Jackson

Along with all my recent reflections on myself this year - the toll motherhood has taken on my professional and emotional self ... trying to propel myself forward - I have also thought a lot about the toll my endeavors plowing through grad school have taken on J.

He was really a perfect little angel baby from the beginning. I got so so lucky with him. He is healthy, he is happy, he is easy going. We joke that we won the baby lottery and he lost the parent lottery... I have asked a lot of such a little guy.

I was writing my oral exam essay when he was born and remember writing with him so tiny, curled up sleeping on my chest. Then when I returned to school, he began daycare at just 2.5 months old.

I asked him to endure the long 1:15 minute car ride (each way) back and forth four times a week.

I asked him to endure my absence for a week while I traveled to participate in survey pretesting (though I suspect he was spoiled rotten by his grandmother and I think he didn't even miss me at all). He was only 4 months old.

I asked him to endure a schedule that changes every 10 weeks.

I asked him to endure two months traveling in a very very unfamiliar place... hours on a plane, train rides, living on a bus, napping in a baby carrier, new hotels every night, no crib, no regular schedule, no playdates, no dada.

I still ask him to endure the grueling commute back and forth... I asked him to learn to nap in the car, and entertain himself with his books and music in the backseat.

I ask him to endure his mother working on her laptop (not all the time, but more than i would like), saving the trips to the zoo for weekends.

I am about to ask him to endure yet another schedule change and a new childcare provider one day a week.

We have our fun, our cuddles, our art time and train time... don't get me wrong. But sometimes I feel badly that my day isn't 100% focused on what J wants and needs.

All along he has been a trooper. It's not fair that I have asked all this of him. I guess all I can do is hope that his mama will impart on him some values or lessons he would not otherwise learn. My unconditional love - my devotion. Hopefully he will know why a whole and happy mama is better than a mama with regrets.

Mama, PhD all around us

After reading and loving the book Mama PhD and sending it as a gift to at least one fellow mama to be... I have been doing a ton of reflecting on my own experience having a baby during the dissertation/fieldwork process - how INSANE it was to bring an infant to the rural -most rural- parts of China, and the toll it took on me last year.

I've also taken the time to approach some of my friends who have had/ are having babies in grad school/post docs to ask them about their experiences. What I found out was shocking. Absolutely shocking. One of my friends stunned me with her story and I discovered that it was her experience having a baby in the middle of her first year of grad school that shaped her family's decision about how many children to have - rather than her and her husband's desires. We talked also about how hard it is on a marriage to have a child in grad school... all of it really shocked me.

I dont know why these stories that I have been hearing from women I have known for so long have been shocking to me... I guess we just dont talk about our struggles enough. I guess I just thought that everyone else was getting on just fine and I was the only one struggling to find the balance.

Anyway, it got me thinking that there should be somewhere where Mama, PhDs can write down their thoughts and experiences. Some of the contributors to the book keep a blog that I now follow and read with great interest, but I wish there were somewhere people could put down their stories and lessons learned.

Progress report:

Dissertation actually making progress lately (woo hoo!) I've gone back to writing paper #1 and am closing in on a draft and have also had some forward motion on the empirical part of paper #2. I also nailed down the final committee member (yay!) so I now have the dissertation committee I really wanted.

I committed to work next quarter as a TA for one of the first year grad students' core classes again. I did this in the Fall and it was REALLY challenging but also REALLY rewarding. I enjoyed being a friend and a helper to the incoming students and helping them (at least a tiny bit) through that impossible first year. Now I am really glad to be returning to the course for the final quarter and helping them through the end of their first year. They will be taking a qualifying exam at the end of the quarter on all of this material, so I am already really nervous for them. I'm thinking of allocating some of my precious time to a study group outside our normal recitations - a time in which we can do practice problems.

This will surely slow my already sluggish dissertation progress, but teaching is also an important skill and I really found the experience of TAing for a PhD level course (as opposed to undergrad courses) quite rewarding.

The fun stuff:

I haven't had much time to knit recently b/c of the end of the quarter grading. bummer. But here is a picture of another SMSS Seamless Infant Kimono done in a teeny tiny preemie size. The photo features both, so you can compare it to the last one I did a few weeks ago (the bigger one went to a Mama, PhD-to-be this past weekend at a baby shower ... I think she was really moved that I took the time to knit for her). I am keeping this tiny little sweater and tucking it away in my secret place where I harbor my dreams of another baby (?!)



and in mothering news, Jackson signed 'I love you' the other day after we had a nice cuddle. swoon. And he is now saying please and thank you on his own... making his mama so so proud ♥

Mama, PhD

This blog is called Forward, Kim-san becasue I have felt like I have been spinning my wheels for so long trying desperately to make 'The Whole Person' work. The whole person being a mommy, a graduate student, and at the same time, a creative individual.

I have been taking it week by week, trying to make time for both dissertation work and creative pursuits in between the full time job of being a mom and my job as a grad student (the part that pays the bills while I dissertate in spare time).

This weekend has been particularly enlightening for me. For some reason, at the end of last week I was feeling quite demoralized (hence the kicking my ass post). Maybe it was because it was the end of the semester and kind of a marathon of grading left me almost no energy for anything else. Then I went to an all day conference yesterday which was wonderful, lots of discussion on my particular area of research, lots of insight, lots of connections made, lots of motivation. I spoke to a former professor of mine, one of only two women profs I have ever known that have children and tenure track jobs. I talked to her about taking J to do fieldwork, the stories we have about the logistics of breast feeding/pumping in the field or on the job. That made me feel great and made me want to start a support group for academic moms in the area.... I think we would all benefit from knowing each other and sharing our stories and just morally support each other.

This morning I have devoted the whole morning to reading the first half of Mama, PhD. I have cried four times so far. So much of this book is cutting right to the heart of my struggles since J was conceived. In some respects, my advisers and profs have been more than accommodating and helpful. Others have not (ironically it was a woman prof who was the least supportive). But really there is only so much they can do within a larger framework that is just not set up for moms in academia. I guess it's just comforting to know that others have done this and to know what their experiences have been...

This is a marathon

Ive been in graduate school for 6 straight years now. and it is kicking my ass. really kicking my ass.

that is all for today. i want to curl up and hide away and nap for like a year.

March Forth, sister....

You may or may not know that yesterday, March 4th is the day I take annually to do a little spiritual housekeeping. It is a homonym for March Forth, an empowering directive to move forward... so I observe it very seriously each year

UG too long... friends please see the crosspost over in livejournal. ♥

Week 7/8

Ive been bad at posting lately, mostly because I feel like I havent gotten much accomplished. :(

Knitting :

Week 6: I took one week to finish off some final touches on some longies (icords and stitching up the cuffs and the like) and I also knitted the Kippahs for my SILs father and grandfather.

Week 7: I knitted this little bit for Monica's baby:





I also needed to take some time out to do some sewing and I finished this Emmaline apron for a girlfriend:







The Emmaline apron is reversible with a gathered bodice, and this was my first time sewing something like that. It came out beautifully and I was really really proud of that.

Week 8: Unfortunately, this week I have not achieved my goal of finishing a project. I casted on two. One for Josh and one for baby Helen. Oh well.

School:

I didn't accomplish a ton over the past three weeks. sad. I finalized my committee members and finished one part of the analysis for paper 2. but i didnt finish the draft writing for paper 1 yet. and im going slow. but I had a ton of grading to do and had lunch with a friend with lots of job advice.