Biting the Child Care Bullet...

So, I have had to come to a realization. I'm not super mommy. I'd love to be super mommy. I crave to be super mommy. But, I'm just not. Having to balance a high-needs, albeit beautiful and amazing baby with my super demanding career with crap sleep for seven months while having an immunodeficiency condition has made me realize that I CAN'T DO IT ALL. 

I feel like my life is some twisted sitcom where absurdity rules. Wilson is amaza-balls, but he is so high-needs that my husband and I have toyed with the nicknames "parent-cite", "cling-on" and "velcro baby".  He also doesn't do anything half-way, probably a characteristic I not so eagerly passed onto him. I believe this is what happens in his little brain: "Oh, it's time to growth spurt? I'll give you the biggest, baddest growth spurt anyone has EVER seen! Did that kid drink 30 ounces for an extra day? Well, I'll drink 56 ounces and get up 8 times at night to eat for seven days! Teething?! Let's get this show on the road and bring in all 16 teeth at once!" I shit you not. My 7 month old has multiple teeth, with 16 either erupted, erupting or being visible below the gums, is the size of an average 18 month old and is racing through his milestones like he's a Jamaican sprinter. What does this mean for me? Mostly, NO FREAKING SLEEP. He's cognitively and physically a hot mess and needs me to be responsive and encouraging 24/7.

My demands at work are also no joke. I teach 4 graduate classes a semester, have active research studies with grant support, publish regularly, am on 15 committees (some international), attend and present at multiple state/national conferences, provide consultation, participate in continuing education, own a business, am training therapy dogs, and am working on officially setting up my private practice. 

I may look über-prepared and put-together when I give a lecture and I may have looked super-professional when I was on CNN, but what you don't see is the giant pile of dirty laundry resembling Mount Vesuvius (and similarly threatening to erupt) in my bedroom, my zombie, make-up-less face when I just get up (where I, for a brief minute, consider quitting this bitch called responsibility/life and sleeping for 4 more days), or when, like this morning, I had a brief temper tantrum at my breast pump because it wouldn't suction properly so I choked it emphatically while yelling at it, which makes no sense since I can't threaten a machine into submission. 

And before this week, I've done all this in the last semester with only getting childcare one day and help from my family for the 3 days when I was traveling to California for a presentation. But this week as I faced a teething, sick Wilson, being sick myself and work piling up, I had to get childcare support. I knew that getting healthy, working and taking care of Wilson were mutually exclusive goals; and when I nearly passed out after pumping from being so sick, I told myself, "Self... suck it up and pay for help, because girlfriend, you freaking need it." (I sometimes talk to myself in the third person, further evidence, I need better self-care...)

So this week, I got help. And I'm not going to lie. It was amazing. I dosed myself with Nyquil and slept, blissful in the fact that Wilson was safe and happy, and when I awoke I was able to get caught up on most of my work. I know that I'll never be comfortable having Wilson in consistent childcare, but I need help, so I'm going to take it, appreciate it and enjoy it. So, off to co-sleep (the last half of this post I had to type with one hand and jiggle Wilson back to sleep with the other) and tomorrow: I tackle Vesuvius before my husband divorces me for being messier than a college freshman.