What's Pissing Me Off Right Now

Wanna know what's pissing me off? THIS label on all containers of baby formula:

It's like a slap in the face everytime I make Ryan a bottle.

Breast is best? What the hell does that even mean? "Best." It's such a loaded word. If a mom physically cannot breastfeed, then no, breast is NOT best and who are you, stupid government regulation requiring The Label on every container of formula, to pass judgment. What about the mom who juggles work and home duties, who cannot or does not want to interrupt her challenging work every three hours to pump for twenty minutes, which is physically and mentally uncomfortable, in a non-private work space? When pumping would make the return to work insanely hectic, logistically hard, and almost not worth it, then is breast really "best?" At the sacrifice of a new, guilt-ridden mom's sanity, I say NO.

So what's the point of that stupid passage of judgment of a label anyway? I'm willing to assume that any mom reaching for a container of formula, for one reason or another- whether out of necessity or lifestyle, has already decided to give her baby formula. And, it's probably likely that that mom already feels a little twinge of guilt for not being able to exclusively nurse her baby. How is that mom supposed to feel when she sees that judgmental label exclaiming to her that she's`not giving her baby the "best?"

For me, I was physically unable to nurse without using a nipple shield. But I still nursed Ryan until he turned four months old and I returned to work. At that point, I decided that my life was already crazy enough with two children, a job, and a childcare commute, I wasn't going to pump. I didn't mind giving up nursing. In fact, I couldn't wait to stop. Yes, I'm an evil, non-crunchy mom who hates breastfeeding. Judge away.

With Jacob, my first baby, I continued to pump after I returned to law school. But I HATED it. Absolutely and in every way. It was so impersonal and uncomfortable. It was a logistical nightmare if I was commuting or out in public. Carrying the pump as I walked all over Seattle and trying to keep the milk cold all day was such a pain in the ass. It drove me insane and wore me down. My only regret with nursing is that I didn't switch to formula sooner.

Why didn't I? Because of self-imposed and externally-imposed guilt. If you're a mom, you're getting pelted with tons of messages a day about what you should do, shouldn't do, what you're doing wrong, what you need to buy, etc for your kids. There's judgment around every corner. And all of us are just trying to do the best we can with the time, money, and energy we have.

At Ryan's two month check-up, I remember telling his doctor that I would be returning to work. I was haunted by guilt over the future transition to work and that guilt made me feel compelled to ask her permission to switch to formula. The second I did, I immediately felt sick. Why the heck did I think I needed to ask her permission? Plenty of babies grow up on formula. I had no reason to feel guilty or insecure about my decision. Bless her heart, she might have recognized the fact that guilt was eating up my insides. She smiled, looked at me reassuringly, and enthusiastically told me, "of course it's ok!"

There is no such thing as "best." There is no rigid set of rules that applies across the board for all babies. All babies grow at different levels, live in different environments, have different temperaments. We don't need to be constantly told that the decisions we make are not some unatainable level of what's perfect or "best."

I know plenty of babies who grew up on formula because their moms were physically unable to breastfeed. Those babies are now smart, tall, strong, secure children. Jacon was given formula for the last six month of his babyhood and he's one smart, creative kid. Ryan has been eating formula exclusively for the past two months now. He is thriving, happy, chubby, smart, coordinated, and loved.

So, take THAT stupid, judgmental label!

Pistachio Crusted Chicken Tacos

A former co-worker recommended a healthy South Beach Diet recipe to me. And before you ask, no she wasn't kindly insinuating that I needed to cut back on desserts. Wait....was she? Anyway...

The recipe sat in my cupboard, untouched, for almost a month. It intrigued me, but I kept passing it up for tried-and-true family favorites. After a long spell of non-inspiration in the kitchen, I decided this recipe was just what I needed to break my funk. Except, it didn't just break my funk. It shattered it! As I started prepping, I decided to do an overhaul on the original recipe. I changed it from a salad to a taco. Yes, while the rest of the world is obsessed with turning every recipe into a paleo-friendly version of itself, you can always count on me to do just the opposite.

A touch of carbs, a smackling of dairy products, and VOILA! Pistachio Crusted Chicken Tacos! Honestly, the reason I went with a taco is because we are all addicted to homemade flour tortillas (best tortillas ever!). I turned the salad "dressing" into a taco sauce. I think that sauce was my favorite part.

 

(Forgive me, I know you aren't supposed to put white food on a white plate. But aside from some plastic dinosaur tablewayre, these IKEA plates are all I have).

 

Here's the recipe-- my version, that is. I absolutely LOVE pistachios. I'm lucky any pistachios made it into this meal because I was eating them like crazy.

 

Tacos

1/2 cup pistachios, shelled and finely food processed

2-4 Skinless chicken breasts (Use 2 breast for two people- this will give you leftovers)

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1/2 cup sweet onions, diced

Diced tomatoes

Shredded cheese (moterrey jack, swiss, mozzarella, or even pepper jack)

Cilantro

Salt and pepper

Don't forget homemade flour tortillas!

 

Dressing/Sauce

1 Tbsp diced sweet onion

1 large avocado, pitted and peeled (I just used 3 Tbsp of guacamole)

2 Tbsp olive oil

3 Tbsp lime juice

1 Tbsp water

 

Preheat oven to 375

 

1. Mix the processed nuts with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper. My nuts were already salted so I skipped the salt here. Press the chicken breasts into the nut mixture, being sure to coat as well as possible. (I cut my chicken breasts in half but it's probably not necessary, I just wanted more nut coating).

 

2. Heat 1 Tbsp oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the breasts, 2 minutes per side. Then place them in the oven until they reach an internal temperature of 160 degrees. (I love my meat thermometer!). When they cool a little, slice them into long pieces.

 

3. Heat 1 Tbsp of oil in skillet. Add diced onions and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt and 1/4 tsp pepper. Cool until the onion is browned.

 

4. To make the sauce, in a food processor, process the avocado (guacamole), white onions, olive oil, lime juice, and water until well mixed.  

 

5. Make your homemade tortillas.

 

6.  Assemble by placing cilantro, cheese, onions, tomatoes, and chicken in a tortillas. Dribble the sauce on top and enjoy!

 

If you wanted to avoid the carbs, you could always eat this in a lettuce wrap instead of a tortilla. Nevermind, forget I said that, homemade tortillas are just way too good to pass us!

Interrupting Baby

This evening, Jacob and Ryan hung out on the couch as I was in the kitchen preparing dinner. Jacob was watching a tv show and Ryan was sitting, propped up in his boppy.  As I diced some onions, I heard Jacob say, "Mommy?"

"Hmmmm?" I answered wiping onion tears from my face.

"I won't sniff garbage out of the garbage can."

"Uh?.....Ok. That's good." I replied and muttered "wierdo" under my breath.

"Mommy?"

"Hmmm?"

"I won't take garbage out of the garbage can. And throw it around like a monkey."

"Thanks. I really appreciate that." I said, coughing back a chuckle.

I was just finishing up my taco topping when Ryan began to fuss. I picked up my pace and began shoving items back into the fridge. Fussing quickly turned into crying. I finally heard Jacob say, "Shush Ryan! Shush! I can't hear my show!" #Toddler problems.....

I put our plates onto the dinning table and finally turned my attention towards the kids on the couch.

Ryan had plopped over, so that he was leaning on his side.  His face was red and his eyes were closed in anger. Jacob was sitting by Ryan's head, staring blankly ahead at the tv, and with one arm outstretched toward Ryan. But he wasn't trying to CONSOLE Ryan. Instead, he was holding the palm of his hand directly across Ryan's face in an effort to supress the noise coming out of his mouth.

I, of course, did what any good mom would do. I rushed for my camera.

White Collar Baby

 "Hi everyone!"

 

 

"I don't have much time to talk. I'm off to baby work to do baby stuff."

 

 

"What? You say I'm forgetting something?"

 

 "Oh my gosh! Silly me!"

 

 

"It's hard to remember your Blackberry when you don't have pockets!"

 

Two Pictures

Cuddles on the couch.

 

My favorite part of the day is when the whole family is together again after being spread apart across three different counties all day. There is so much peace in knowing that we are all under the same roof.

 

My big man

 

When I tucked Jacob in the other day, he lined up all of his stuffed animals in bed next to him.  Then, as I pulled the covers up to his chest, he told me, "Mommy! Don't cover their faces. Then they can't breathe!"

Back That Thang Up!

The roughest part of my day came in the mid-afternoon.

That's right. The four to five times that Ryan woke up in the middle of the night demanding to be in bed next to me, was not the roughest part of my day.

Neither was sleeping through my alarm (from pure exhaustion from being awake half the night) and waking up at 6:20 a.m., nearly an hour late. This still wasn't the roughest part of my day even though it brought the added bonus of having to text my boss at 7:30 a.m. to tell him that I was going to miss my ferry and be late for work.

The roughest part of my day was not even the ginormous (and uncharacteristic) tantrum Jacob threw as I tried to get him out of the car. He had to be forcibly removed, which, to be quite honest, gave me a horrible wedgy that I couldn't "fix" for quite some time without the fear of someone watching.

Oh, and that moment my mom called to tell me she thought Jacob had pink eye and she was going to take him to the doctors? Nope. Not the roughest part. Turns out it was only a scratch.

So, what WAS the roughest part of my day? Well, let me tell you....

At about 3pm, I had just put finishing touches on a motion I had been working on and handed it over to the partner to review. He polished it up and made some changes. Then the secretary stuck copies of the end product in a bunch of envelopes to be mailed for filing with the court and for serving on the opposing party.

My next task was to draft a similar motion. So I went to the computer folder where the motion was saved and attempted to copy and paste it. Except....I accidentally deleted it! Don't ask me how it's possible to accidentally delete a document (especially when doing so requires accepting a pop-up box warning you that the item will be permanently deleted) but I'm special and had found a way to do just that.

Luckily, hard copies of the motion had already been printed out and stuck in envelopes. BUT I didn't even have a copy of the motion for our own files! When I fully realized what I had just done, my heart started to pound and a wave of jitters started to build up inside my chest. Saying a million prayers, I opened my "Trash Bin." But it wasn't there! Apparently, documents that are kept on a shared drive don't go to the Trash Bin when you delete them.

NOOOOOOO!

What was I going to do?

Well, first I freaked out. I did a little "help, my world is ending" dance. Then I forced myself to calm down enough to do some Google research. Google told me to click "undo" in the electronic folder. Oh yeah, duh! I held my breath as I selected the "undo" option. Nada.

WTF?!!?!? What would I tell the partner when he asks where his motion went? What will he do when he opens the folder and sees that it's empty?! I could re-type the motion but he made some changes that I hadn't even had the opportunity to see. How the heck was I going to get out of this mess?

If I couldn't recover the file electronically, I decided I was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: typing up an exact copy from one of the copies we had already printed out. I snuck up to the receptionist and asked if I could have one of the sealed envelopes containing the motion. She looked at me strangely but didn't question (thank goodness!). Then I used my sleuthing skills to carefully break the seal of the envelope. I removed the motion and went at it with the staple remover. I was going to make a copy to take back to my desk and recreate from scratch.

But, in the process of removing the staple from the corner, I pricked my finger. A trail of bright red blood dribbled across the front of the document. Oh great. This was the copy for opposing counsel....and it wasn't like I could just open the electronic version and print out a new one!

I made my copy and, regretfully, shoved the original back into the envelope. "Maybe it's not so bad," I thought. "Maybe it will look like a red marker stain?" (WTF, I'm screwed). I decided the only thing to do was come clean and let the bricks fall on my head.

At this point, I was panicky. My heart was throwing a rave party in my chest and my hands were nervously shaking as if I'd just downed three 5 hour energy drinks. I approached the partner and coyly asked, "Does the computer keep back-ups of our files?"

"Why?" he asked.

"Um. You know our motion? Well, I, uhhh, just deleted it." I winced, waiting for the fall-out.

"Oh. That's no problem. The computer keeps back ups with a couple different programs." He then proceeded to show me how to recover the old files. It's not exactly a piece of cake. But it's easier than re-typing a multiple page document. And it's MUCH better than sending opposing counsel a blood-stained motion. Phew! I guess I should have come to my boss sooner.

And I lived (almost) happily ever after.

The End.

Warning: Post Contains Nearly Sickening Levels of Positivity About Being A Lawyer

My favorite philosopher from my high school Humanities class was Boethius, a Roman dude from the 6th century. He faced some pretty rough times-- imprisonment that led to his eventual execution.  The basic theme from his most famous work is that good things and bad things are both transitory so we shouldn't let either have much power over us. According to Boethius, most of the time, we can't do anything to make sure we end up on the winning side of luck. Fortune is fickle. The solution is to be detached.

This kind of reminds me of the first version of the adage"bad things happen to good people."

His philosophical explorations make me want to step back, no matter how "good" or "bad" things are and focus on just "being." To accept everything as an experience. When things are bad, learn from them and move on. When things are good, stay humble, and remember that everything can turn around tomorrow.

But, at the same time, I kind of want to disagree with him. I want to believe that, while we cannot control our environment, we can to some extent make our own luck. We can prepare as best we can and arm ourselves with knowledge, preparedness, and skill. And while I wish I could learn to stay detached during the hard times, when things are good, I want to scream from happiness at the top of my lungs. I'm not good at hiding my feelings. Not ever.

So, with that intro, I have to say: My job is so freaking awesome!!!! AHHH! I love it. Love it. LOVE IT.

There is no clearer sign that you are right where you should be when you leave the office EVERYDAY skipping down the hallway shouting, "I love my job!" I feel so fortunate. How many people actually feel that way every day?

I know my job is still new and that, as Boethius says, fortune is fickle, but right now, things are so awesome. I'm not going to be detached.  In fact, I'm going to revel in it as long as I can. Because everyday I walk into my office and I do something new. On any given day, I learn at least 5 new things. I do something challenging. I do something uncomfortable.

I've been at my new job for only 8 days. And, although I only work 6 hours a day, each day is jam-packed. My work days are fully concentrated with challenges. In the past 8 work days, I've written 6 motions (for cases in three different counties). I've written a demand letter. I've met clients. I've participated in conferences. I've answered two sets of written discovery. I've prepared three answers to complaints. While I liked my old job, I've done more actual attorney work in the past 8 days than I ever did in the year I spent at my last job. No matter how much you like your job, if you aren't using your skills, your education, or your full potential, it will feel as if a part of you is missing.

As I come to work each day, I try to put my finger on exactly why being a litigation attorney is so awesome. By now, I think I kind of figured it out. With every task I complete, I'm shaping an end product. The trial at the end of the road is like a grand production, and each step along the way is a real opportunity to mold an aspect of that production. In litigation, you really get the sense that you are doing something of value on a daily basis. You see meaningful results of your work, at first immediately in a grant or denial of a motion, and then in the long run, as you present or keep evidence out of trial and get a, hopefully good, jury verdict.

And being a litigation attorney is also like a strategic game of chess. For every action I take, the opposing party makes a counter-move and vice-versa. But, unlike a never-ending game of chess, I get to see immediate results. After I write and file a motion, the other side will respond, and then the court will eventualy take action. Walking out of a hearing (or rather sitting at your desk while the partner waks out of a hearing) with an order from the court granting your wish, is a pretty amazing feeling. When that happens, it's like I literally see my cases progressing right before my eyes. And they are progressing because of things that I did!

In any legal field, with experience comes mastery and confidence. But, the laws are always changes. The court rules are always being amended. The clients are always different. The case facts are always posing new challenges. At the same time, you can be both an experienced litigator and still know absolutely nothing about a certain issue of the law. It's so wonderful.

On top of all that, lawyers truly are "counselors." We have a skill that is specialized. We know things that our clients do not know. We have such an awesome responsibility to guide our clients through the litigation process, educate them, assist them, make them comfortable, and help them make decisions about their case. I absolutetly love the client-based, customer service aspect about being an attorney.

Between helping people, seeing end-results on an almost daily basis, gaining mastery of the law while at the same time staying challenged, litigation is a pretty awesome gig. At the end of the day, I feel such a sense of accomplishment. And even though coming home to my babies is one of my favorite parts of the day, sometimes, it is really hard to force myself to leave after just 6 hours of work.

Who knows, all this may change tomorrow. Or maybe IT will stay the same and I will be the one to change. But for now, things could not get better. I'm going to ride this positivity out for as long as it will carry me.