Work, what work?

My work calendar has cleared up significantly in the past week, for which I am grateful. A project I've been working on for about 18 months at the textbook company I work for is finally nearing completion. We're in our final round of approvals, and the product should be going live within a few weeks. I should only have one more set of edits to proof, and then I'll be completely finished with it. Halleluah.

I picked up another quickie project from the textbook company last week and was able to bill a quick 10 hours. It was a relief to work on something that had such a short turnaround time and quick completion date.

Things have also slowed down with my other client, for whom I do a fair amount of writing. All of my drafts are either being reviewed by the experts or are in the process of going live.

Now, ordinarily, I'd be a bit panicked at not having any work on the horizon; it's a freelancer's worst nightmare. But I'm not. In fact I'm kind of hoping nothing else comes along for a week or two. It was such a long summer of trying to balance working at home with kids who were home and cramming work hours wherever I could. It wore me out.

I'm looking forward to taking guilt-free naps in the afternoons while Campbell rests. When I have projects going, I have to use that quiet time to get stuff done. I'm also looking forward to doing whatever I want during the two mornings a week Campbell is at school. I can run errands or get my hair cut or go to the dentist (or not) without having to hire a sitter or drag a reluctant toddler along. I have a limited number of those mornings left before Baby Bee arrives, so I want to take advantage of them while I can.

So I'm going to enjoy this lull, knowing from more than five years' worth of freelancing that it will be short-lived.

Right now, I'm going work on finishing a pair of socks that are taking me forever to knit.

Positive feedback

When you think about it, us moms spend most of our lives hearing what a bad job we're doing from our clients children. It's the very nature of our job to make our kids unhappy. We spend our days thwarting their plans and goals. Here's a list of things I said yesterday:

• No, you may not have ice cream now (it was 9am).
• No, you may not tie toys to the ceiling fan to give them a ride. . . . Because doing so will break the ceiling fan.
• No, you can't have a sleep over at L's house because we don't want to spread lice to their house.
• No, M can't spend the night here because we don't want to spread lice to her house.
• No, you may not sleep with your mattress flipped upside down. . . . Because now the sheets are on the bottom.

Most days, praise is hard to come by, and it's usually only as a result of something like new running shoes or root beer floats for dessert. Those kinds of things will elicit a "You're the best mom ever!" But those comments are forgotten the next time I say no to something.

Yesterday afternoon I had a meeting about a project I've been working on. This particular project involved writing a 20-page continuing education module on childhood diabetes. The meeting was attended by the project manager and her assistant from the marketing/pr firm I work for and diabetes experts from Health and Human Services who have the final editorial review of the document. One of the men there is THE expert on childhood diabetes for the State of Texas.

I was a bit nervous going in. I hadn't received any feedback of any type on the module, and since I'm not a medical professional, I was worried that I'd missed the mark on the paper.

Instead, the doctor offered some revisions based on his expertise. But otherwise, he left the paper alone and said I'd done a good job on it. He even commented that he really liked that I'd added two sections that weren't in the original outline and approved some suggestions I'd made for further additions. Another one of the experts said that my explanations of the different types of diabetes were clear and well written.

I left the meeting walking about three feet off the ground. Not only had the experts liked my work, they'd said they liked it in front of my boss. I immediately called B to tell him the good news.

My buzz didn't last long, though. When I got home, Campbell started melting down about everything. Then the neighbor called to say that her kids have lice, probably from my kids. That's when I cancelled the two sleepovers and had to break the news to the girls, who cried. And then Campbell threw up on the living room floor.

Back to reality. And unfavorable feedback.

A waste of an hour

Last week I got a call from an editor at the textbook company I freelance for asking me about my work availability after the new year. I told her that I'd be available in February when the 14-month project I've been working on is finished up. So she scheduled a meeting this morning for all the freelancers who might be working on the project. I couldn't attend the meeting because two of my three kids were at home this morning, so I conferenced in by phone.

And it turned out to be a waste of an hour. The freelancers who were at the meeting had a whole sheaf of papers with examples of the work we'd be doing, but the other person conferencing in and I didn't have those papers, so we couldn't see what they were talking about. The freelancers who were there, asked four million questions about all the examples, which meant nothing to me because I couldn't see what they were talking about.

So while the the questions and answers were going on, I read the news online - Britney Spears's 16-year-old sister is pregnant, hee, hee - and giggled at MadMad's post. Unfortunately, while I was giggling the phone wasn't on mute. Whoops. I blamed it on my kids.

The bottom line was that at the end of the hour of listening, I still had really no idea of what the work will entail or when we'll be doing it. What a waste of precious work time.

Meetings are pointless; meetings by conference call are even more so.

I'm not good at vacations

One fundamental difference between me and my husband, or at least one of the many, is that I'm not good at doing nothing. I have a hard time sitting still and relaxing; it goes against my very nature. Not so with B. He can sit and do nothing for hours other than watch the world go by. It's why he loves going to the beach each August - it's a week where he can't work, even if he wanted to.

I on the other hand, get jumpy without access to my computer and my e-mail. So these five days away have been an exercise in character building for me, but I'm not sure why I need to work on this particular bit of character. I've only been able to check e-mail once a day, maybe twice, since I have to hijack my host's laptop, which I don't feel I should do too often if I want to be allowed to stay.

There have been work e-mails flying back and forth among my project group, and while I don't need to do anything with those e-mails, it gives me hives to think that even if I needed to something, I couldn't. My two current big projects involve powerpoint presentations, and this laptop doesn't have powerpoint on it, which means I'm pretty much useless to my project group. I had warned them all that I'd be away and that I would have limited computer access, but still . . .

On the plus side, though, I bought myself a lovely ring. I called B to get his ok on spending a lump of money despite having taxes being due next week, and got his buy-in by telling him it got him off the hook for buying me a large rock at some point in the future. The ring is just beautiful. I didn't know it was the ring I wanted until I saw it in the shop. It's a cushion cut green topaz, the very palest of pale, surrounded by little tiny diamonds cut to sparkle lots. I put it on and knew I would regret not buying it. So I'm happily watching it sparkle as a I type.

I quit

Today was one of those days that I really hate my job of stay-at-home mother of three. It really was one for the record books.

First I missed Wednesday morning running because of the after-effects of a migraine last night. Then Campbell woke up on the wrong side of the planet and nothing made him happy. The first of many rounds with Ella ended well, but after that things deteriorated - especially after she jumped on her brother's head after climbing a door frame. I sent her to her room so I could calm down and get Campbell settled. But that sent her into hysterics about how unfair I was for sending to her room for accidentally jumping on her brother. Nevermind that we've told her time and again she's not allowed to climb door frames when Campbell's on the loose. While I was trying to explain things to her, she threw a lovie at me, which got her sent into time out, leading to more hysterics.

After getting jumped on, Campbell was just plain miserable for hours. He whimpered regardless of whether he was in my lap on the sofa or if we were sitting on the floor playing with toys. Even nursing him didn't help. His crankiness lasted until his bath time, when he perked up considerably.

While I was picking up Lily from school my iPod died, again. I'll probably have to send it back to HP, again. This will be the third time I've had to send it back for replacement. And because it's an iPod + HP, I can't just take it to the Apple store. They won't touch it because it has HP software on it, or so a snippy 19-year-old informed me the first time the thing broke. If I didn't love my iPod so much it wouldn't be so bad, but I've gotten used to not having to listen to radio stations.

As I was messing with my iPod, refereeing the girls and attempting to soothe Campbell, B told me he has to go to Mexico City for a meeting about the development project in San Miguel de Allende. It wouldn't be a big deal except for the timing. I'll have to drive down to South Padre for our annual beach tip with the kids and pick B up at the airport in Harlingen on the way. Sigh. I'm not looking forward to 6 hours in the car with three kids and no reinforcements.

Dinner was the final straw. I actually cooked a meal tonight instead of just heating something up. As I was getting ready to plate everything up, B strolled out dressed in work clothes. He claims he told me that he had a 6:00 meeting, but I have no memory of it. So I plated up dinner for me and the girls, but of course Campbell was ready to go to bed. So I left the girls at the table while I nursed the baby. Ella and Lily both came into the living room to tell me they didn't like dinner, which was roasted chicken, wild rice and steamed broccoli, not exactly exotic fare. I spent the afternoon cooking a dinner that no one but me ate, and mine was cold by the time I got to eat it.

The girls are in their jammies, teeth brushed and ready for stories. Campbell's in his crib slowly winding down. I'm dreading the evening ahead; I have hours of work ahead because it was impossible to work during the day.

I think I'm ready to resign my job.