Dubai!

I just got home Friday afternoon from a week long trip to Dubai!  Hence, the reason I am writing this at 3 AM on Sunday morning.  Still adjusting to the jet lag.

Wow, what an incredible trip.  I have only been out of North America twice.  The first time was about 6 years ago, before Ben was born, when I went to Milan, Italy for a few days --- for work.  And for my second venture off the continent I got to travel to the Middle East.  Pretty cool.  And this was the longest I've left my family since Benjamin was born.  I don't think I've left for more than two nights since Katie has been born.

The trip was just fantastic for a number of reasons.  First, it just made me love my job and company even more (I traveled for work, of course).  I am not "expected" to travel for my job, since I am still part-time, so the company paid for my mom's flight to Houston to help take care of the kids while I was gone!  This made the decision for me to take the trip so much easier.  We were able to time the trip to coincide with Mark's week off from work, but I needed to leave on Saturday afternoon (due to the length of the flight - 14 hours, plus the work week being different in Dubai - Sunday - Thursday), and Mark had a BIG concert this same weekend (I hope he'll write more about this --- he was a featured performer with the HSO...).  So I didn't want to rely on babysitters for the weekend, and Benjamin is particularly sensitive about who tucks him in at night, so I wanted him to be with someone he was comfortable with.  So it was really comforting to have my mom there to take care of the kids over the weekend while Mark was performing.  She just stayed a few days, and then Mark had his first long-term adventure as a solo dad for two kids for Monday - Friday.  They did incredibly!  So good, in fact, that I'm looking for another opportunity to take a second trip to Dubai maybe this spring...

But beyond the timing (thanks, also, HSO, for giving Mark a personal day on Tuesday, so that we again, would not have to find a nighttime babysitter for the kids), the trip was pivotal for a few other reasons.

The first is, I got a taste of being just me again.  Not the me that has two kids, is always trying to figure out how to balance work and home.  Not the me that constantly deals with anxiety in regards to parenting (after a week off, I realize how anxious I truly am).  Not the OCD me that wants the house to always be in order (please note that this does not mean the house IS always in order...far from it).  Not the me worried about losing weight (gave up on this idea since I had much less control over the food for the week --- interestingly enough, I did not gain any weight over the trip despite having starbucks and full-sugar soda every day over the course of the trip).

I felt like I  got to experience a few days back in time.  I just had to just worry about myself for a week.  And funny enough, even though this trip included a lot of "new" for me --- I traveled by myself to a part of the world I know little/nothing about (and I am NOT a seasoned traveler, and get lost very easily).  I hardly knew anyone I was meeting at the office I was visiting.  And I wasn't really sure what I was actually supposed to accomplish during my trip.  But despite all this, I felt so light all week.  I just had to get myself to the shipyard (more about what I was actually doing later) every day, figure out where to eat breakfast and dinner, and figure out how to make the most of my time with my colleagues and "accomplish" what I was supposed to for the trip.  And to boot, I even ventured out (on my own --- again, pretty big for me) for a couple of tourist excursions. 

So despite some jitters on the traveling/being on my own, and working long days --- 11-12 hours each day (which is particularly long for someone who usually only works 20-30 hours per week), the week felt so light and carefree to me.  So very simple.  Which is cool, because my trip to Milan seemed so stressful to me 6 years ago.  I suppose that's one way having kids has changed me.  When it's just me, "what's the worst that could happen" doesn't seem too bad.  When it's my kids, the "worst case" always terrifies me.

So just getting to be just me, the professional me, was really fun and refreshing.  It felt good to re-prove myself to my colleagues (our project manager was there for one day with me).  The people I work with right now only have known me since I've worked part time, so I'm always struggling with doing less than everyone else, because, well, I'm part time.  So to work hard every day, churning out work, felt good.  I felt like I proved that I don't do less because I'm lazy.  I do less because that's the choice I've made to balance out my family.  But given the opportunity, I can still keep up with the rest. :)



And in the end, I did get a lot of job knowledge out of the trip.  I got to know my colleagues that I had never met face-to-face, but with whom I trade daily emails and have early morning teleconferences.  I got to build relationships with them, but more importantly, understand what they deal with every day.  I got some of the data I needed to progress my work.  I got an incredible tour of the shipyard (more on this later).  So while I approached the trip not knowing exactly what I was supposed to do, I left with a feeling of accomplishment.  And that just felt really good.

The second reason this trip ended up being so impactful (is that a word, looks like spell check says it's not, but I'm going to keep it anyways), is that it made me realize how anxious I normally am.  Because while I was dealing with some anxiety from just traveling/being somewhere new, it was a more superficial anxiety --- and it was exhilarating to be able to overcome it.

I was really proud of myself for venturing out on my tourist excursions.  Because I had every excuse not to --- I was jetlagged, exhausted from a long day at the shipyard, all alone and did not know my way around the city.

But I made the conscious decision to take in the experience.  Who knows if I'll ever get to see the middle east again.  I didn't want to miss out on this experience.  So after I got back to the hotel, I dragged myself out again to see what I could experience at 8 PM in Dubai.  And I'm so glad I did.  A small part because I got to see a little bit of a different part of the world.  But mostly because I did it on my own.

But again, back to the "revelation" --- I spend a lot of my day normally worried about what I am going to get done that day --- how I am going to balance the demands at work and the demands at home.  And I spend a LOT of time worrying about my kids.  Are they okay?  Will they be okay?  But mostly I focus on the question: will what I am doing make them okay or not okay?  And there's no way to know.  I want re-assurance that it all turns out okay in the end.  And it brings on a lot of guilt.

I don't really know what to do with this knowledge.  It's something that I've been somewhat aware of for a while now.  But having a week off from those worries made me realize how constant the anxiety really is.  So I feel a need to focus more on dealing with it.  But I also feel a need to get to more often get a break from it.  Because there are the ideals I hold in parenting, and then there is the reality of parenting.

I'm happier when I work more.  Does that mean I should work 12 hour days?  No.  But it also means that maybe I should let go of the guilt, and hire a babysitter or nanny more often so that I can spend time on the other areas of my life that fill me up.  While I would like to be the mom always accessible to her kids outside of the 6 hours per day that they are in school, I'm not sure that makes me the best mom for them.  A few more hours with a babysitter traded for a less anxious mom?  That's probably a better deal.  Or perhaps the answer is finding a nanny who can take care of the kids at night so that I can take the opportunity to travel more.

Like I said, I don't know the answer.  But I also don't want to just go back to how things were.  I know that I can't be perfectly happy and carefree now --- raising young children is hard.  The hardest thing I've ever done.  And I don't want to trade out the long-term well being of my kids for current happiness.  But I also think that I can be happier and more fulfilled than I have been, which in turn is better for my kids than simply logging the hours in with them.

I think that's all I really wanted to say.

But now --- on to the purpose of my trip...

So I am currently working cost / schedule for my project --- which is turning two ships into marine well containment vessels.  It's a joint venture project between the oil majors, which is the industry's response to the big BP disaster in the Gulf of Mexico in the summer of 2010.  The ships that we are modifying are in a shipyard in Dubai --- and just began modifications in mid-December.

So I went out to meet with the site team to get better aligned with my counterparts --- both within in my company, as well as the contractor in the shipyard.

While I was there, I got an incredible tour of the shipyard and our ship.  The tour of the shipyard was on...bike!  In fact, that's how everybody gets around the shipyard.  It was really cool to be biking around to check out the different parts of the shipyard.  We shared the roads with people walking, other bikers, cars/trucks and machines.  A different reality, for sure!

Then I got a tour of the ship itself.  I even got to climb down manholes on ladders to check out the inside of the vessels.  Made me realize that I'm a bit nervous about heights.  But again, proud of myself for doing it --- who knows the next time I'll be able to climb down into the hull of a ship?!

So, thank you, Dubai for such an incredible experience! 

By the way, apparently when Benjamin grows up, he's going to come work with me, and we're going to go to Dubai together.  Just he and me. And while I was gone, he made a "welcome home mom, I love you" sign at school.  And he pasted together an UAE flag.  Which I just ADORE.  He's been really interested in Dubai.  It's pretty cool.  And Katie says "Dubai" in the cutest way imaginable.

Merry Christmas from the Griffiths!

This year, we got so far as to actually schedule and hold a Holiday Photo session with our talented friend, Staci.

Today, we received the first of our holiday cards from friends in the mail.  Oh, how I do love the holiday cards. 

But it made me realize that, realistically, I will probably not actually order, address and send out holiday cards yet again this year.  So instead of stressing about it, I am simply going to post our holiday photo in this blog, and wish you all a...

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With love,

Katherine, Mark, Benjamin & Katie

Happy Halloween!

Fall is finally here!  We are so grateful to finally be enjoying some cooler temperatures after a rather dreadfully long HOT summer here in Houston.

We have done a lot of celebrating of Halloween this year.  On Friday, we attended the children's Fall Festival at school.  It was quite fun!  Benjamin dressed up as Black Bat Man, and Katie wore the monkey costume that Grandma Susan made for  Benjamin when he was the same age. 

On Saturday, we participated in the Great Pumpkin Fun Run in Downtown Houston.  We entered the children in the kids costume contest...and Benjamin won first place!  It was clearly NOT for the costume (he actually chose to wear last year's Iron Man costume for the race), but instead was based on the children's "interviews" on stage.  Our Ben likes to talk. :)  He won a large bundt cake (all participants got a small cake, so we went home with three) and a $200 savings bond!

After the race, we went to our church's fall festival, where both kids were delighted to visit the petting farm.  Then on Monday, we went trick-or-treating and attended our neighborhood's block party.

Whew!  That's a lot of celebrating!  Glad we have a few weeks off until Thanksgiving. :)

Below are the pictures that were actually posted on the Texas Heart Institute's website for the Fun Run...Our family picture is the first one included!

http://www.texasheartinstitute.org/AboutUs/News/funrun.cfm

Pictures!

We finally got some photos up from our roadie to Illinois. Click the link on the right side to see them!

Still Here

Wow, such a very, very, very long time since I put up a post.  I do regret not posting more often to this blog --- particularly to document this stage of our lives for our children --- since this is the primary means for doing so.  I just wrote in Katie's baby book...for the second time...ever. :)

This stage of life is so busy.  And often hard.  Most nights we're too exhausted to do much except crash on the couch to watch TV --- and even that is often unsuccessful, as one of us falls asleep moments after the show begins.  Some nights one of us goes to bed with the second kid - sometimes intentionally, sometimes not.

It's a daily struggle to decide what to spend time on.  And while I know that I will want to remember as many details and moments from these days as I can in the future, immediate needs often seem more important.  And I think that's where the balance comes in.  Not from doing everything every day.  But deciding on a focus area for the moment - usually whatever has gotten the most behind --- and getting that caught up - or at least closer to caught up - while everything else falls behind.  And then you start with another area again.

That can be hard to manage for an OCD. :)

So today, taking a moment to document our lives seems like the most important.  So the dishes and laundry may have to wait.  But at least I can cross "write in baby books" off the to-do list, where it was noted months (a year?) ago.

And perhaps next week, I will write again in the blog - and it won't seem so overwhelming in figuring out where to start.

(BTW, does anyone still read this?!)

Awesome Father's Day Gift

Hello friends! This is Mark writing - wow has it been forever since I've made a blog entry! The last few months have been pretty hectic, as you've seen in Katherine's last few posts. I'm writing from a hotel room in the lovely east Texas town of Lufkin. Some of you may remember the last time I took a trip to an east Texas hotel room from a previous blog entry: Best Gift Ever. Just over a week ago, on Father's Day, I got a certificate from Katherine and the kids offering another airplane-building trip. I know to some this is an odd gift to give your husband, but I think it's absolutely wonderful, and an indication of how well Katherine knows me. Even after four years, I still haven't totally adjusted to life with kids, and I really enjoy these little trips. First of all, there's the drive - Texas has some pretty scenery and it's such a treat just to let your mind wander uninterrupted for a few hours. Working on the airplane is so much fun. I love doing stuff with my hands - cooking, car repairs, etc - so it's rewarding in that way. It's also fun because it's a little version of one of my big dreams - to build a real airplane of a similar design. And of course, how often does a parent with young kids get to spend an entire day doing whatever he wants?
      It really is a wonderful gift, and I'm very, VERY thankful to Katherine. With symphony concerts every weekend, she does a ton of the kids' evening routine (hardest part of the day for sure!) by herself. She's very giving to volunteer a few extra nights while I enjoy this most excellent father's day present. Another thing that makes this special is that I went on one of these trips just a couple months ago. This one was a total surprise! Thank you Katherine!

For those of you interested, here's the work I did on the plane. I finished putting the iron-on covering on the wing, managing to burn a hole in it with the heat gun. Bummer - had to iron on a patch piece. I mated the control surfaces (the moving parts) to the plane. Lots of precision cutting for that - took a while. I repainted one of the wheel pants which was dropped in some grass with previously applied wet paint. I installed the tailwheel axle and marked hole locations for access to the engine adjustments. Didn't have the right drill bit here so that will have to get done at home. Finally, I put on some color stripes! There's some more of that to do at home when I have another set of hands to help. Here are some pictures:

The Next Phase

Wow - where do I begin?  I have been so bad about updating this blog --- something I know I will regret --- I already do.  But our lives have just seemed so busy - it feels like it's hard to keep up enough to just get through everything that needs to be done every day, and it just doesn't feel like there's enough time or energy left after it all to sit down and reflect on our lives.

But I do love capturing these memories - I often look back at old blog posts to remember what we were doing / how we were feeling when we were at earlier stages in our lives --- or at least the past few years, since we've been blogging.

And I love sharing these reflections with you, my friends, and hearing your thoughts back.  For some of you, this is about the only form of communication I can seem to keep up with these days.  Sorry about that.  But this too, shall pass, and someday we will have older children and picking up the phone won't seem so difficult.

So how is it that I am managing to collect my thoughts enough and find the time to sit down and blog at 11:30 on a Wednesday afternoon?

It's because we have now entered "the next phase" for our family.

I am now officially a "regular" part-timer with my job --- which means I work 20-30 hours per week.  At about the same time I returned to this status (May 1), I was also assigned a new role --- while still keeping many elements of my old role.  So instead of trying to work a 20-hour per week job in 8 hours, I am now trying to work two part-time jobs in 20-30 hours per week.  So goes life (remember the "There is no normal" post?).  I feel like I'm at least getting used to the idea that life is just not going to go according to my plans (yes, it's only taken me 33 years to figure this one out) - and I'm learning to compromise a bit more.  And while my work is very important to me, and I want to be reliable to my supervisors/co-workers, I'm trying to push back a little bit more so that every request at work doesn't come at the cost of my family.  In fact, today, I was going to log in from home for a couple of hours and ultimately decided that what I was going to work on could wait until I am back in the office tomorrow.  Go me. :)

So, May and the first part of June have been a little tough.  Because I was working more hours and we still did not have Katie in school.  We did discover and enroll Katie in a dedicated corporate back-up center (more on that later, maybe)?  She went here two days a week for much of the month of May.  This was an extroadinary benefit, and I am so grateful for being able to use this service.  And then we had Ben's former babysitter, who is home from college, watch her a few mornings a week for the last part of May.  But all that planning / juggling was tough.

Ben had a week off from school the first week of June, and my parents came out to celebrate his fourth birthday with us and help us out with the kids.  I took that week off for vacation - to spend time with Ben and also hang out with Katie - as it was to be her last week home before starting school!  We had a really nice visit and did some fun things together.

It blows my mind, though, that we now have a four year old son.  Four seems so much older than three.

And last week Katie began and completed her transition (Friday was her first full day, including napping at school) into the Toddler community at Ben's (and now her's also!) school.  This transition was SO much easier than beginning school with Ben.  And by easier, I mean for me.  Both kids have transitioned into school environments very easily --- no tears from either of them!  But deciding to have Ben start school was difficult for me, and I faced a lot of doubts and fears in letting go of this control.  With Katie it has been so much easier, as she started in the same room with the same two teachers that Ben did a few years ago.  And the summer time classes are much smaller, so it's a more intimate environment.

The experience of helping Katie transition into school was a joyful and sentimental one for me.  It brought back such vivid memories of spending time in the same classroom with Benjamin at a similar age (he was a few months older when we started him at this school).  It made me miss my baby Benjamin, and made me sentimental that my baby Katie was no longer a baby, but a toddler.  It almost brought tears to my eyes when I looked in the window at pick-up time to see her sleeping on her nap mat --- such a big girl, not my baby in a crib!  And it made me sentimental that this very long, drawn out baby moon was coming to an end.  I was no longer on maternity leave.  I was no longer on a reduced, post-maternity leave work schedule.  I no longer had a baby to tote around with me everywhere (although, truthfully, this part is mostly a relief!).  I would now be in a new, "normal" schedule.  Dropping two kids off at school, then going to work.

But it's also exciting to be able to do more things now that we have two kids, and not one child plus a baby.  Part of this is that Katie is now walking --- really just began about a month ago.  So it feels like she can do more, experience more and not just be along for the ride.  And it is exciting to be able to regain some of myself back --- it's hard to not get all encompassed in motherhood.  As the years (!) seem to zip by ever faster, I am increasingly aware of how very short these early, hard years of parenting are.  I want to be able to recognize myself when I come out of this phase --- as much for me as for the rest of my family.  I want to have interests and passions outside of raising children.  I want to have activities and plans and dreams that Mark and I can share alone when we are empty nesters.

So it feels good to sit down on this Wednesday afternoon and do something that I want to do.  Even if it means letting the dishes pile up a little higher, a few more emails sit unreplied to, and a couple of outstanding requests from colleagues wait for another day to get fulfilled.  I hope nobody minds. :)

Perhaps dear blog readers, we will meet again next Wednesday?

Oh, I think I never officially stated how it is that I'm home without kids on a Wednesday...I've adjusted my work schedule so that I work four days per week, and spend one day a week at home while the kids are in school.  Something that absolutely delights me, and I hope will help me keep balanced.