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.