Who’s In Charge? The Kids Of Course

This morning I decided to try out a new routine. The plan was to get up nice and early, around 5:30 or 6 o’clock, a good hour and a half before Maya, my one-year-old daughter, wakes up. Of course I hadn’t taken into account our super squeaky stairs. The squeak-factor is not something new, but rather a fact of life we have been dealing with since she was born.

It’s amazing how my husband, Derek, can grind coffee before he goes to work at night (he works overnight at CNN) and Maya won’t make a peep. But when I carefully creep down the stairs in the morning, my bulbous, pregnant body practically levitating, she will wake up.

And, true to form, this morning was no exception. Rather than getting a good hour or so of work in, I began my parenting duties at 5:30 instead. No work. No sleep. #MomFail

The moral of the story being that, when you are a work-from-home parent, you do in fact have a boss. It is your kid.

The ironic thing about this is that I found pregnancy, at least my first pregnancy, to be the polar opposite of this who’s-the-boss experience. I mean, when you’ve got no other kids to take up your attention and you are carefully brewing your very precious first child, you are the boss. If you need to rest, you rest. If you need to eat, you eat. If you don’t feel like doing something, you get to choose not to do it.

And then, quite literally overnight, all of that changes in the most dramatic way. I can’t speak for everyone’s pregnancy, after all I was blessed to have a really seamless experience, but the last five months before Maya arrived I was certainly lolled into a false sense of blissful peace and independence.

Life can take many a giant U-turn and when you don’t see them coming, it’s understandable they shock you. But the shock that comes with an unpredictable change is almost not surprising. Its expected. Having a baby is something one prepares for for nine months. Yet, and everyone warns you of this, in the end nothing can prepare you.

In fact, as I am noting down these thoughts, I am circling the block with the pram (stroller), as my baby-boss decided it was absolutely imperative that we get outside this very very instant.

I’m starting to believe that she’s actually quite wise though, an old soul, for there really are very few things more beneficial than some fresh air and getting out of the rut that comes from the same old play room with the same all toys.

Ok, boss is asleep…time to focus.