We moms need each other.
I relate to this post utterly and completely, and thought that many of you would as well. So I asked Erin if I could publish it here.
Every working parent should read this.
The Post Every Working Parent Needs To Read
Real Talk
On The Road (Again)
That's a wrap on St. Louis!
I've spent a ton of time this summer with my cohost for the project I'm working on. Together we drag suitcases down hotel corridors, crawl into Suburbans for five seconds of sweet, sweet air conditioning, and commiserate over our mutual dislike of the straight-from-a-box scrambled eggs that hotel chains all over the country offer up in their "delicious! complimentary! breakfast bar!" We also talk and talk and talk, because that's what you do when you're hanging around on a set all day.
My cohost is more of a veteran of television work (and the associated travel schedule) than I am, so I've been picking his brain for hints about what life will look like should our project continue beyond this summer - basically, should our show get picked up for series and should neither of us get replaced (something I won't know for a couple of months at least). I ask question after question...but whenever I hear his descriptions of "life on the road" I feel my heart rate speed up. He talks about evenings spent perched on top of washing machines in Holiday Inn basements because you're fresh out of clean clothing. About waking up and not being entirely sure what city you're in. About weeks going by without a single glimpse of home. These words don't just "bum me out" - they put me into pure fight or flight mode.
Sleep Baby Sleep
Very cute. Very loud.
Q. Dear Jordan,
I was wondering if you ever wrote a post about how you and Kendrick dealt with getting your children to sleep through the night? My baby girl still wakes up multiple times a night, often winds up in our bed, and still needs to nurse to sleep. I don't think I can handle full-on "crying it out," but I just started working again full-time and I am EXHAUSTED.
That One Story I Skipped
Hell's Kitchen, NYC | November 2011
How is it possible that I've never written about breastfeeding? I've written about Boobs After Baby (oh my god). I've written about the challenges of returning to work with a newborn. I've written about my fear that I might not love my second child as much as my first (spoiler: I do). How have I not written about a topic that's an absolutely consuming one for new mothers, not to mention a controversial one for what seems like everyone on the planet?
But after a request from a reader I went hunting for a post in which I talk about my own experiences with breastfeeding, and didn't find anything, save for an offhand mention here and there. Apparently breastfeeding is a topic that I've skipped around for nearly five years now...and when I thought about it I realized that there is a good reason for this: for a long, long time I was afraid to touch this subject, because I was afraid of what my choices might say about me.
High Alert
I met with a therapist today. Not a psychiatrist - a therapist, and specifically one specializing in cognitive-behavioral therapy. What CBT is, essentially: an intensive, results-geared 12-18 week course of therapy during which you learn specific techniques that you can use to better cope with your anxiety (or depression, or whatever it is that brought you in).
I sat down on the therapist's couch next to a little machine bubbling lavender-scented steam into the air and gave him my best "Look at how happy and okay I am!" smile (because, as everyone knows, the most important part of therapy is convincing your therapist you totally don't need it. ...Right?). He asked me why I was there, and even though I knew this was a pretty unhelpful way to begin the session, I told him the truth: that I didn't know.
It really was true; these days, I feel more or less...fine. Great, actually. My anxiety is under control; my insomnia has virtually disappeared. I'm stressed about various things, of course, but they feel like things I probably "should" be stressed about, like travel and mortgage payments and such. I only booked the appointment in the first place because the psychiatrist who I see about once a month to check in on my medication suggested it, and so while I paid for that day's appointment at the reception desk I also scheduled a new one with his colleague. And then all of a sudden it was a month later and there I was: sitting in a therapist's office and talking about feelings.
