Interview

My pal Karen had a mock interview done by another journaler...I enjoyed reading her responses and she volunteered to interview me! She sent me these questions a few days ago, but I've been too preoccupied and distracted to complete my assignment. So here goes!

1. Does being a stay at home Mom feel like a completely different life from what you did before, or is there a lot of continuity?
 
There is some continuity between working full time and staying home full time. Instead of spending a lot of time at my computer in an office, I do it in my home office. Instead of spending all my daylight hours shut up in a windowless office, I spend them shut up inside a window filled house. Other than that, it's completely different. The only adult interaction I have during the day now is via IM. My daily activities are more geared around preparing meals, changing diapers and playing with my son.
 
2. What do you miss most about working outside the home?  What do you not miss at all?
 
I miss the daily adult interaction with my coworkers. They were a fun bunch. I miss having the freedom to just walk away from the work and take a break whenever I felt like it. I miss the amazing cafeteria they had at my old company. Lunch nowadays is a challenge. My menu at home is much more limited. I miss the satisfaction of earning a good living and contributing to the household finances and retirement savings. I miss the satisfaction of doing my job well and being recognized for that fact.
 
I don't miss the hour long commute each way. I don't miss the office politics and petty back stabbing. I don't miss the sometimes long hours and stress. I don't miss the long walk from my office to the cafeteria. I don't miss often having to make due with crappy out of date equipment. I don't miss the feeling of being imprisoned in a large fortress of cement and steel when a deadline loomed. I don't miss the exhaustion from working a long day and then staying up way too late at night trying to have some semblance of a "life" outside the office.
 
3. You're obviously a great Mom.  Did you always want to have children (or at least one child) someday, or was it something that became achingly important to you only after you became an adult married person?

Well, thanks! And yes...it was always a given in the back of my mind that one day I would have children. When I was a kid, all my dream careers would always be followed with "and a Mommy."

In college, I thought once I got married that I would have kids right away. I never thought I would have a successful career before hand. When my work life really started heading in a positive direction, I was still newly married. We wanted to wait until we had a house (and not just a rental) to start our family.

By the time we got the house, we had stopped using birth control and were just waiting for chance to dictate what came next. After a couple years of waiting for lightening to strike, my career had really taken off.  But even with the satisfaction that came with being a successful career woman, we still initiated serious medical intervention to try and get pregnant.

In the end, I had JUST received the promotion of my dreams - upper mid-level management with real challenges to my technical expertise, but we still signed up with a local adoption agency and a private adoption attorney. I'd only been in my new job for a couple months when I had to tell my Director that Tyler was on the way. She was stunned. I think she honestly thought that I had given up my dreams of becoming a mother in favor of my career goals. She also thought I would return to work at the end of my maternity leave of absence.

I never went back.
 
4. Would you please describe a perfect day with John and Tyler?

Oh that's easy. All of us on vacation someplace interesting, out having fun and seeing the sights all day, and then relaxing in a luxury hotel room and ordering room service at the end of the day. Ahhh, perfect.
 
5. If you could go anywhere in space and time for the next five days, taking nothing with you and returning with nothing but memories, where and when would you go?

My first thought was to bear witness to the historical events that led to our modern celebration of Easter (did he or didn't he rise from the dead...) but if I come back with an answer that is contrary to the belief of half the world's population; would anyone believe me? Probably not. And who wants to carry that kind of historical burden.

So...I say I'd like to spend 3 of the five days with my birth mother leading up to my own birth, witness me being born, and then spend the following 2 days with her after I was gone to see her reactions. I think that would answer every question I have ever had about the unknown portion of my history.