Mendolonium

So, I’ve been back to work for one week.  It’s going about how I expected it to.  I left the house on Monday morning to pleas of “Mama, don’t go!” from Thomas.  I arrived at work to find hundreds of emails and mandatory sexual harassment training waiting for me.  I found out that I will not be resuming work on the mind-rottingly boring project I had been working on before I went out on leave which is good news.  I will be working on at least one project which will actually utilize some of my skills.  Overall, I actually enjoyed Monday…an excuse to wear high heels and pearls, eight hours of quiet, and solo trips to the bathroom.  Apparently eight hours was enough for me, however, and on Wednesday night I had a mini-breakdown and contemplated scenarios under which I could avoid ever going back again.  Short of bank robbery, there are none.  To add more fuel to my fire of guilt, on Thursday morning Thomas found a stick in the yard and told me “This is my money.  I will give it to you so you don’t have to go to work.”  On Friday I called in absent…a friend offered us free tickets to Disneyland that had to be used that day so in a moment of carpe diem we went and had a great time spinning around in teacups and consuming copious quantities of ice cream.

One thing that surprised me last week and that I am dreading this week is the lying…the false, “work-appropriate” answers that I have to give in response to my co-workers inane questions.  To wit..

Co-worker:  “You must be so glad to be back.”

What I say out loud: “Yes.  It’s good to be back.”

What I say in my head:  “No, I’ve cried three times in the last twenty-four hours over the thought of being here.  I miss my kids.  I miss my house.  It’s boring and lonely here.  I want to go home and bake some cookies…and then eat them…lots of them.”

*********************************************

Co-worker:  “Two boys.  So are you going to try for a girl?”

What I say out loud: “We’re happy with our boys.”

What I say in my head:  “We’re happy with our boys.  We are so lucky to have healthy children.  I would never wish that they were anything but who they are.  And we are going to have more children, but that’s none of your damned business and we will be thrilled with whatever gender we get.”

*********************************************

Co-worker:  “Oh, you’re only part-time.  But you’ll be coming back full-time soon…”

What I say out loud: “Yes.  I am not sure when, but that’s the plan.”

What I say in my head:  “I’ll sell a kidney for cash before leave my baby five days a week and come back to this job full-time.  Maybe if it was a job I love, but this is not it.”

*********************************************

Co-worker:  “Good to get back to work and use your mind again?”

What I say out loud: “Being home is surprisingly challenging, but yes it is nice to do some technical work again.”

What I say in my head:  “You are an idiot.  Being at home with two small children is a never-ending challenge.  On top of the kids, I writing a cookbook, maintaining a mini farm, writing, grading papers for my husband’s chemistry and geology classes, and applying for fellowships to get me the hell out of here.  I use my mind far more at home than at this job.”

********************************************

Ahhh, it feels better to tell the truth; even if it is just to my blog.

On Monday morning I go back to work.  Work “outside the home” as they say.  Need I even say that parenting is the most taxing work I have ever done, inside or outside of a house?  I knew going back to work again would be hard.  It was the first time [with Thomas] and I assumed it would be the second time.  I had hoped that this go ’round might be a bit less hard, however.  At T-5 days that doesn’t seem to be the case.  I find myself filled with dread.  The first few months of Henry’s life were spent alternatively enjoying my perfect little family and battling a deep long-standing depression.  Most days I barely held my head above water only to drown in an ocean of tears nearly every night – exhausted, emotionally pulled in opposite directions by two demanding little people, and physically battling a resurgence of my rheumatoid arthritis.  Now, I am on much more solid footing.  I got therapy.  I got help from family (a deepest thank-you to my in-laws who took Thomas for about 36 hours every week during the summer).  I got some regular exercise.  I got some sleep.  Most days I now have my head above water and am able to keep it there.  But I am scared that I won’t be able to juggle it all once a job is added back in and that I will sink once again.  And oh how I know I will miss my kids.  Henry is still so little that it seems he changes on a daily basis.  The longest I have been away from Henry since he was born was three, five hour stretches.  And by the end of those five hours I was literally speeding down the street to get back to my sweet boy.  I don’t want to miss a moment of his all too short babyhood.  I don’t want to “feed” a machine three times a day rather than my cuddly baby.  Thomas may be older but I love spending time with him, listening to his stories, watching him make new discoveries.  Everything is made all the worse by a job that I have no passion for.  I could see taking time away from my children if my job meant something to me and I was making a positive impact on the world, but I don’t think pushing numbers in a spreadsheet or massaging PowerPoint charts count as soul fulfilling work.

I have to go back, I have no choice.  We really are doing fine financially, still living below our means, but as long as we live here and desire such niceties as prescription drugs and a roof over our heads I have to work.  I am beyond happy that I only have to go back three days a week rather than full-time.  I am in awe of the mothers I know who go back to work full-time with young children – it must be almost unbearably difficult.  Ever the planner, I’ve starded to gather the things I will need for work:  my laptop case, boxes of milk storage bags, updated pictures of the kids.  This has, of course, not escaped the notice of a persecptive prescholer and yesterday Thomas stopped suddenly in mid-play, turned to me and said “I’m sorry, Mama”.  “What for?”, I asked fearing something along the lines of a toileting accident.  “I have to go work” he replied with a heavy sigh and a look of dejection,  but he then added brightly “I will come back”.  Next Monday I have to go to work, but I will come back.  I will always come back.  And my heart, well, it never really leaves home at all.

I have always said that you can tell whether or not you have made the right decision about something when you let it “rest” for a time and then go back and see how it feels.  I recently wrote that I had decided that I did not want to be anything more than a home chef.

And then Melissa (aka “the stay-at-home-mom contestant”) won “The Next Food Network Star” and I thought about how I identified with her story of working hard at a corporate job, then choosing to stay home to raise her children, and how she maintained a passion for cooking great food throughout it all…

And then my sister procured a stand at the South Pasadena farmer’s market (selling flowers) and I realized that I was jealous that she was getting involved in local, sustainable agriculture and I wasn’t…

And then I spent this past week canning peaches, cooking Pad Thai, making chocolate ice cream, and baking cookies and feeling happier than I have in weeks…

And the I read “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” and realized that I had independently invented many very similar recipes all on my own…

And now I am not so sure that a “home chef” is still all I want to be when it comes to food.  I still don’t think I ever want to work a restaurant line or wake up before the sun rises to make bread for my bakery.  But the truth is I wouldn’t really mind getting judged on my food – it would usually get an “A” and I thrive on feedback.  It is the constructive criticism that makes me a better chef and it is the satisfied smiles and compliments that make me want to go back to the kitchen again and again.  And if there was a market for midnight muffins I just might be inclined to open a bakery.  So where does this leave me?  I don’t know, but I think that food will have a larger role to play in my life than simply cooking for my family and friends.  Perhaps I’ll write a cookbook focused on cooking local, organic, sustainable foods with kids underfoot?  Perhaps I’ll start a bread CSA?  Perhaps I will come into a huge sum of money, quit my job, and go to culinary school?  Stay tuned to find out the answer…I would sure like to know how this will all turn out.

When I take a cooking class at the local culinary school the chef-instructors refer to those of us taking the class as “home chefs”. I love that term:  it’s both respectful and accurate.  Regardless of whether or not I ever go to culinary school I think of myself as a chef and home is where I perfect my craft:  I am in the kitchen cooking something nearly constantly (baking bread and roasting spices for garam masala as I type this), I develop recipes, and I have a very discerning palate to please.

I love to cook now, but I never could have guessed as a child that I would consider myself a chef.  I read, I danced, and I sang, but I never showed any interest in cooking.  In general I eschewed all things domestic, but I my mother and father unknowingly planted the seeds of a future foodie.  I remember my dad making lasagnas at Thanksgiving and Christmas.  I remember how my mom loved to bake:   how sometimes my mom would seem to struggle with what do make for dinner, but we’d have a homemade apple pie for dessert.  The first year of college I lived on campus and was subjected to the truly godawful food of the mandatory “meal plan”.  I think I subsisted entirely on dinner rolls and Drumsticks until I decided to start cooking my own food in the house kitchens.  I started off with boxed dinners and I had a culinary epiphany when I realized that I could make boxed mac & cheese with cream and butter rather than milk and margarine.  I then discovered the joy baking with butter (we had been a margarine family growing up) and I think that my fate was sealed.   My sophomore year we took advantage of a free grocery store turkey and cooked a Thanksgiving dinner for over 20 people in our small apartment.  My junior year we catered an anniversary party for Jeff’s parents and 50 other people entirely by ourselves (Jeff and I).  I became obsessed with baking the the perfect chocolate chip cookie and the perfect cinnamon rolls when upper division physics and math classes made it clear that I would never be a perfect physicist.   Food became my escape, my “happy place”.   Even when the rest of my world seemed to be crashing down upon me I could build up a tiny piece of it by baking a cake.

And so it remains.  I had a crappy day today:  my RA is acting unpleasantly, I am inexplicably suffering from significant dizziness, it’s so hot in our house I feel like I am melting, and my baby fell asleep like the magic baby he is, but refused to stay asleep for longer than 20 minutes unless he was actively nursing.  So what did I do tonight as soon as both kids were asleep…I  baked bread, I made up a new batch of garam masala, and I made dinner for tomorrow night (Bangladesh Lentil and Chickpea Stew ready to go in the slow cooker).  It’s 11:30 at night and I am still contemplating whether or not to start a batch of pickles.  Clearly, I am obsessed with making food.  And that’s why I have decided not to be anything more than a fabulous “home chef”.  I don’t want to be graded on the weight of my baguettes.  I don’t want to work on a restaurant line, chopping bushels of onions to get ahead.  I don’t want to come home needing to relax and be so tired of cooking for work that I just get takeout.  I’m still not sure what I want to be when I grow up, but I am narrowing it down.  So while I stress over my career I’ll perfect the perfect vodka sauce And whenever I finally figure it out, I’ll whip myself up a pan of brownies to celebrate.