Mixed Bag Of Rant

I know I have been absent from blogville lately.

Since my colleague has gone on maternity leave, I’ve been inundated with work. Some of it has been fun, some of it a drag but most of it, downright frustrating. I’ve been praised for stepping up yet in the same breath crushed with criticism of my day-to-day regular work. It is hard to know how I’m supposed to feel when I walk out the door at night. Through it all, I’ve made it my vow to not put in any overtime. Regardless of setting myself up for some huge future success, my heart belongs to my family. The minute I walk out the door after a tough day is like a huge sigh of relief. I’m so excited to go home to spend time with my husband and to see how much Jack has grown and how many new and crazy words he has added to his vocabulary. I feel so lucky. So blessed.

I know there are people out there dealing with much more than I can imagine. Crushing infertility. An online friend whose son lost his battle to CHD at a tiny 16 months of age.

I feel like my problems are petty in comparison and am constantly reminding myself how to shake off the little things and remember to count my blessings. And I do. Everyday.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all my friends who are dealing with sad days.

As always, everything seems to strike my life all at one time. No small doses for this chick.

Two weeks ago, on a Thursday night, right at 10p sharp, Jack suddenly stood up in his crib and freaked out. He was struggling to breathe and we bolted up to see what was the problem. Not knowing for sure what it was, we high tailed it to the Emergency Room. While he didn’t get better on our trip there, he did seem to calm down a bit. What we thought was an asthma attack of some kind (not out of the realm of possibility with our family history), turned out to be a case of croup. Seriously, if you are a first time parent experiencing it, you will think your child is going to die- most frightening sounds ever as they struggle to get air through their swollen pipes. The crazy thing about croup? No warning. He had a little runny nose (par for the course with a toddler) and we put him to bed without issue. We resumed our weekend- Jack had been coughing a lot but seemed to be doing better. On Monday night we woke him up to find that he had a fever of 102.3. Not good. Trip to his pediatrician uncovered the beginning of pneumonia in one of his lungs. Antibiotics. By the end of the week, he seemed to be doing almost 100%.

Did I mention that the morning after the Croup incident and subsequent trip to the ER that my colleague was also in the hospital? Yup. She went into labor that night, much to my shock when I showed up for work on Friday morning. Little did I know I would arrive to have wolves waiting for me in my office! I was definitely thrown into the wolves by her sudden leave (thought we had a couple more days with her). However… I secretly am loving being in charge. I feel like I have been held back by our management over the past couple years. I have a lot of skills, man! Besides the fact I actually have a Marketing degree, I am wicked organized and can get done in 8 hours what seems to take many colleagues days to complete. Some work a crap load of overtime and I never could figure out exactly why. I am hoping that my colleague will learn after having a baby how completely unnecessary it is to work so much overtime and how much more important it is to get home to your sweet baby at the end of the day. I guess that remains to be seen. I am pretty impressed that she hasn’t picked up the phone to check in yet. I feel like I should call her just to say hi, but at the same time, I really want her to understand that I picked up this huge responsibility while she is gone- not only doing her job, but having to continue with mine as well. I’ve handed some stuff off to our new little colleague, but I’ve been… careful not to delegate too much of my regularly owned tasks. Job security. I confess… I’m kinda hoping she will love being a Mom and decide to stay home. I was born to take on this job and I am actually really loving it despite the extra stress.

If I don’t check in as much as I swore I would to this little blog, it is because I am one busy woman! Hopefully I’ll get in some American Idol rants now that the season is finally getting under way.