Work-Life Balance

As a single mom with a stressful job, right now I feel like all I do is work, work, work. And that needs to change. I need more balance in my life.

Christopher and I are out of the house every morning by 7:15. I drop him off at school then rush to the train station so I could get to work downtown by 8am. I generally start responding to emails via Blackberry while I'm on the train, so really I start working by 7:45 every day.

Work is so busy right now and I often work hard from the minute I walk in until the minute I leave at the end of the day, with only quick restroom breaks. I usually bring my lunch so lunchtime consists of me walking to the kitchen grab my homemade soup from the refrigerator so I can eat it at my desk while working.

I leave around 4:40, rush to the train, drive to Christopher's school to get him by 5:30. Then we're home and I need to walk the dog, make dinner, clean up, give Christopher a bath, read books and kiss my kiddo good night. Then I need to walk the dog, complete any outstanding tasks and then climb into bed usually by 9:30 for lights out by 10:00.

During a normal day, I am running from the minute I wake up at 5:45 until the minute I drop into bed at 9:30 and with lights out by 10, that means I have 30 minutes to myself a day. That's rough and that needs to change.

The weekends really aren't much better. I get to "sleep in" on Saturdays--until 7am--but then we're rushing to get to soccer by 8:30. I'm the assistant soccer coach so I try not to be late although, punctuality isn't always my strength. We have an hour and a half of soccer, then after that a small break, then it's 45 minutes of swim class in the early afternoon. After that, it's usually grocery shopping and other errands. Then I'm home, walking the dog, making dinner, playing with Christopher, books and then bed. For both of us.

I was invited to multiple Halloween parties last night but didn't go to either because I was so exhausted. I hoped a good night sleep would serve me well but my upstairs neighbor had a HUGE party that lasted until 3am and so sleep did not happen. Somehow Christopher slept through most of it but did finally wake up at 2:30. So today's going to be rough for both of us. Ugh.

I need more work-life balance. Something really needs to change and I've decided that I need to be more firm about leaving work on time. I had hoped that working all these hours would result in a promotion at work but that did not happen although to my manager's credit, I know she did take it all the way up to the Partner level but was unfortunately denied. I could probably get promoted 2014 but that's a whole year away. Meanwhile, I'm working crazy hours and have very little to show for it, except for a lot of exhaustion.

So here's my plan. I'd like to get this into writing because maybe I'll actually follow through on it and not allow myself to get caught up in the daily grind that wears me out.

1. Show up at work at 8am and leave no later than 4:15
2. Work from home at least twice a month. This will eliminate the 45-minute commute each way meaning I will have an extra 90 minutes per day to get personal stuff done. How nice it would be to be able to clean the house on occasion!
3. Hire a cleaner who can come once a month. I'm tired of looking at counter tops and appliances that need a good scrubbing. Time to hire someone to do this for me
4. Accept party invites. I need a personal life

I do have a babysitter coming this afternoon so I can go shopping with a girlfriend. So that's good. I do need to do stuff like this more often though and hopefully I can stick to this plan. It'll be too easy to slip back into old routines but I can't do that. I need to start looking out for me more.

Now it's time to make my kiddo some breakfast and take him on a morning adventure before the babysitter gets here at 1pm. Then it's off to shop, early dinner and cocktails. I'm excited for that!

My Son's School Gets a Report Card and It's Not Great

My son's school

My son's school's "report card" was posted on the school website this past Friday and I just took a moment to review. I've been trying to decide where I want to live long term. Should we stay in this town or move to a more affluent area?

I've been leaning towards staying here because the kiddo seems to be doing so well in his Kindergarten class. He is working hard, learning a LOT and he actually enjoys it. My kid loves going to school every day. That's pretty awesome right?

Then I saw the school's report. And all I could think was...yikes.

The town I live in is a Title I school system. Title I means you have a higher than average number of low-income families and so the federal government allocates extra money to districts like ours to ensure these students meet the rigorous academic challenges set forth by the state. Basically they're saying, we want everyone to pass the MCAS, not just rich white kids. Sounds fair right? The only problem is, even with all this extra money, our school is doing poorly. I mean really really poorly.

I'm looking at how the numbers are sliced and diced and I'm not seeing any one sector that is excelling. For third grade math, these are the numbers for percentage of kids who have a B in Math:
Students with Disabilities: 0%
Low Income 26%
High Needs 28%
African American 18%
Hispanic/Latino 28%
White 40%
Male 23%
Female 50%

Considering my kiddo is male and in the high needs category, this is kind of scary to me. My child WILL excel at school!

In the school's defense, I do know they are working hard to bring their scores up so it's possible I need to just wait it out. I can honestly say my son comes home with a ton of completed school work each day and I know that the teachers are working these kids hard academically. My son can already read and write a little and he's only been in Kindergarten for six weeks.

I also know we have a new principal this year who's job it is to turn these numbers around. I met the mayor at a barbecue a few weeks ago and he told me that he is committed to bringing the school's report card up to acceptable levels.

I also know there are lots of opportunities for learning and to get involved with the school and I see the school's enthusiasm for teaching. Over the summer the Title I office held reading events and there was one held today as well. There are periodic breakfast seminars where speakers provide guidance on how to help your child excel academically. And I get lots of notes from the teacher, suggesting ways to encourage my child's learning outside of school. So they truly are trying. I get that they need the help of parents and I'm happy to do what I can to help my son excel. Christopher is going to go to college of course and I need to make sure that he gets the academic support he needs starting now to be able to get there.

So back to the original question at hand. Where do I decide to live long term? Do I stick it out in this town and assume that the school's grades will get better? My son loves his class, loves his teacher and is very happy here. That's all pretty huge. But is that just the Kindergarten teacher? Will he love it in third grade as well? I have no idea.

Meanwhile, if I move half a mile to the next town over, I will end up with one of the best school systems in the state. Crazy right?

So why not just move then? There are a number of considerations:

1. My son loves his current school
2. My son is doing really well in his current school.
3. My son has been bounced around so many times already in his life. Do I really want to add on more change?
4. I have all the services we need currently in place. If we move to a new town, we would be starting over again. New therapists, new mentors. Once again, that's a lot of change.
5. We're embedded in the community. I am the assistant soccer coach for his youth team. Christopher has friends here. We're very settled. It would be very jarring to my son (and to myself even) to move away.

Buying a house is an expensive proposition and I don't want to make this decision lightly. But I don't want to wait too long either because prices are just going to go up again and I want to move into a place with more space and a yard before the kiddo gets too much bigger. Sigh. So much to think about.

Foster Kids and ADHD

I just read an article that cited a Canadian study that found kids who come from "unstable families" have a higher "stress thermostat" set in hyper-vigilant mode. This results in a heightened sense of fight or flight, sleep deprivation, wired nerves and ADHD, especially in young boys.

This is so 100% Christopher. His therapists have actually used the words hyper-vigilant when describing him to me. Poor kid had a very difficult life with his birth mother. He was forcibly yanked away from her by police in what must have been a terrifying episode involving lots of yelling, flashing lights, sirens and loaded weapons all in his little terrified 2 year old face. Then he was bounced from foster home to foster home to foster home, confused, alone, without any one single stable person in his life. This little kid believed no one would look out for him and he became hyper-vigilant to his surroundings because even at the age of two, he believed he had to look out for himself. Makes total sense to me.

This hyper-vigilance made it difficult for me to decide that he had to have ADHD. I thought if I gave him time along with a lot of stability, love and patience, that his impulsiveness would ebb away. And in some ways it did. A year ago, Christopher couldn't even stand in the bathroom to brush his teeth. I'd hand him his toothbrush, he'd grab it and run out of the room, with me behind him yelling to come back. This happened every single day.

I had to double lock every door of the house because Christopher used to run outside into the street if he felt like it. I also couldn't walk down the street with Christopher initially because he was so impulsive, he'd run away from me and into the street. Thank the Lord nothing ever happened to him. However, I did always tell his social worker what was going on because God forbid, something ever did happen to this child, I wanted to make sure she knew I wouldn't have been at fault. I really thought it was that serious.

Christopher fits into other risk factors as well:

• He was born a month early. According to a Swedish study, children who were born prematurely run a higher risk of contracting ADHD. This is because their little brains are not yet developed enough to navigate the modern world and neuro pathways end up forming incorrectly. Preemies experience heightened neo-natal pain, separation from mom (due to incubators), lots of lights and beeping sounds and sometimes this is overwhelming for the underdeveloped little tyke.
• Christopher was born into poverty. His father was an illegal alien who was deported from the country when he was just a baby. His mother was poor and probably did not feed him nutritionally balanced meals. (Since Christopher exhibits food hoarding symptoms at times, it's pretty obvious neglect meant little to no food during important growth times). Poor people tend to feed their kids more processed foods and fewer fish and veggies. All this can affect the development of a child's brain
• Christopher was born to a mentally ill mother. His birth mother, although never tested, suffered from some form of mental illness; probably something of the bi-polar variety. Mental illness is unfortunately often hereditary so it makes perfect sense that Christopher would suffer some sort of illness that could be found in the DSM-IV.

So fast forward to today and I am not at all shocked that all this instability, poverty and history of mental illness has resulted in an ADHD diagnosis in Christopher. Frankly, we're lucky that it's not worse than it is. Christopher's illness responds very well to both medication and diet and for that I am thankful. He is smart, a successful student, an outstanding athlete and he has many friends. He even told me he has a girlfriend in his Kindergarten class. Considering the background this kid comes from he's doing phenomenally well.

If you're interested in learning more about the causes of ADHD, feel free to click here and here.

Thank Goodness for Angry Birds!

After living with me for two years, Christopher finally asked to sleep in his own bed for the first time. This is huge! He used to be so afraid of sleeping by himself -- he was afraid of monsters in the closet, the dark and the smoke alarm scares him too. He used to be afraid of thunderstorms but he actually got over that in the last year. So cross one fear off the list, thank you very much. But the fear of the dark, monsters and the smoke alarm persisted.

That's a symptom of PTSD by the way; irrational fears like the smoke detector and loud thunderstorms. His therapist tells me that I don't know what happened when he was in foster care; that he probably felt scared when there was a thunderstorm and didn't have anyone there to comfort him. He feels safe and protected in my house so no more fear of thunderstorms or smoke alarms. Yay!

I used to battle with him to sleep in his own bed because I thought it was important that he sleep on his own. I'd put him to bed and he'd jump out four or five times and run around the house. Sometimes he'd be up until 11pm and I'd wonder how he was going to function the next day. I wondered about myself too actually. I was very tired a good chunk of the time.

After the Marathon bombing, I gave up on fighting with him at bedtime because I just didn't have it in me anymore to battle with him. I decided it was doing more harm than good to make him sleep in his own room and maybe he just needed his mama near him in order to feel safe. I stopped the hard nosed stance and changed to a much softer approach.

I've been telling him that if he sleeps in his own bed overnight, that he would get to play Angry Birds on the Kindle in the morning. He loves Angry Birds. And he loves the Kindle. So every morning he would get out of my bed and ask to play Angry Birds on the Kindle and I would say no. This was a reward for when he slept in his own room. He'd cry but I held firm. Last night, he finally worked up the courage to sleep in his own room by himself and I held up my end of the bargain: he is playing Angry Birds on the Kindle right now. Win-win all around!



I never thought I would say this but...thank goodness for Angry Birds!

I Need to Find a Way to Put 25 Hours into Every Day

There literally aren't enough hours in a day for me to get everything I need to get done. The To Do list continues to grow but the day does not. Where will the time come from to get everything done???

First I was up at 2am giving my dog Benadryl because he has some bizarre allergy that's causing him to scratch like crazy. Yes, I know he needs to go to the vet so we can figure out what it is he is suddenly allergic to...but i just need to find the time.

On Saturday, I was nuking some cauliflower so I could make a cauliflower pizza bake and poof, my microwave suddenly died mid-cycle. The lights were still on, the timer timed down but the cooker wasn't cooking. Annoying! I googled the issue and turns out I have a very specific part that needs to be replaced. It only costs $2 but I'm not sure I'll be able to figure out how to do this to replace it. I'll give it a try I guess. Nothing to lose but patience.

A little light's been on in my car the last week and I know that means the tire pressure is low on one of my tires. I've had to have three of my four tires replaced so I know this all too well. On Sunday I couldn't stand it anymore and went out in the pouring rain to figure out which tire it was that was low. It's the front right tire. I put some air in it at the gas station and hopefully that holds us over for a while.

Last night the Kindle Fire stopped taking a charge. Christopher of course cried because he couldn't watch his Angry Birds YouTube videos. Thankfully I got the extended warranty and it should still be covered so I'll get a replacement for free. But now just need to find the time to return it to cowboom.com.

The TV in the living room requires you to bang on the top or else the picture doesn't appear. I feel a little bit like Fonzie when I bang the set top and it magically works again though. (Hopefully you're old enough to get that joke!) Anyway, yes I need to replace the TV.

Two weeks ago the cable box on top of the TV in my bedroom died. It would just cycle through these random letters of the alphabet and never actually give me a TV show. I called Verizon and they UPS'd me a new set top box which arrived just a few days later. It works great and now all I need to do is find the time to make it to UPS to send the old one back.

I've got two birthdays coming up this week for super awesome people and so that means I need to find the time to do some gift shopping. I think I'll actually take a lunch break tomorrow and check out some of the shops in Downtown Crossing and hopefully find something the birthday folks will like.

In the midst of all these To Do items, I also need to work full time, raise my child, walk and feed the dog, feed myself and also occasionally sleep (except at 2am when I'm giving the dog Benadryl apparently).

And yes, I need to write in my blog too. So now I can say one item is at least checked off the To Do list for the day.

Just another day in the life of a single working mom.

Was Medication for ADHD The Right Choice?

It has been one week since my son's ADHD was diagnosed and I started him on medication. Truthfully, he received the diagnosis week ago Thursday but I was so flat out swamped with work and then sick with an awful bout of food poisoning, that I couldn't get the prescription filled until Sunday. Not enough hours in the day sometimes.

Anyway, I really struggled with the choice to medicate Christopher because the idea of medication that comes with side effects can be a bit scary. But ultimately I have to say it was the best decision I could have made. Christopher is doing amazingly on the medication and it has really improved his life.

The kiddo is on 10 mg of Metadate CD, which as I understand is the "hot, new" ADHD medication. Hey check us out. We're trendy. Who knew? Anyway, I'm happy with it because it really works and I don't see any side effects other than Christopher's appetite is a bit wonky. Some days I have trouble getting him to eat anything but then it all seems to catch up with him and he's starving a few days later and eats everything in sight. I need him to have all his nutrients though so I do worry on those low hunger days. I guess it's just important to ensure there's always foods that he likes in the house so that I can get him to eat something when I need him to eat something those days.

Other than that, Christopher has done GREAT on this medication. He tells me he loves the way he feels too. He said he could complete his school work more easily and that he didn't have any "do-over" work on the table (which I guess is what you get if the first time you do some work, it's not perfect and you need to do it over. Yeah they are working these 5 year olds pretty hard).

I've also noticed that he's just calmer and his teachers tell me they see it as well. He's not hitting or slamming into kids in the after-school program anymore, which is huge since that was a problem for us.

The big test was soccer yesterday. Christopher has a way of getting a bit intense on the soccer field and next thing you know, every little kid around him has been knocked down as he fights to get the ball into the goal, like he is a one-man soccer team. Last week they actually stopped the game five minutes early because of the intensity and the coaches were afraid someone was going to get hurt.

This week, Christopher was a soccer playing superstar. He has all the speed and all the agility of a fierce competitor but none of the aggression. He's competitive and was matching up pretty well against two kids on the other team that were amazing players (as far as five year olds go) as well. Christopher went after the ball, not the kids and that was awesome to watch. Christopher scored FIVE goals yesterday and I credit his medication for giving him the ability to focus and control himself so that his skills were able to shine instead of his behaviors.

I know it's a personal decision that every parent needs to make based on the needs of their child but in our case, I'm really confident we made the right choice. Please note that I also still think diet plays a HUGE role and so Christopher is still gluten free and artificial dye free. Plus I've started him on a multi-vitamin that has Omega-3 in it since I hear that helps with ADHD behaviors. I figure that I can keep him on a lower dosage of medication if I also treat his disorder with diet as well. This way I can stave off any potential weird side effects that I read about and which make me nervous. So far so good though and I'm hoping for the best.

Shhh...Don't Tell Them It's Healthy

I'm a single mom and have no social life anymore. Since it was Sasturday night and I didn't have anything else better to do, I decided to break out a bottle of Pear wine that I bought at the Nashoba Valley Wineries a few weeks ago and bake some tasty foods to enjoy over the next few days. What I didn't tell my little kiddo was that I made the dishes extra healthy adding purreed vegetables, chock full of vitamins and minerals. He didn't know the difference. Chock one up for mom!

The first dish I made was a pepperoni pizza bake. Instead of using normal pie crust, I substituted a cauliflower puree that was ahhh-maazing. The pepperoni and cream that went into that recipe weren't all that healthy but the cauliflower was and hey it's Saturday night and we've got to live a little bit right?

The next dish I made was a gluten-free red velvet cake that had two pureed beets baked into the batter. Once again, the kiddo loved it and it was a lot healthier than the average slice of chocolate cake. I felt just a smidge less guilty feeding him the sugar if it came infused with healthy beets.

I think it's important to give my son lots of tasty options for meals and desserts, since he's not allowed to have so many of the things he used to eat because of the ADHD diet. He used to cry when I'd tell him, no you can't have something and I'd feel terrible. But now with all the research I've done on gluten free and dye-free diets, he really does eat quite well. All in all, there's really no reason to miss out on anything.

The only thing I haven't been able to replace is bread. Christopher does not like GF bread at all and just won't eat it. I don't sweat it though. Bread really isn't all that healthy for you anyway.

If you're interested in either of these recipes, feel free to check them out on Pinterest here.