An Artistic Balance of the 3Ps

I'm a sucker for nostalgia, so I view my Facebook memories each morning. I've had the platform since 2007, so there is an interesting balance of statuses (back when that was the "thing" to do), photos from high school, and the progression to photos that revolve around my current life.

This week marked my 12th year in the corporate world, and naturally, one of my Facebook statuses from 2012 read, "No one told me that the hardest part about working was sitting in traffic on the LIE!" I reflected and laughed. Oh the na?veté, 22-year-old Stephanie. The hardest part about working is being a Mom, too.

I've had a week for the books, and let me tell you, work was the portion of it that made me the most sane of all. I currently sit at 26 weeks pregnant with my second daughter - who, no doubt, will receive a 4-year soccer scholarship with the way she's kicking the crap out of me - and decided awhile back that last Friday, I was going to begin potty training my 2.5 year old. In all honesty, my pregnancy has been a breeze compared to my previous one. The first trimester was rough, of course, but everything else has been smooth sailing (aside from failing my glucose challenge test and having to take the 3-hour, but Gestational Diabetes is a conversation and an article for another day).

Let's talk potty training. While working full-time and carrying a child the size of a butternut squash internally.

I am Type A to a fault, and a serial planner. I also lack patience. I'm sure you can imagine that it's a winner of a combination paired with flailing hormones. I began planning our potty training voyage about five weeks ago. I read the books. I read the articles. Our daughter exhibited 85% of the signs that she was ready to go. I bought five packs of underwear; two potties; a portable potty for traveling in the car; the star chart; the treats we would use for the reward system. I had the full strategy to ease into the process in place. I put in for a vacation day for that Friday, so we could have a full weekend of being house-bound to tackle this new milestone.

The thing I was wildly unprepared for - I was ready, but my daughter simply wasn't.

I'm having a baby in mid-September and she was registered for a nursery school program that had potty training as a firm requirement. Naturally, she was slated to start this program a few days before what will wind up being my scheduled C-section. Of course, my plans made absolute logical "business" sense, but I learned the hard way that as a mother, you can't plan ahead for everything (it's not rocket science, and you'd think I'd know this already by being 2.5 years into the game).

There were a lot of tears this weekend. I'm not sure who cried more - likely me. But after three days of a solid attempt, I spoke with my husband and made the decision that we were going to stop. At first, I felt like we were quitting and didn't see the process through, but I knew my daughter's psychological and emotional welfare were paramount above all things.

So, after sleeping a grand total of one hour on Sunday night - up at 3am researching reputable nursery programs in our area that didn't require potty training - I needed to take another vacation day to then tour new programs all day Monday. For those not familiar, childcare and reputable programs at that, are ridiculously hard to come by. And as we near the implementation of "summer camp" before the September school year starts, you usually have to sell your eye teeth to get your child into a good school that works around your work schedule. Needless to say, it was an emergency on my family's end.

So, after one full week of absolute mayhem and madness, we have reached a happy medium. And I would love to take the opportunity to share some of my personal key learnings from this experience:

Children are not on a timetable

Just because I consulted with my pediatrician and my daughter was in the average age range to begin the potty training process, it didn't mean she was ready. I could have been planning for the past six months, and she still wouldn't have been ready. And it's okay. We both tried our best; we will take a break and resume at a later date.

My daughter's ability to hit milestones cannot revolve around her sister joining the gang, and definitely does not fit into a school's predetermined schedule of being able to toilet self-sufficiently before the Fall.

Vacation days are no longer for you!

Clearly, something I knew when I became a mother, but has become even more apparent as my daughter has aged. When I think vacation day, I imagine lounging by the pool or taking a trip with my family, not wrangling a toddler to sit on a pink potty or wiping up pee on my kitchen floor. Or making 87 phone calls to a bunch of different schools, touring them, reviewing handbooks, consulting with my husband, determining financial feasibility, and making a very quick and educated decision.

Moms are doing their best

There are a lot of things that professional mothers are dealing with behind the scenes. In most families that I know of, Mom is the "default" parent. This means that she carries the mental load, will take the lead on handling tasks like initiation of milestones, meeting with directors for schooling programs, keeping a running list of items that need to be restocked in the house, etc.

And as I mention to my husband almost daily, I currently have two brains, two hearts, four arms, four legs...my body is not my own. We are somehow able to balance it all, personally and professionally, while growing another human. And let me tell you, my girl has shown me NO mercy with these swift kicks to the rib cage and the bladder, depending on how she feels at the given moment.

In closing, big shout out to my trusted best friend through all of this: coffee. Even though I consume less than 150mg of caffeine per day (because I personally follow the pregnancy suggestions to a "T"), it is what keeps me going.

On that note, I'm off to work to close out the week strong!