Mathemagenic

I always wanted to work part-time after having kids. However in my twenties that was just a professional target: to become good enough to be hired to do interesting things even if I don’t dedicate full working week to my work. I never knew how much having a day at home with Alexander would mean to me in practice.

Like now. Finishing my PhD is the worst ever experience of unbalancing work-life balance. As I wrote before, I don’t mind and even appreciate professional thinking and activities outside of work hours, and think of holidays and weekends as a time when I don’t have to work, but may very well do it if I feel like it.

Well, at the current stage my PhD is mainly what I have to do: I focus on finishing it, cutting off most of the fun (well, I do a few fun things like going to IR9 and Berlin6 recently, or occasionally reading a few blog posts or papers that have nothing to do with what I have to write). The worst thing is that PhD I-have-to-work spills off to evenings and weekends. Not that I work all my free time, I make sure I do things with family and friends, but it feels that I work all the time when I’m not busy with something necessary or social (I read a paper a while ago discussing a nice concept of pottering - this is exactly what I miss right now).

And then comes a day like yesterday. I went swimming with Alexander and admired how good he was (usually he goes with Robert, so I only get to hear the stories), sleept when he did, recovering from travel and writing induced sleep deprivation, was outside feeding animals, playing with sand, collecting acorns, getting warm in a shopping centre and then cycling to another park when it was already dark to wake up sleeping sheep to give them acorns and to look at Luna (one of a few Russian words he says) between the trees… We made pancakes together and played with the Lego train (again!), read books from my own childhood, called papa to say good night and looked at the moon once again before going to bed…

The whole day I kept feeling how precious and important it was to be like that, grounded in everyday details, feeling life as an experience, and not as the time ticking towards the moment the next chapter is due. When I wanted to work less to spend time with hypothetical kids I didn’t even come close realising how important that would be for staying sane.

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It’s my birthday today. It happen to be a day full of emotions - getting up early to write, driving through autumn sun to get relaxing foot massage as my birthday present, nice conversations at work, smiling at birthday greetings popping up on different channels and writing that was easy for a change.

In the evening I found that my uncle died yesterday. They didn’t want to tell me, but as soon as I heard my mom’s voice I knew something was wrong. Being sad, being happy that last time in Russia we spent a good time together, being angry that I couldn’t be there with my family, smiling at the little guy who wants to play, trying not to be afraid thinking of my family being so far away…

But behind all that being grateful for how much I have - including this day, full of emotions… Realising that whatever happens, the best thing I can do is to be here, to be present, to live fully now, to be with those I love, to do things I enjoy doing…

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Last night I had an impulsive wish to try out my wedding dress. Next to the pleasure of realising that it still fits, the experience brought lots of thoughts and feelings.

Of course, it brought the memories of the day (actually days, since we celebrated twice, in Russia and in the Netherlands) and the strong feelings behind it as we did a little dance in a living room.

However, as soon as I put the dress I also remembered that I actually planned to wear parts of it on more occasions, but never looked around to find matching pieces to turn it into something that doesn’t resemble the original look and never looked for an opportunity to wear a new combination. Which is pity, since I loved the dress and the idea of wearing it more than once.

As my mind started to work in that direction, I found that I already had the matching pieces (so I tried a combination immediately) and the occasion (so I discussed it with Robert and even thought of a matching outfit for him).

And then, of course, I saw a parallel to the PhD chapter that I’m currently working on and a discussion how the past, captured in my weblog comes back to live, gets combined with other bits and becomes part of the future…

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Trying to get back to “normal” blogging now it’s interesting to look back and to reflect on what happened with my blogging routines over last couple of years. The graph below provides an overview of a number of weblog posts I wrote per month between June 2002 and December 2007 with an indication of corresponding events in my life.

Little palm trees represent summer holidays (not necessary in some tropical location :). Winter holidays are not that obvious, but usually there is a drop in January (not in December, since Russian Christmas/NY holidays are 1-10 January and I tend to synchronise those with my family and friends in Russia).

Fire represents period of my weblog server being offline for 2 weeks after the fire that damaged the network at University of Twente (I lived on campus then and my weblog was running on my home machine).

“Relation” and “baby” - since I’ve got other things to do in my free time instead of blogging. My maternity leave in Jan-Apr 2007 is clearly visible.

“Project management” and “Microsoft”: not that important by themselves, but more as an indicator of my stress levels. In that period I was juggling coordination of an EU project, 10 weeks internship in US and personal uncertainties that came from the perspective of not returning to Russia as I had always planned.

Although all those things are important as factors behind the dropping frequency of writing, their influence is indirect. What I think is the real issue behind not blogging is broken information processing routines, especially those related to reading weblogs - those deserve a separate post…

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It is amazing how much observing Alexander exploring rain tells about human nature: the need for a safe place to start, playing on a boundary alternating between a few more steps to explore and coming back for reassurance, gradually venturing into more and more scary territory, getting confident, having fun while getting wet and cold…

I treasure moments like this - when he grabs my hand and invites me to join the fun, so I can shed the skin of things learned about getting wet and cold in the rain, and instead just be a kid who enjoys the simple fun of being in the rain.

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We went again to Reboot, with all three of us. Although I really wanted to go, I have a bit mixed feelings after that. Because the people and the topics looked so exciting, but I couldn’t go to listen and to talk as much as I wanted to.

Going with a baby to a conference was a great experience (especially since it was the first one after my maternity leave). Going with 1,5 years old? Not sure. Although there was a kindergarten, Alexander is still too attached to us, so every morning we would stand in front of the schedule to decide who goes to which session and who is there for the babysitting rounds. As a result I missed a few sessions I would love to go, including the one that Robert did on Being free within organizational structures.

The good thing is that we’ve got smarter this year - staying in a hotel with many other conference participants (btw, loved it - Hotel Fox) provided an opportunity to socialise around breakfast and in the evening, after Alexander was asleep. We also took two days to drive there and back with a stopover at a German coast, turning it to a little holiday and making sure that Alexander had some fun after being so patient with lots of adults running around.

Anyway - was nice to catch up with old friends and get to know new people. I’ve got an inspiration topic-wise - those things are slowly sipping through, but would come out eventually in blog posts.

Themes to think about: architecture, structures that limit and create boundaries to play with, reinterpretation, encoding practices into structures, selfish altruism, nodal points… The “free” theme was also a perfect input for my on-going thinking about our need for structures and boundaries that comes together with the need to fight them.

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Those moments when Alexander is sick are probably most difficult in trying to combine motherhood and working on my PhD. The sleepless nights, when he wakes up every hour and needs something from me are not only tough by themselves, but they make writing the day after close to impossible, because my brain refuses to function.

Well, it seems that I might have discovered a solution: instead of struggling to write the day after the night like that, I might well write at night (taking breaks to help Alexander when he wakes up) and recover during the day when there are usually more people who can help.

Don’t know if it’s sustainable, but at least this night it works :)

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Those are the two reasons I haven’t been blogging much…

Alexander was ill for the first time (not counting teething and running nose). I knew that it would be scary, but it’s even scarier when you are in the middle of it. REALLY sleepless nights, crying baby and us, worried about everything and not knowing how to help. Fortunately is over…

I’m working on the methodology chapter for my PhD, which is unforgiving. At times I do feel embarrassed about how much time and effort it takes before a reasonably good text is constructed. Unfortunately it’s not finished yet…

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2007/09/23.html#a1943; comments are here.

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Alexander is getting into a period then he is interested in everything else but his own toys. We usually give him any safe household object within arms reach and he happily explores it. He prefers to eat grass and leaves and not the food we put in front of him… He has been always curious to see people, but till recently couldn’t stand too much noise and too crowded parties (which made our networking at Reboot a bit more challenging :). However, last weekend it changed - he actually preferred crowded family party to quiet walking in a garden.

All that gives a new meaning to the concept of legitimate peripheral participation: not living separate, “baby” life, but soaking the details of life as other people know it. In this respect I really like the point of The continuum concept on babies being in a middle of activities of their parents (despite of some other concerns with the book).

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2007/08/28.html#a1939; comments are here.

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Tuesday is my “mama’s day” – formally I work 4 days a week now to have one day to take care of Alexander. I thought that would be a good day to blog about things that are important, but not extremely work-related.

This Tuesday I’d like to contribute to the world breastfeeding week by sharing my own tips for combining breastfeeding and work.

Reading tips

• Read some books on breastfeeding. Ideally before you need them, but it also helps to have one in hands in case you need information later on.
• If you only can buy one book on breastfeeding and you are (planning to be) a working mom, get Milk memos (full review that got me into buying the book). It’s funny, sweet and practical (e.g. it had a section on bottle-strike that I couldn’t find in other breastfeeding books I read). Besides that the story is based on what has been written by breastfeeding mothers in a shared notebook at work, so I can even pretend that it fits my research readings as some strange kind of employee blogging :)
• Read breastfeeding blogs - pick up the one you like at one of breastfeeding carnivals.

Early days tip (from our kraamzorg). Buy a jar of jam (the cheapest one, without seeds and pieces of fruit), put a couple of spoons in a little plastic bag, freeze. When in need for a cold compress, take out of the freezer, put a thin cloth around it and apply. Because of sugars it doesn’t freeze solid, but turns into a cold gel (also handy for all other occasions).

Feeding in public tip. Buy (or make) a couple of breastfeeding outfits - they make a lot of difference by giving you an opportunity to feed discreetly, without any discomfort of being cold or trying to cover. The good ones seem to be expensive, but it pays back (I tried several, but there are two that I couldn’t do without - plain black Anna Cecilia T-shirt and Glamourmom tanktop; if buying in NL, check Prettymum).On those occasions when I took Alexander to work-related events I was especially happy with having that special “gear”: next to being plain practical, being able to feed him while listening to a presentation gave me a very special feeling that motherhood and work could be compatible after all.

Getting back to work tips

• Know your rights. Those things are different between countries (Netherlands is pretty good in this respect). Breastfeeding facilities (is there a private place to express milk? a fridge to keep it cold?), time you are allowed to take, etc. Knowing that not only helps in any conversations with your employer, but also gives some idea of what resources should be available in other organisations in case you have to be at an external meeting long enough to need them.
• Check at work if you can have extra flexible schedule for the first few weeks. I ended up working half days (to let Alexander get used to daycare gradually), going to the daycare to feed him while the whole bottle business didn’t work and working at home on the days Robert was babysitting, so I could just go downstairs to feed Alexander and then get back to work. Being able to do all that made the transition to work much easier for everyone.

Bottle strike tip [this is when your baby refuses to drink your milk from a bottle]. I guess there are no silver bullets here. What helped in our case? Ladies in our daycare. Not only they had a lot of experience of bottle-feeding babies in different circumstances, but they also tried feeding Alexander from different types of bottles, so eventually they found the one he liked (this is pretty difficult to do at home unless you want to spend a lot of money).

Expressing and storing milk tips

• Invest in a breastpump (get one indicated for “daily use”). I’ve got two used ones from friends and I could feel the difference. I use the better one (old version of Medela pump in style) regularly at work and (since I have the luxury of having two) simpler Medela Mini Electric plus very occasionally at home.
• Get some spare parts. When at work I don’t want to lose too much time by washing and cleaning pumping gear, so I’ve got packages of clean shields for every pumping round and wash everything at once at home.
• If your baby doesn’t drink as much as you express and you have to freeze the leftovers, think of using breastmilk storage bags (e.g. those by Medela or Lansinoh) for that to avoid the risk of having all your bottles in the freezer. They also take less space than bottles if you have to travel and make a perfect back-up stock in the office in a case you forget some bottles (it actually happened to me).
• Ziplock bags are great for storing sterilised parts (and lots of other things too :)
• And, finally, if you need a motivator to make expressing milk easier you might go a bit geeky by starting a slide-slow of your baby’s photos on whatever digital device is around (I run slide-show of Alexander’s photos at Flickr on my desktop :)

Some resources that might help are at del.icio.us/mathemagenic/breastfeeding.

Archived version of this entry is available at http://blog.mathemagenic.com/2007/08/07.html#a1930; comments are here.

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