Snow day part three

So tomorrow will be the third snow day in a row in CU Land.  This means that the last two days of class for the fall semester have been canceled.  This means that Archer and I have been home with Bear and Wild Man for the last two days, stuck in the house.  Wild Man loves the snow and has made several trips outside to play in the snow.  Bear, who is getting over a bad cold, hates the snow.  In fact, we took him outside briefly today, and he cried the entire time. 

In addition to being snow bound with two children who are getting a bit stir crazy, I have four sets of papers to grade by next Wednesday, including final papers for 2 classes (I'm still getting caught up from the week I was out of town for my grandmother's funeral). I have an exam to write, and all of my students are emailing me because they have final papers due soon and they don't know when they'll see me again!  I'm obsessively checking email in the hopes that I will receive an interview request for my field's big conference which is at the first of the year.  I'm trying to get ready for the holiday, which also means dealing with Archer's family's passive-aggressive comments about how we privilege our careers over our family, i.e. them, every year.  Oh, and we're traveling to Europe for 11 days in less than 10 days for Archer to do some research.  Yes, we will be in Europe for Christmas, which is the reason for all the passive-aggressive comments.  Archer keeps asking me why I'm so tense.  Maybe I should tell him to read this post. . .

Narrowly avoided

So one of the unbloggable issues has been resolved, and now I feel like I can blog about it--cryptically.  The issue was career related, and it was a university wide issue.  It has something to do with contract negotiations.  All part-time faculty members at CU now have new contracts, and while they are far from perfect, they are significantly better than what they were.  I'm relieved.  A potentially bad situation for me professionally and for us personally has been narrowly avoided thanks, in part, to Dr. Writing's mad negotiation skills.

Positive Signs

Things may be looking up, and a lot of the stress may be about to come to an end. I'm not ready to say anything more than that right now, but today at least, I'm in a much better state of mind.

The Sources of Stress

Because I like reminding myself that I am stressed out, here are the sources of my stress:

• C left for yet another on-campus interview today. So far he has been on 5 (including this one), and as of yet, he still does not have a job offer. We were both really hoping that he'd get an offer from one of the 3 schools he is really interested in late last week or early this week so he didn't have to go on any more interviews.
• I've been officially been working on my dissertation for just over a year, and thus far, I only have a draft of one chapter. I'm disappointed in my progress.
• C's car, which used to be my car, is leaking oil everywhere. We either need to buy a new car (which is only an option if he gets a job) or put a new engine in it (which will cost us at least $1,200).
• My annoying fellow graduate students keep recalling books that I'm using for the chapter I'm currently working on.
• I only have 10 pages written for the chapter I'm currently working on.
• My house desperately needs to be cleaned--as in I can write my name in the dust on our bookshelves and the kitchen floor is gray instead of white.
• I don't know how C is going to cope if he doesn't get an offer. He is already second guessing everything he said or did at every single interview, and he is feeling more than a bit discouraged. I can only offer so much encouragement too; he knows how much I know about the academic job market, so lots of times my encouragement comes off as patronizing, even though I don't intend to be patronizing.
• I miss my husband.
  

Tomorrow I will be more positive, and perhaps, I will even post about the wonderful things in my life. In the meantime, I'm going to write for the next several hours.

*Amended to say: Usually writing these things out makes me feel better, and so today I wrote hoping that I would experience a catharsis and would feel better. It didn't work.

I'm tired, plain and simple

I've been neglecting lots of things lately, my blog included, and the reason is in the title of this post: I'm tired, plain and simple. I'm not just the "I'm a dissertating-mom-of-a-toddler-tired" either. I'm tired physically, emotionally, and intellectually. It seems that the reason for my tiredness can be traced to one reason, the same reason incidentally that is currently the cause of every single source of stress in my life right now: C's job search.

In all honesty, I may as well have gone on the market myself as much time and energy as I've invested in this damn search. I remember thinking this past fall when C was sending out applications how much easier that whole process was when he did it in 2006. He had all the materials drafted this time; he just needed to revise them to address specific job ads. Thus, our fall was relatively stress free. We had lots of family time, and I even managed to find time to work on my dissertation on most Sunday afternoons. The spring, however, has been a different issue. C has been absorbed with conference interviews and on-campus interviews, which, aside from taking him to all end of the country, take an inordinate amount of time to prep for. He has been consumed by all of this stuff to the extent that it is impossible for us to have a conversation that somehow doesn't include a discussion of an upcoming interview. On top of that, we also enjoy stressing ourselves out further and having the conversation that starts "What happens if after all of this C doesn't get an offer?" When he is home, C is trying to keep up with his classes because he is, in fact, still teaching 4 classes this semester and prepping for future interviews. Every school has asked him to do something different, so his prep for every interview is different. Needless to say it has been hard to get a lot of work done, but I am trying my best to get through another chapter.

The thing that is stressing us both out the most is Wild Man's reaction to everything. C and I have been much snippier with each other than usual--we're both tired, we're both frustrated, we're both missing each other. We've had several pointless conversations which go something like "I'm tired, M." "Well, C, I'm tired too." "No, I'm tired." "No, I'm tired." In other words we have pissing contests on a semi-regular basis. Wild Man has picked up on the tension in the house, and he has also started having trouble sleeping again. This one isn't a surprise. My kid is not a good sleeper, but in the past few months we've had major break throughs. Despite the fact that he consistently wakes up between 6 & 6:30, he generally sleeps through the night. If he does wake up, he does so because he has misplaced his puppy, his favorite stuffed animal that he has taken to sleeping with. Once one of us gives him puppy, he goes right back to sleep. For the past 3 weeks, however, he has had what I can only describe as insomnia. At least twice a week, he wakes up around 11 and is awake for several hours, sometimes 1 but more often 2 or 3. Last night he was up from 11 until 1 and then from 3 until 4. He isn't fussy either; in fact, he only cries when he is alone. As long as one of us is in his room with him he is content to lie in his crib and hold our hands. Sleeping on the floor next to Wild Man's crib isn't the ideal place to get a restful night's sleep, however. We're both hoping that he will begin sleeping through the night again as soon as we able to get back to our regular schedule. Unfortunately there are three more weeks of travel ahead of us: 1 trip for me and 2 for C. It looks like I will continue to be tired for a while.

Retirement

My mother-in-law officially retires this Friday, and I'm very excited for her. She will get a much deserved break. That said, she told C when they spoke last night that she plans to come visit us about every 6 weeks or so. I don't know if I can handle that. Seriously. There are lots of advantages to having her visit that often.

• Wild Man would get to see one of his grandparents on a regular basis.
• She and I might be able to develop a closer relationship.
• It would be nice to see family often.
• We would have regular access to a reliable, trustworthy, and free babysitter.
  

I told C that if this happens we would have to have a serious conversation about guidelines and boundaries she would be expected to follow. Off the top of my head these would include

• respecting our life choices
• not questioning our parenting choices/decisions
• not giving Wild Man a lot of junk food/fast food crap to eat
• refraining from bad mouthing me to C (yes, she continues to do this even though he has repeatedly asked/told her not to.)
• not involving us in family drama

That is just what I can think of off the top of my head. Suffice to say, such visits would be welcome, but they would also be really stressful. Maybe she'll just come every 3 months or so. . .

Mothers and Stress

British researchers have found that mothers who prefer to cradle their children to the right may be at risk of depression, according to this article. I haven't read the entire study, just the snippet on MSNBC, but I have to wonder about the validity of the findings. First, the study only included 79 women, and they weren't interviewed. Rather they were asked to hold their infants and then complete a survey. I tend to hold S with my left arm, but that is because I'm right-handed. Holding him in my left arm, allows me to use my right arm to get things done. Wouldn't it make more sense to find out what sort of help new mothers need when they feel stressed out?