- I have Bandaids in my wallet and stray toddler socks in
my purse. It’s hard being professional
and ladylike when old fruit pouches fall out of your purse as you’re reaching for
your legal memo. The double burden of
women.
- If I call the nanny and don’t hear back within 5
minutes, my imagination runs wild and nothing in the office matters. I will not respond to emails, will not
continue my work, and will not pick up my office phone. I will eat chips, harass my husband, and
redial my house until I hear that everything’s fine and that [latest horrible
thing I heard/read on the mainstream/weird news] did not happen. More than the absentmindedness, the half
zipped dresses and the cell phones in the fridge, this ability to conjure up
worst case scenarios and fully convince yourself of their likelihood (as in,
100% likelihood) until the very moment that the grave injury turns out to be a
splinter and the missed phone call turns out to be a missed phone call, is what
defines “mommy brain.”
- I wear flats and change into heels for meetings. I get tired just thinking about the ladies
who wear heels all day long and who also attend
after-work happy hours. When I see them
in the elevator, I resolve to wear makeup and contacts more often…or at least
shower.
- My phone has no storage left because of all the baby
pictures on it from only about 10 different occasions, each with endless
variations of the same photo that I can’t get myself to delete because it seems
wrong. When my phone will no longer
place calls because of lack of storage, I hesitantly delete the indecipherable
blurry pictures of what is probably the floor.
- I have learned to keep a nice looking outfit or two in
the office for the inevitable days that I come in wearing an old t-shirt
under my suit jacket, or have failed to coordinate colors getting dressed in
the dark. I learned the hard way, frantically
running to a nearby store for a plain black dress after an email giving 30
minutes notice before a big meeting. I didn’t
want to wear the baggy skirt that I thought was something else (something not
embarrassing) when I put it on. Why do I
have obese grandmother clothes in my closet? A question for another day.
.JPG)
- I make lists of recipes, notes for the nanny (i.e., passive aggressive
instructions), and miscellaneous tasks on unsaved documents
at work. I never remember to close them
before calling the help desk, and cringe when they remote in to my computer and
get a solid glimpse of my legal work. (“Buy
toddler underwear, figure out what size” “Peel carrots” “For nanny: don’t share
a fork with my kid; do get all food off washed dishes, I’ll take over 90%” “stop
being a B to nannies” “buy summer shoes, measure her feet” “why do you not know
any sizes”).
- I gauge the productivity of my day in terms of both accomplishments
in the office, and time spent with my daughter.
Cuddle time only counts for one of those. Reading a lot may work for either, depending
on content. Productivity is off the
charts when there is more food in the fridge than on the floor (breakfast ice
cream facilitates my growth, but I
guess that’s not toddler-appropriate growth), and when the entire family looks
presentable for a reasonable amount of time (intentionally vague standard).
- I find
time to summarize how my life differs from almost all the female associates in
my office, but have not completed my legal research or resolved my child's
shoelessness (and, if you were reading carefully, underwearlessness -- but
that's an awkward and uncomfortable word ... and state of being).
.JPG)
