned on me: at T-10 days (likely) from being a mother myself, one of my "highly qualified personnel" (HQPs; what our funding agency calls students, postdocs, staff hired through research grants) told me that she was having a baby in the fall. Fresh off figuring out maternity leave for myself, now I'm trying to work it out from the perspective of a supervisor...

I am fortunate to live in a country with very good maternity/parental leave laws, and am even luckier to have a permanent job that lets me take advantage of them without forgoing my salary. But HQPs don't have that luxury: so while I feel very strongly that my HQP should have a nice long leave like I will, I am also faced with the reality of my limited research budget. Could it be that she will be back to work before I will despite delivering 6 months later?

Surely I can work this out, or at least arrange it so that my HQP gets the most "bang for her buck" benefit-wise. I just hope that I can get the ball rolling before I need to take advantage of similar benefits myself!

It's Never Too Late?

This YouTube clip has been in the news a lot lately on my side of the Atlantic. It's worth a few minutes of your time. It's never too late to dream. I love the incredulous smile on Simon Cowell's face, and the moment she sings

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed

.... breathtaking.

Had some pretty bad news on the funding side this week. As a result I'll be on the job market for serious again this fall. :( On the other hand I've on strong pain killers this week for a mysterious and very painful neck pain (no idea what I did), which include the muscle relaxant diazepam - better known as valium. So I've been in a pretty carefree mood about everything to be honest. At least the bad news had good timing! And if I need a new career - well I'm only in my early 30s. It's certainly not too late for me. :)

Expecting

I hope that I am not breaking the rules by making my inaugural Astronomoms post before I am actually a mom, but with the university semester winding down here in Canada, the fact that motherhood is 3 weeks away is starting to sink in...

I have been an assistant professor at a small university for a little over a year now, and teaching still takes up all of my time during the semester: with Junior on the way to boot, I have been very focussed on just making it through. Now that it's winding down, I have some room to breathe... and stare at the huge list of things to do before the big day. I can't help but focus on the work-related list: there are those 4 projects that I figured I could finish (or at least get under control). There is my graduate student, who will need to function independently for the few weeks/months before his first conference appearances. There are the proposals to referee, the thesis to read, and that research money to spend, too...

But in the back of my mind I have this nagging, unnerving feeling that for the first time since entering graduate school, none of the things on my work-related list are going to matter for a long time after the baby is born. I can't fathom what that will be like. I also can't fathom how I'm going to make it all work in the busy, exhausting post-delivery world that I'm about to enter. My comfort at the moment is that women everywhere make careers and motherhood work somehow, and that hopefully I'm no different. In the meantime, I'll start slogging though my to-do list and enjoy uninterrupted nights of sleep...

A shocking picture

Wednesday, my son brought back home a folder full of drawings and art projects he did at kindergarden over the past few months. We had fun going through it together. One picture caught my attention, it was especially well drawn. I could recognize our living room, and three people in there, but I asked Chatton for extra explanations. At the middle was him, playing legos on the floor. Then I asked "And daddy and me are there playing with you?". His answer left me speechless for a few seconds: "No, you are both working on your computers".

How concerned should I be about this? I do think Chatton receives a lot of attention from the two of us, we really don't work that much around him. But we do spend some time with our laptops out, if only to catch up on email, read the news, or entertain ourselves a little bit after coming back from work. I don't think this is something he suffers from at all, when we are home there is usually one of us playing with him, and he has never made any comment to the fact that we were working too much on the computer, or expressed some frustration. So I don't really think we have a problem. But yet to see it on paper, it's a good reminder that we should be really careful not to let this become an issue.

With each our own work laptop and our "family" computer at home, there are a few times when I've caught the three of us all playing/working on a different computer at the same time. Is this the way of the future? If it is, I find this a little bit scary! And how soon after my second child is born in a couple months will we need to get a fourth computer??

AstronomyMommy

We're about to welcome a new contributor to Astronomoms, "AstronomyMommy". She's not quite a Mommy yet, but will be soon, and I know she'll be a great one! She's going to be quite busy in the next few weeks and months, so I expect she'll be an infrequent contributor at first, but I hope she'll add a fresh perspective to the blog. Unlike AstroMaman and I, AstronomyMommy isn't a postdoc. She's a young faculty member at a small institution. Hopefully that will add a different twist to the challenges of juggling Motherhood and being an astronomer - less about the ongoing uncertainty and job search, and more about the unrelenting rounds of committee meetings, teaching, etc. that fill the days of a young faculty member.

I'll leave it up to AstronomyMommy to introduce herself further.