These are just so riveting.

Except not.

So first we had the really amazing bathrooms at my former place of employment where you couldn’t see people’s feet & therefore not be able to properly detect who had the asparagus or coffee pee that morning.  Those bathrooms were all about preserving dignity.

Then there were Tall Girl Problems in Nashville.

I have to admit that with the peanut M&Ms in the breakroom & the chef-designed lunches in our cafes, not to mention the miles of running trails & on-campus gym, I was a little disappointed in the state of these bathrooms.  They’re basic & I half-way expected the toilet to do the work for me.

Here’s an overview of what we’re working with:

Unfortunately, you can see feet.  & there is space between the door & stalls so I can totally see what color pants you’re wearing or if you’re playing on your iPhone.

The toilet paper is the most fascinating, as it comes out like a tissue.  I’m guessing this is an effort to produce less waste?

Here’s to another day of me being the office weirdo that takes pictures of bathrooms.

• p.s. if you’re not following me on Instagram, my user name is bethanneballance on there.
• Do I sound all “meh?” I don’t mean to.  I’m just very tired, mostly mentally from soaking in all the new information for the job & finding our new routine in life.
• Last night I had to pull a tick off Tucker – Doug said he’s so thankful I had ten years of Girl Scouting because there’s no way he could have done that.  (The best way to remove a tick is to strike a match & then blow it out. Place the hot end of the match on the tick’s back, which will make it pull it’s head out. Then grab it with tweezers, yank it off & flush it down the toilet.  Works on dogs, humans, etc.)  Needless to say, she’s going for a “spa day” for a tick dip, bath, & toenail clipping.  I’ll tell her it’s for her sixth birthday, which is next week.
• Thank you so much for your encouragement & sympathetic MARKET HULKSMASH from the house selling post.  We had showings #44 & #45 last night, but no feedback yet.  I’m still feeling pretty darn discouraged but brainstorming some tricks for it’s re-listing next week.
• I get to decorate my office any way that I like – does anyone have any links to a favorite Etsy seller that makes prints?  I don’t know what I’m looking for, just something fun to brighten up the space.
• Could I sound more redneck in this post for telling you how to pull off a tick?  Southern life skills, my friends.

How’s your week going?  I miss y’all.  I feel like I’ve been so out of the loop this week.  Anything cool happening?

This kid, he bear-hug loves his momma.

& his momma loves him back.

I came alive as Harrison’s mother over the past few months.  The doubts & lack of confidence & inability to focus simply shed away & I’m not sure whether it was from the sunshine in the backyard or being the boss of my own day or his incredible tiny grin.   But I came alive in the happiest & most fulfilling way possible, all the way down to my toes until motherhood felt like a calling to my soul.  Driving through town with the windows down & groceries in the backseat, I’d flick my eyes to the rearview mirror & catch Harry’s smile & I would think to myself YES.

Yes, motherhood.

Yes, incredible joy & worthwhile sacrifice & overwhelming love.

Yes, I’ve finally got it.

I’ve always been a little off-beat but I think the oddest thing is that the longer I’m with Harrison, the more I mother, the less tired & overwhelmed I feel.  Two hours can bring me to my knees but three months home can be a balm to the soul where we’ve figured our quirks & my patience surprises me with its ability to simply roll with the tide, even when there’s a gallon of milk on my floor.  To where he’s the beat of my heart & being without him feels like I might as well leave my right arm with him, too.  Here, take my kidney too.

Only three months & already I feel lost without his little arms wrapped around my legs but the penchant is still there to count everything & it’s a private joke that only I know when I lift the second half of my sandwich & think “two” & I smile.  My new boss must think I’m strange & maybe I am, but I’m a momma above all, even with my fingers flying above a keyboard.

That ain’t happening.  My sanity can’t take it & my Twitter stream cannot handle any more LOOK HOW LONG IT TOOK ME TO GET HOME! that they had this past winter.

So to cut back the time by roughly an hour each way, Harrison & I will be living out of suitcases on work nights & then trudging back to our home for the weekends.  Doug will be doing a 50/50 dance of checking on the house & staying with us.  I’m not looking forward to being without my husband so much, but we know it’s temporary.

This is the room I’ll be staying in – one of the guest rooms that has zero of the personality it used to have with college banners & football trophies from when my brother lived in here.  I’ll be moving in my desk & computer & I switched out one of the nightstands for a bookcase (I love having my books close).  The Momma is clearing out space in the closet as I type.  But I’m at a loss as to what to do…I’ll be here 5 nights out of the week without my husband for who knows how long & I am wondering if I should try to bring a little of “us” to this room.  Bring pictures of our little family, use a bedspread from home.

I’ll need to remember to bring over Harry’s favorite bedtime books & toys for the evenings.  I’ll need to leave a post-it note reminding Doug to water the garden every night.  It’s going to be crazy-weird living under my parent’s roof again, except now I’m an adult & it’s so temporary.  Hopefully our house will sell this spring so that we can put all this nasty commuting mess behind us for good.

But for now, I guess I’m moving back to the homestead.

Y’all.

There was no dinner in the oven, the child was shoeless & filthy, toddler bedding was strewn across the living room floor, & my hair was in a top knot with a bandana holding back my bangs.  In short?  We were a hot, hot mess.  If Doug had asked me what I did all day (you know, if he wanted to have his balls for dinner), then I would have simply said that I kept his kid alive for one more day.

Oh, sure.  I had plenty of aspirations including homemade chicken pot pie for dinner & dessert in the oven for the basketball championship game.  When I woke up that morning, I imagined booking an extra hour while the boys did their nightly game of chase in the backyard.  Then reality took over – Harrison slept in a little bit, I took him out for breakfast before we went grocery shopping & he was perfectly behaved the entire morning.  Then he dumped tomato soup on his head & needed a mid-day bath, my laptop battery died, & I found two molars blistering through his gums all before naptime.  We spent the rest of the day “camping” in a Thomas the Train tent & coloring (only making it into the coloring book 50% of the time, RIP Melissa & Doug puzzle).

Nothing that mothers don’t deal with on a regular basis.  Nothing that I didn’t face in the office with other work.  Nothing to complain about or make a fuss over, but just the little things that take away from the moments in the day & I look up & oh my, how is it 5:30pm already?!  I haven’t worked or made dinner or cleaned the house or done anything that leaves a tangible response.

I called my mother the next morning & she reassured me that in her many years at home, she had days like that where the clock flew faster than the to-do list.  & that there were many times where “Honey! The children are still alive!” was worth celebrating.

The next few weeks are busy for me, but not in an awful way.

More in the sense that we’re taking a ton of trips to the park & finding a strawberry farm to go berry picking.  Plus a lot of packing & deep-scrubbing the house so that when it does sell & I’m back in the office, I will have quite a bit done & panic less. 

So if I’m “quiet” over the next few weeks, have no fear.  It’s just that we are busy as bees.

If I’m posting more than normal, have no fear.  It’s just life is spilling over.

I’m going back to work in a month!  Full time, outside of the home!

interview BA, complete with black blazer & nervous face.

I am very excited for the opportunity, for the company, for the doors that are opening.  I’ll get to be on the back-end of all the front-end things I do – instead of creating content, I’ll be administering the content & the nerd in me couldn’t be more pumped.  The company I’ll be working for (not SAS the shoe company) has M&M’s in the break room & walking trails.  I’ll wear jeans to the office.  If I do get on permanently, the benefits are out of this world.

Needless to say, I’ve been walking around with JAZZ HANDS! for the past 24 hours out of pure happiness.  I’ve been secretly applying there for the past five years for various positions, so I’m still in “pinch me” mode.  (I’m about to get all motivational speaker & point out that in January, I thought life had kicked me flat on my ass.  I was terrified & nervous but it has flung open doors I never dreamed of before.  So that really piss-poor circumstance in life can turn out to be the greatest blessing with a little bit of time.)

But that underlying tone of pause?  That’s me feeling like the end of maternity leave all over again.  Three solid months of Momma + Harry eating pancakes in the morning & going for walks & grocery shopping mid-day.  Working in yoga pants, sitting on a blanket in the backyard.  I am thankful for the time we’ve had together & it’s been very good for us.  We knew it wasn’t forever.

Instead, this could be the new forever.  We’ll just have to wait & see.

We’re getting pretty good at the “wait & see” aspect of life these days.

Harry is sick, the really terrible kind of sick where there is nothing to do but ride it out with extra-deep warm baths & a humidifier.  Although this explains his turd-tastic behavior last weekend, I feel awful for the tiny guy when he’s sobbing in bed because he can’t breathe & it’s all “croup-y” according to the nurse line.

I think the worst part of motherhood so far is telling a two-year-old that we can’t go to the park or see his friends because he’s sick.  Then listen to him bark-cry, which only makes him feel worse which makes him bark more which makes him cry more & it’s an awful, viscious cycle.

His momma also caught the sicks, so we’re watching Disney movies & fort-building.  Basically, we’re laying low in the trenches & we’ll see you back in the land of the healthy hopefully in a few days.

2)  I lock myself in the bedroom/office & he physically attempts to beat down the door to get to me.  Wails of torture from both parties ensue.

3)  He uses intimidation & manipulation to prey on my weakness, all in hopes of getting me to open the door for a direct attack.  This includes cries of “MOMMA!” & shoving Matchbox cars under the door.

4)  Out of food & toilet paper, I must make the decision – open the door for a run to the kitchen & risk being spotted, or wither without supplies for the rest of the day?

5)  Should I open the door, any moment could be the end of my existance workday.

ahhhhh, he got me!

Figuring out what works, what doesn’t, re-setting priorities & deciding new goals.  Maybe it’s just me, but changes tend to dump me on my head & I spend about 3-4 weeks spinning in circles freaking the hell out, but then I buckle down & settle in.

The first few weeks home, I kept Harrison with me alone & worked while he played in the backyard or napped.  Then my sister moved in with us during weekdays to help with childcare but I found myself working on our bed in the master bedroom, alone & isolated for 5-9 hours per day.  Just me & my laptop & some movie as background noise.  I emerged for lunch but had this nagging feeling that I was getting lazier & fatter & more depressed by the moment.  I was rocking second & third-day hair on the regular & staying in my pajamas until 3pm.  (also? girl scout cookie season. no further explanation necessary.) 

This week, I decided to start our days with a walk – the kind where Harrison is bundled in the stroller & his momma burns calories.  I thought he’d hate it & fight the stroller because he’s such an independent guy, but I think he likes being able to just chill out.  It’s just thirty minutes but I feel so much better & focused for it.  I worked better, more efficiently, even planned dinner & put on lipstick.  (well, Revlon lip butter.  Seriously, check that stuff out because it’s magic.)

Last night, I went out with my girlfriends for our monthly Girls Night Out & when asked how I was, I said “Happy.  Really, really happy.  The kind where everything that comes out of my mouth is rainbows! & sparkles! & unicorns!”  I’m even annoying the shit out of myself with it, but I can’t help it.  I don’t know whether it’s the sunshine or the exercise endorphins or the seeing my kid every day or the Zoloft, but this feeling rocks all around.