When Gabe clings to my clothes. Oh man, the joy.

Game of Thrones. When this season is over I might possibly cry a little.

The sound of wind in the eucalyptus trees. They sound like ocean waves.

Friends, even when they are far away, and surprise gifts (Thank you Amanda and Sarah! You both made my week!!).

On Monday while I walked to the train all I could think about is how much I want another baby. This makes me happy. I worried that after the meh pregnancy I would be dreading my next go-around. But I’m not! I am thrilled! I would do it tomorrow if my rational mind wasn’t all “girrrrllll please” about it.

Kamel. As much as he does drive me totally nutso some days, I am incredibly grateful for his partnership. I will say it again and a million times more: I could not do what I do every day without his support. I could not be as successful as I am or as put together as I seem without him.

An old standard – Clean Sheeeeeeets! They will always and forever be one of my biggest small joys.

Gap V-neck tshirts. Oh! And the $10 t-shirt sale. Yes and yes.

Eyelashes. They are pretty great.

Pedicures! And brightly painted toes!

Trader Joes and their generic brand beer. So delicious. So the same as the brand name. So so much cheaper.

Being able to write this as Gabe chirps and wiggles next to me. (While I sing the Game of Thrones intro music, let’s be honest.)

**What are your happies? Let’s get through this Wednesday together.

I pump 3 times a day. In my office those times have to be scheduled and are not really that flexible. I pump in a conference room where sometimes I have to close the blinds – which makes me feel like it is obvious I’m about to get nekkey, and where I always lock the door behind me and say a little prayer that no one tries to bust in. So far, the bust in attempt has only happened once.

It takes me 15-25 minutes for me to set up, pop out the girls, and pump. Then I take the milk over to the office kitchen and transfer it into storage bags that live in a little zippered bag in the fridge. That is the weirdest part – pouring from bottle to bag while people are getting snacks or tea or filling their water bottles. All like, “Hi, these are my bodily fluids, they came from my boobs. Carry on.” It feels like it is private, even if it maybe shouldn’t feel that way. I make jokes to make people feel less uncomfortable with it. I reference being a dairy cow – not far off from the truth. But mostly I wish it didn’t feel so vulgar. It shouldn’t. It’s not like pouring pee into a sample jar or anything, so why does it make me flinch like it is? Sigh…

In general, pumping is awkward. I take my bag into a conference room every day at 9:00 am, 12:30 pm, and 3:00 pm. I sometimes need to walk in late to meetings, and most days I am racing to cram food into my mouth so that I don’t miss that 1230 time. It is difficult to keep the same efficiency as my counterparts because I’m taking extra breaks, so when I’m at my desk I need to be extra focused. Pumping at work means I am running and scrambling from the second I leave the house and it does make my weeks extra mentally taxing. By Friday I am wiped out.

And then! A week like last week happens – I had a content editing summit at work and my entire schedule was turned upside down. I was off site in meetings more than half the day and I skipped pumping sessions. At least 1 a day, at least 3 days a week. And what happened? By the weekend I had stopped producing the majority of my milk. Talk about STRESSED OUT. I almost accidentally weaned him, and I am still trying to rectify the situation. I went from overflowing with milk to running on empty most of the time. I now know that I cannot, under any circumstances, fuck around with pumping while at work. Even if it is inconvenient, even if it can be awkward.

So now I am drinking a shit ton of milk-stimulating tea, I am pumping like a crazy person, and I am making sure to feed Gabe as close to every two hours as possible when I am home. This aspect of being a working mom is the only part where I feel incredibly torn and spread too thin. I want to be good at my job – I want to be the BEST at my job, but I also want to feed Gabe. Everything else – feeling put together, juggling schedules, working out, gearing up for daycare, handling my postpartum body has been so much easier than I thought. Breastfeeding and all that it entails as been a journey, a learning process, and harder (and more important to me) than I anticipated.

Maybe it was the stress of that time. I was functioning at a pretty high rate of output with a pretty low rate of input. I worked full time, went to school full time, read many many books, wrote many many papers, and then I also wrote my own book. I still don’t really understand how that happened and how I didn’t drown. But maybe that is why I barely remember it – there was just way too many things to catalog. And then last night I missed it, I missed it so much I ached for it.

Random Friday nights at Fly Bar with Naomi. I remember meeting a group of solar panel technicians. I don’t know why I remember that, and yet I can’t remember some of my favorite people’s names.

The way it felt to sit on a nearly empty bus at 5-something in the evening, throwing itself down Balboa. Then seeing John get on at his stop, walk through the bus and sit by me, and being grateful we were friends.

The “Portal of Learning.”

The way ink on warm paper smells fresh from the printer after making many, many copied pages.

Naomi’s jeans. I never thought I would ever be as cool as her.

A heated discussion about the word “swarthy.”

And then a few weeks ago I was kept up remembering all of the people who have come and then gone again. My social world ebbs and flows. Sometimes I have a lot of people to see and visit and invite over. Sometimes that number dwindles down to a handful. It goes with the tide and it doesn’t always mean something particular. But there are some people I wish were still around, some people that I had every intention of really, really liking and then I ended up … not. There are relationships that could have been amazing, but life happens and distance makes thing impossible. These are relationships of all kinds, amazing women who I miss, horrible people I am glad are not in my sphere, men I loved and hated and loved some more, the people who I wanted to be friends with who were not so much interested in me. Sometimes I have the best of intentions and I mess it up regardless.

So many chapters. I am in a new one right now and it is great! Life is humming and things are good. But I still wish I could revisit the old ones, the chapters that closed without me even realizing it, the people who slipped away or who I  very regrettably don’t have time for. Sometimes I am sad that all of the things can’t happen all at the same time in a big swirl. The good and the bad and the ugly. The busy and the relaxed. The family and the friends, the early twenties and the late, I want it all like a glutton for experiences. I want to stuff my face with all the stuff I have already done and all the things I’m doing now. I want to feel it all just as it felt then, except this time knowing it will all be ok, this time being able to revel in the silliness or the joy without zooming past it on to the next thing, the next to-do list item, or the next chapter.

Time is nothing. We make it up as we go along. It doesn’t move faster or slower at any given moment. Except it does.

When Kamel is not at home being dad-extraordinaire, like he is for the month of May, he works about 15 minutes from where we live. He can come home for lunch if he wants to, but if he doesn’t he is away from the house for about 9 hours, maybe less. With my commute and work schedule I am gone from the house for a minimum of 11 hours. That is a huge chunk of the day. I noticed this because on the good days I am only home long enough to scarf down some dinner, snuggle baby for an hour, and then catch the sleep wave when Gabe goes down. I still haven’t seen this week’s Game of Thrones. I am writing this blog at 5:00am. I still haven’t figured out a good routine to get back to writing stories and books. I’ll figure it out, but man I wish there were more hours in the day. I wouldn’t even spend them on sleep, just on life.

When I was on maternity leave I did not have a work out schedule, per se. If I had a minute I would do a proper workout involving squats and such, but mostly I pushed the stroller and paced the floor and took 587982783 walks. This week I am back to figuring out a workout schedule. Yesterday I was super super sore. In about 20 minutes I’ll be trying to achieve that same level of ouch. Why/ Because needing assistance to sit on the toilet is awesome! No it isn’t. The real dilemma is that my butt has fallen and it needs help getting back up again. Squats and lunches and pushups and jumping jacks and kickboxing 4 life.

Yesterday Claire and I were discussing mental health days from work and how advocating your our own health and happiness is so important. I feel like there is a societal push for people to expect other people to 1) be responsible for the success of their own happiness, and 2) know you so well that any injuries to your feelings, your nuanced sensibilities, etc would be avoided and that you should be protected by others. I think this is sold to women especially under the guise of “True Love” via movies and fairy tales. Even when you are married, even when you have children, you still have to advocate for your own happiness, your own peace of mind. Loving someone and being responsible for all of their ins and outs, ups and downs, successes and failures is not the same thing. Only you can prevent forest fires.

Work has been very busy lately, and home has been very busy lately, and I haven’t had the time to reply to many (or any) of your comments. But I promise I read them and I promise I will respond to some of them when I can. Sorry for being lame. Do know that I have created many, many responses in my head. It’s actually one of my biggest flaws – I read something (an email, comment, what have you) and thing my response so loudly inside my own head that sometimes I forget that I haven’t actually sent it to the person. When I was a kid I would get so engrossed in a book or a show on TV I would sometimes ask my parents, “Did I just say something out loud?” because I couldn’t remember if I had shared what I was thinking or just thought my thought really really loudly.

Oh! One last thing! I finally cleaned up my iPod and added a few new albums, deleted a bunch I never want to hear again, etc etc. And this has made office life SO much better! I actually gave myself a little thrill just now thinking about getting back to my desk and my tunes. Hashtag little things.

Nothing cuter than a bear hat and a newborn snuggled in a car seat.

A few weeks ago, as I was high-tailing it up some massive hills, I had this great moment of pride. Not for my burning thighs, but for my kick ass stroller. Fuck Yeah, stroller.

Fuck Yeah.

I was pretty proud of my Bumbleride Indie when we bought it. It was our 1 big big splurge. I think we paid about $500 bucks for it, though what I can find online right now is a little over that price. Granted, there are strollers WAY more expensive and I think this might even be considered mid-range, but it was a big splurge for our budget and the most expensive thing we bought.

And though I am proud of our stroller, I am even more proud of our decision to spend the money on it. We use this bad boy almost every single day. Most of the time we use it two or three times a day. It will last us well into toddler-land and is the most versatile baby item we have. When I was home alone with Gabe I would carry the stroller up and down our outside stairs, no problem, by myself. It is incredibly simple to strap Gabe in and he can either lay flat or be propped up. There are wind flaps and wind guards by the feet that are moderately successful at blocking big gusts that startle him. But most importantly the stroller is ridiculously maneuverable. It turns on a dime with one hand, can be popped up and over curbs without any issues and can handle bumps and cracks in the sidewalk no problemo. On the other hand, it can also zoom around slow walkers at the mall, groups of people who won’t move to the side even when I say, “Excuse me!” and is amazing for busy city streets.

There are only 2 problems I have found with it – First the front wheel. I always underestimate how far it sticks out and I have accidentally bumped several strangers, display cases at the grocery store, and elevator doors with it. Oops. Second – In order to collapse it you have to lean over the handles and pull up on the two sides. I am too short in the torso to be able to do this effectively. Thankfully, this is not an issue for Kamel, but if I had to collapse it somewhere by myself, it would be a huge struggle. I have never had to do this yet, but… could happen.

But even with these two issues I still rate this 5/5 stars of awesomeness on the Lauren-O-Meter.

The car seat on the other hand….

… I kind of hate you. But maybe that is because all car seats suck? We have the Graco Snugride 35 and it will protect our kid from flying out of the front window during a crash and has a plushy interior, and he falls asleep in it with gusto… but I still fucking hate it. The straps are SO difficult to clip shut. He sweats like a mofo in it, and the sun shade goes right up against the handle so having it covered makes carrying it extra annoying.

And this is my biggest complaint: It barely fits in our car. In order to make it fit I have to have the front passenger seat pushed so far forward my knees literally touch the dashboard. Grrrr car seat you are the worst worst worst!

Some other issues with it:

• The straps often cut into Gabe’s legs and leave red marks.
• It is SO heavy and as Gabe grows the car seat becomes like a block of freaking cement.
• Oh… and the “newborn insert” … is only good for baby’s between 4-5 lbs!!!!! WHAT THE FUCK! That is only for preemies! And this was a total parent fuck up, but we had him in that thing until he was probably 10 lbs! And he was sooo pissed. Anyways… I just had to add that one in as a forehead slap moment.

So! If anyone is madly in love with their car seat, don’t be shy! Let me know in comments. Can I recommend this one? Sure… it does what it does and I have no experience with any other contraption… but ask around if you’re in the market. Find one that people in the real world rave about – you’ll hopefully (unless your baby grows out of it) be using it for a solid year.

And then there are days like yesterday. Where I woke up from a terrible terrible bad dream where I cried in my sleep and then because of a string of assholer-y the crying didn’t stop. It was Mother’s Day…. yes, but that didn’t mean anything at my house. It meant fighting and slammed doors, lugging laundry to and fro before 8:00am, errands and meetings where I wanted to wear my sunglasses the whole time to hide my puffy eyes. It meant canceled plans with one of my favorite people, it meant being too busy with all of the bad to not even have the chance for a meal until 3:30pm. The bad things on this day were very bad. They were not funny or endearing, they were exhausting and awful.

And it was worse because it was Mother’s Day. My first one. And this was what it was. It kept echoing in my brain, “your first your first your first your first” and this was it, that was it, there it went, poof. In tears and snot and yelling and hiding in the bathroom. In jiggling and snuggling baby, pacing with baby, crying with baby.

And I knew people would ask about it on Monday and I would say, “It was great! How was yours?” But really I would think, “It was terrible, I’m glad it’s over,” because life happens and we are not perfect and some times even the special days land on one of the bad days. The days where it is not sunshine and lollipops and rainbows and secret smiles. Some days just aren’t good days. Some days aren’t good days at all, not even a little bit.

Kamel: I show him around.

Me: Like what?

Kamel: [holding gabe in the other room while I make dinner in the kitchen] Welcome to the the San Mateo Historical Society tour of the Dupuis-Perez house.

Me: What?!

Kamel: The San Mateo Historical Society declared this place a national treasure in 2152 due to their…

Me: [laughing hysterically] oh my gosh.

Kamel: … incredibly contributions to society.

Me: Oh my god is this for reals?

Kamel: The Historical Society has painstakingly recreated a messy kitchen table to enhance the realistic nature of this museum based on video, internet, blog posts, and photographs.

Me: [laughing, laughing, laughing for days]

Kamel: You should hear how each room is described!

Me: Oh my god this is a blog post.

Kamel: No… Lauren!

Me: YES.

Kamel: Nooooo…

Me: Yup. Yup it is.

But then Kamel calmed him and he was eventually like this:

So I knew that even though babies hate shots, this baby was going to be ok.

It has been an amazing month with Gabe. I have seen him slowly emerge for newborn-dom and become a happy, smiley, flirty little boy. He chirps and sqwacks at us, tells us his stories, rages and demands to be taken here and there, to be fed and changed. He is now 12 lbs and 2 oz/24.5 inches long. He is totally average for weight and in the 96% for baby height. I love stats like that. They are fascinating. Also, he makes me really really happy.

Here are some of my favorite photos from the last month (from the time he turned 1 month until now):

Baby burrito post bath!

Thank you for the quilt, Margaret!

And finally! Mr. 2 months exactly. Gabe the Babe:

While on leave I worried that work would feel exhausting. I worried that 2 months at home would make work feel like a marathon. I worried that I would be tired from disjointed sleep. I worried it would feel like torture.

Like most everything, my fears turned out to be not at all the reality. Staying home with my kid is not for me, it doesn’t make me happy and it doesn’t make me the best person I can be. I had no issues with being home for 2 months – those months had a purpose and I knew the window of time would close at a certain date – it was not indefinite.

Everyone keeps asking me how going back to work has been. And I say, enthusiastically, “Good!” And I mean it. This post feels weird to me because all I want to talk about is how empowered I feel as a working mom. How amazing it feels to get up at 530 or 6, take a shower, feed or pump one last time before I get fully dressed, blow dry my hair, scramble to get breakfast and lunch packed, tag team with Kamel on who is watching the baby while the other handles their morning routines, pack my bag for the day, and head out the door. How liberating it feels to sit alone on the train, reading. How invigorating it feels to walk the mile to work and head up in the elevator to the office full of kind people who want to share chocolate covered strawberries from the cafe down the street, or coo over Gabe’s goofy baby pictures, or share stories of their own crazy kids and their shenanigans. How powerful I feel to sit at a computer and work at a task that I know I am good at, to attend meetings and conference calls, to contribute. And how safe it feels to know Gabe is with his dad at home for the month of May, and then starting in June with our lovely caregiver at daycare. To receive picture texts of him sleeping, eating a bottle, playing on Kathleen’s quilt.

There is so much talk right now about, “Can women REALLY have it all?!” and I haven’t really weighed in on it because I think the discussion is too simplistic. I think the bigger question is: what do you want? I think the bigger realization is: we all, every single one of us (penis or vagina included) have to pick and choose our priorities. There are many forks in many roads and we all have to decide a direction every now and then. Where do we put most of our energy? Most of our money? Our time? Our selves? How thin can you spread yourself before disappearing altogether? How thin do you want to be spread in the first place?

It’s not about “it all,” it’s about the goals you have for you. I want to have an engaged family. I want to have a meaningful career. I want to have a partner, a true blue partner, who I spend the rest of my life with and who I could not do any of these things without. So far I’m on that path. I didn’t choose to chase my previous goal of teaching because it would have sent me off into the middle of nowhere America, in a very small school, for god knows how long. I chose to piece together a different kind of career. I chose to have a baby at 27, sacrificing parts of my 20s that could have been spent traveling the world and having adventure after adventure to be a young parent and give myself some reproductive options down the road. Things are not equal for women, motherhood is filled with expectations, shame, and supposed personal limitations, but I don’t totally buy it. I don’t feel limited. I feel awesome. I don’t feel exhausted. I feel purposeful.

I think this is what it feels like when you make the choices that are right for you, no matter what they are. Do I have it all? Right now I do. Tomorrow or the next day or the next I’ll add another item to the pile of checked off tasks I have on my 100 mile long, revolving to-do list. Tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that I’ll have some more work to do, another hill to scramble up, another puzzle to solve. Today, though, I’m enjoying where I stand.

It’s amazing what watching other people love your child feels like. It makes me love them even more.

Having guests is a bit exhausting. It’s a lot of cleaning and running around and yadda yadda yadda all while handling the baby’s eating and sleeping schedule, making sure we have enough diapers, checking what time it is, worrying he is too hot out in the world on the sunny sunny days, the list goes on. Juggling and balancing and living-in-the-moment-palooza.

I am very tired, but I am also so grateful for the wonderful women in my life. Like bursting with gratitude. It is a great way to start a work week.