The week that we closed on our house, I learned a very valuable lesson. Thou shalt not bite off more than thou can chew…I’m pretty sure that’s written somewhere. Sure, it was supposedly spring break, but that was for my husband. There’s no such thing as spring break for a freelancer mom. I’ve stated before (usually under my breath) that jobs always come knocking on my door at the worst possible moments. I feel a bit childish complaining about this, but come ON. There’s got to be a rule somewhere about keeping work evened out…I used to think that in college too (my professors didn’t agree, and midterm papers and exams all came in the same week anyway). In both cases (midterms, and a couple of weeks ago), I felt like the kid in this picture by the end.

So I’ve become a bit more determined to help myself out in this regard. I have set my profile to “not accepting new projects” in the short term, on one of my freelance translation sites. It’s not that I don’t need the cash, and it’s not that I really want to turn down jobs, but let’s face it…in the next couple of weeks with my husband gone all day at work, and all evening working to get our new home to a state of habitability, and having a toddler at home, and going to the bathroom every 15 minutes, and eating every 1.5 hours, I can barely keep up with my current commitments, let alone take on new projects.

It was really hard to click that “unavailable” button though. I could hardly stand it when it said that “prolonged absence could cut some or all of your repeat business off”. I don’t know if I would classify my absence as prolonged, but absence is absence, and I’ve never denied projects in the past. NEVER. Work from this particular avenue has been sporadic at best, but it always seems to come through when I’m in a pickle and need a little extra.

In the end I decided that sanity comes before money, and even before professionalism. And really, sanity is necessary for both of those things anyway. I’m not going to do my best work if I can’t spend enough time on it, and it won’t help me professionally or monetarily if I’m performing substandardly (and yes, I’m aware that that probably isn’t a word)…and let’s not forget the value of going through a move with a bit of grace and goodwill left coursing through my veins.

Do you ever have to turn extra projects down to keep life together?

Ahem,

May I please ask everyone who has been following the Nadya Suleman, the octuplets’ mom, saga to please come forward and show their face? Come on, I know I’m not the only one!

Okay, well even if I’m going to be the only one admitting to it these days, I get glued to the TV whenever something new about this woman comes out. When the babies were first born and the stuff about her being a single mother with six children already came out, I was outraged with the rest of the world. I don’t think it was responsible on her part to try for a seventh when she couldn’t take care of six on her own, but the babies are here, and so that’s pretty much a moot point.

I watched every minute of all of the Dr. Phil episodes about her (I know, I need to get a life). Like I said, my first feelings about this woman were disgust, and I was being pretty darn judgmental. She seemed like the kind of welfare mother that even liberals like myself could beat up on. I had some pretty strong words for the doctor that performed the invetro too. Did I hear someone just quack?

Anyway, I’m pretty much over all of that stuff. The babies are here, and they need care, and I’m definitely not one for advocating putting the kids in foster care. That sounds like a lose-lose for everybody…and plus, I’m not qualified to say that anyway.

Well, yesterday (okay and the day before, if I’m being honest) I watched the latest installment of this drama on Dr. Phil. It was all about Nadya firing the wrap around nursing care that donations were paying for. She’s been highly criticized in the media for this and I thought, when I first heard about it, for good reason.

Then I started really listening to this mother’s reasoning for firing these women. She had other care lined up, that she says is doing a better job. She felt uncomfortable with the original nursing staff. She felt that they were judging her and keeping her from spending time with her babies.

The nursing staff said that Nadya was very hands off with the children. That she was often doing other things…they mentioned shopping, and reading mail. They said that she was allowing sick people around the babies, etc.

I really started to feel for Nadya Suleman when I saw the nurses, and how much they disliked her personally. Maybe what they say about her is true and she doesn’t care about her kids, and she only wants fame, and she only talks to them and holds them when cameras are around. That’s very possible.

On the other hand, she could be a mom who made a bad decision to get pregnant again, and now she is trying her best to take care of 14 kids. I know one kid runs me ragged sometimes. I can’t even imagine the strain and stress that go along with having 14…by yourself.

I started thinking to myself all about different things that I do, that if the media wanted to spin, could possibly look really really awful. This week, my daughter was throwing tantrums and to the mix she added peeing on the carpet (on purpose) to her repertoire. All the parenting books say not to punish your kids for having accidents while they are potty training, but I definitely put her on time out for doing it purposefully.  If a tabloid heard this, they might scream child abuse, or whatever. All of this could be blown way out of proportion.

I’m one of those people that thinks that, in general, parents make pretty darn good decisions, and they really are the best ones to speak on behalf of a child’s best interests. So, if Nadya says she felt uncomfortable with those nurses, I don’t blame her for getting rid of them. I know that these particular nurses are trained specially to care for premature babies. I also know that I had a similar experience with these type of nurses, who cared for my daughter in the hospital following her birth. They did things that I consider to be unethical like suggesting that I not breastfeed, and limiting my time with my daughter.

Either way, I’m not judging this woman anymore. As far as I know, she is trying to figure out a way to keep their family afloat financially (which could explain her reasoning for all of the publicity), as well as through nurturing. I’m not part of their life, and I’m certainly not close enough to the situation to know if she made the right choice in getting those women out of her house. Although, I suspect that it isn’t in the best interest of children to be cared for by people that feel such strongly negative feelings about the only mother that they have in the world.

I basically only touched on the issues that the Dr. Phil stuff hit on, but if you want a more in depth look (and a much more heated response) I suggest you check out the Nadya Suleman post over at Thought for Food. I love the author’s point about “Total Transparency”…and I totally agree.

Do you have strong feelings about the “octomom”? Do you think there are implications for society at large if the public gets too involved with this family?

This may sound extremely corny, but I’m going to say it anyway. I think interpersonal relationships are a huge part of the meaning of life. That little quote about “can’t we all just get along?”, is running through my head as I say that…but I think it’s a real truth. I happen to be of the opinion that all of the people in our lives are here for a reason, and that every one of them has something (or many somethings) to teach us.

On my personal blog this is one of my favorite topics. About how so and so is teaching me this or that. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always roses and sunshine. For me it’s about tough self reflection. What is this difficult situation teaching me? Is my job to tackle a problem head on? Or is it someone else’s problem?

My father sent me a fascinating article this morning from The Student Operated Press called Triangulation: When Work Culture Saps Productivity. I’ll let you read the article for yourself because I don’t think I could do it justice in a summary. However, the main concept is that Triangulation (the act of talking to a non-involved party about a problem that we have with someone else…namely…gossip), is extremely counterproductive. Okay, that sounds pretty obvious when put like that, but at least in the relatioships that surround me, this is pretty much how people handle conflict.

I witnessed something related to this happen in the blogosphere recently. The incident was a mixture of harmful triangulation and direct communication. One of my favorite bloggers had a post written about her on another blog. It was on a rather controversial topic, and the comments got rather nasty. At this point, my  blogger idol went directly to the source to voice that she wasn’t okay with this kind of talking “behind her back”. However, as the article states, the problem with triagulation is that it can actually result in more distance between the two people than there was before. The other person had already spoken about aforementioned blogger in a derogatory way and gotten reinforcement for that through multiple comments, and very probably also from private communication that “the audience” couldn’t see. In other words, he/she was entrenched. At that point, it became all out blog warfare with comments flying from both camps….and I’m sure they both got quite a bit of hate mail as a result.

I just love this whole internet communication thing, it just makes things so transparent in a way. Anyway, the section of the article that really hit home for me was the part about the so-called “listener”. The listener may think that they are actually helping the person that is venting to them, but they can actually be reinforcing the distance by saying things like “I don’t blame you for not talking to her”, or suggesting avoidance, etc.

As women, the social beasts that we are, I think we have a harder time not falling into this trap. I loved the advice at the end of the article for being able to collect yourself and let out some anger without turning it into triangulation “If you choose to let off steam to a third person, do so without tearing down [the other person], and with the intent of understanding your own reactions and gathering yourself to talk directly with [them].”

The article is all about communication in the work place, but I can see so much application for other types of relationships. In fact, while I was reading it, I thought of a few of my own relationships that have gone south because of triangulation (sometimes from my end, and sometimes from the other end). Sadly, I’ll admit that the whole thing made me a little bit glad that my office environment consists of me and my dog. It’s pretty hard to have difficult office politics with a canine.

Do you feel that politics in your office are direct or gossipy? Have you found a way to break a gossip pattern at work or in other relationships

I am a very fortunate person. I recognize this and reflect on it every now and then, but I’m especially fortunate in my married life. I happen to be one of those ladies who is married to a true partner. I have a few friends whose husbands complain about the state of the house when they return from work, or who have to remind their farmer husbands that “tractors don’t come up to you and interrupt lunch or bug you while you’re in the bathroom…so back off”.

No. My husband pretty much gets it. He knows that when he comes home from work on some days, the house is going to be a wreck, our child will be naked, and I will look like I’ve attempted to pull my hair out while still wearing last nights’ stained pajamas.
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We’re waiting…

That’s what this Spring break has been so far. We’re waiting to hear if we get the house. Everyone (the lenders and both agents) say that the outlook is good. That most likely we’ll take possession in the next couple of days, but it’s hard to trust that when we’ve been burned before.

I was writing on my personal blog yesterday that it was looking like we were going to have to write another check in order to extend the contract, and the way that things were going I didn’t think that was prudent.

We’ve got the first two days of the extension covered, but we’ll have a choice to make if that isn’t going to be enough. The choices are: A) Write another check of hard earned money, and hope that the deal goes through. There are no guarantees in real estate and this is no exception. We could lose all of the money that we have put in and have nothing to show for it in the end. But…it might make the deal go through. B) At five o’clock on Wednesday we walk away. Knowing that this house was a rare one. Knowing that the space and layout and repairs needed for that price are not the norm. Knowing that it will be difficult to find something comparable or nearly as good. Knowing that this price would have given us so much more financial freedom. Knowing all of that, we could walk away.
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So…um…the proverbial stuff happened to hit the fan on Thursday this week. It was a hectic week by any measure. I had a volunteer event to plan and pull off. It was the week before Spring break for my husband, with all of the administrative walkthroughs and observations that that entails. Oh yeah, and we were supposed to close on our house yesterday. I say supposed to because it didn’t happen. In fact, after all of the scrambling around for paperwork, and the emails from me to the lender and back (which I would then relay to my husband through text, or facebook status message, or whatever) and the phone calls and the running around town, we didn’t close yesterday because of a technicality and basically messed up paperwork (but not on my end).
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This past week I’ve been getting super into my new organizational system and have even begun building a binder to help keep our home on auto-pilot. I’ve included lists of all of my daily routines (complete with sheet protectors and dry erase markers to allow me to check things off as they get done) and have started to include tasks that are to be done weekly. I’m loving it so far. It’s all basically via the FLYlady website, but I’ve added a few touches of my own to make it work better for our family.

So many times I’ve envied my friends and family member who seem to have it all together with little to no effort. I’m starting to get the hang of this organization stuff, though.

There’s a big BUT coming.
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The other night I was nursing my daughter and chatting with my husband. I joked with him that I’m not going to nurse the next baby because I love our oldest best. He laughed and said that I better nurse the next one. Breastfeeding has become part of our daily lives, and that’s a very happy thing in our family, because it almost didn’t turn out that way.

I read an old post on Alex Elliot’s Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting the other day that got under my skin. It was about the laws that are banning hospitals from sending unrequested samples of formula home with new moms. Alex Elliot’s argument was that it is wrong for states to pass this kind of law because it limits a mothers choice.
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This year is shaping up to be one where I’m really working on deciding what has a place in my life and what doesn’t. The decluttering of the house is going well. Our home office is better today than it has been in months, and other than a few dirty dishes (which I will tackle in a few minutes), and some toys on the floor, the house is actually in order. It’s interesting that my New Year’s resolution was to have a more organized house, but I think what I really wanted was a more organized life.
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