The tic is back...

That's how tired my body is. My eye has a tic again. It only shows up when I'm exhausted. It's not like I'm putting in ridiculously long hours (of course, I write that sitting at my work laptop at 8:50 in the evening having just finished working on something for tomorrow). It's just that I'm getting worn out by the pace that starts when I get out of bed until I fall onto the couch after Emily is in bed. There is barely a moment to grab a cup of tea (don't worry, I do make the time).

I wonder how different it will be when I'm at home with two kids next year. Will the pace feel as hectic or will it be less tiring just knowing that to some extent I decide our schedule and I don't have to answer to anyone but the kids? (I realize they do demand many answers and leave me with little power to fix our schedule.) It is absolutely gut-wrenchingly exhausting to be home with kids but it is exhausting in a different way than I'm experiencing now that I'm working full time and still trying to be the best mum I can. Sometimes though I feel that no matter how hard I try, I just can't be the kind of mum I want to be when I'm also pulled by my job.

Although I love the fact that I have a job that is extremely challenging and rewarding, it will never be as rewarding as when I'm with Emily or even just watching her learn things, talk to herself, work something out. And that is what I look forward to doing full time next year and beyond.

While it may go against what some people view as my contribution to feminism, I see it as exercising feminism in being able to make a choice about what I'm going to do with my life over the next few years. And this is what is key for me. However, the lack of choice comes in the fact that for many women this is no longer a choice. Many of us, me included this year, return to work because we can't afford to stay home in this country. I know sometimes the opposite is true in the U.S. where women who want to return to work can't due to lack of understanding in their job for the needs of family, or the cost of daycare. Check out the book, "Perfect Madness: Motherhood in the Age of Anxiety" for a much more elequent discussion of these issues than I have just spewed out here.

Well, off to bed (soon) for some brainless reading (Olivia Joules - laughing and loving it) and needed sleep.