In defense of work

Phil is an engineer with Metro-North Railroad, and Eli is a 3.5-year-old boy who loves trains, so at our house we talk a lot about how Daddy works on the trains. A few weeks ago it occurred to me that I had no idea if Eli knew what I do at work all day, so I told him.

He rolled his eyes at me like he was 13 instead of 3. "I know you're a writer," he grumbled.

I got a little thrill when I heard him say it, because I don't often give my job description as "writer." It sounds vaguely pretentious, for one — remember how Carrie Bradshaw used to flutter her eyelashes a little when she said it, like she knew writing a sex column for the fictional New York Star wasn't quiiiiite the same thing as writing for the Times? I write for the New York Teacher, so...they're both NYT, right?

But it's a little bit hard to explain to Eli the other things I do: "maintain the website," "send email and text messages," "stop and chat with colleagues on the way to the bathroom." So "writer" seemed like a safe bet.

Every evening I try my hardest to pump Eli for information on his day at school, and every evening his patience for my questions is locked up tighter than Fort Knox. I try open-ended questions — "What's the funniest thing that happened at school today?" and basic ones — "Who'd you sit next to at lunch?" Still every nugget I do get seems like the Holy Grail. (To date the most extensive story Eli has ever told about his new school was about the time that Courtney bit Evie's sleeve and "they are not best friends anymore.")

The other night, to my surprise, Eli asked me for the very first time about my day at work. As it happened, I'd had a bit of an exciting day because this guy stopped by:

(I did not stay after to get a selfie like some of my coworkers evidently did. Darn it.)

Eli somehow knows that Barack Obama is the current president, so I told him that a former president had come to work and I had gone to see him. (His response to this was, "But I didn't see him because I was in your belly," which I think means that he thinks Clinton was president when he was still in utero, which made me feel sort of old because at this point it sort of feels like Clinton was president when I was still in utero.)

Then he asked if I get to eat lunch at work (yes) and if I get to sleep (no, but sometimes I wish I could). "But you have to sleep because you'll be tired if you go to the late-stay room!" he insisted. "At work," I sighed, "everyone goes to the late-stay room."

This conversation made me realize a couple of things. First of all, as much as I'm interrogating Eli for information about his day, I should be encouraging him to ask me about my day, too. (#AskHerMore!) I could be telling him, "Today at work I was writing about a school I visited in Chinatown," or "Today at work someone shared cookies with me and made me very happy." (Except then he'd probably ask where his cookies are.)

Second of all, like any working parent I have a complex relationship with my job. (And I won't really get into all the working mom guilt now because I've written about it before.) But when I was talking to Eli last night I felt something I'd never felt before when discussing my job with him: I felt proud.

I'm proud of the work I do. This week my story about the theater teacher who inspired one of the stars of Hamilton was the cover story in the New York Teacher. I put together a campaign calling on Senate Republicans to do their jobs and hold hearings on Merrick Garland for the Supreme Court. (File under things I'd never thought would be in my job description: Writing mean tweets directed at the Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Yes, I did make that graphic myself, thank you very much.)

I don't always like my job, but I do like having a job — and that's the part that sometimes feels like I'm supposed to keep it a secret, like any real mom is supposed to prefer to be home with her kid. I like wearing business casual clothing and tasteful jewelry that no one is going to yank off. (Unless I get mugged/slashed on the subway. Har har.) I like going to the coffeemaker in the morning and logging into my computer and checking things off my Outlook task list. I especially like visiting schools all over New York City and getting to write about the amazing, dedicated, innovative educators we have in our public schools.

(I also like having a wall in my office on which to hang all my race bibs. But I digress.)

I do not love commuting for two hours every day. I do not love racing out of the office at 6 p.m. only to get home and rush Eli off to bed the second I walk through the door, most nights without even changing out of my tasteful work outfit first. And sometimes I feel a little twinge when Eli occasionally by accident calls me "Miss Erica" instead of "Mommy." (I take comfort in the fact that this probably means he spends 75% of his day at school going, "Miss Erica! Miss Erica! Miss Erica!")

I have never missed a class party. Or a parent-teacher conference. When Eli is sick, Phil and I usually split the day so that both of us get to make appearances at our offices and one of us is always home with Eli.

I know that motherhood is about choices. I know that stay-at-home moms get as much grief as working moms do and we should all stop shaming each other and end the mommy wars, blah blah blah. I know that no one out there is actually judging me for working (...is there?) But I've been thinking about this a lot lately — in fact, it's one of the reasons I haven't posted in a few months. (The other reason is I got really heavily back into reading fanfiction after the X-Files reboot. No, I'm just kidding. Mostly.) There's this vibe out there sometimes that if you're doing anything that takes any time away from the time you spend with your kids, it has to be monumentally important or lifesaving or empowering and sometimes my work just isn't. (Mean tweets notwithstanding.) I don't necessarily have occasion to gush about work (although I guess no one really does, unless you're Lin-Manuel Miranda and everyone wants to interview you because you're a goddamn wizard genius), and it can sometimes feel like unless you are Loving Every Moment of your job you should quit because YOLO. But the other day in my Timehop/Facebook Memories there was a status update from six years ago (when I was a teacher) that read: "Rachel hopes someday she'll have a job where she won't get called a stuck-up bitch. By a 10-year-old." So by that standard...I've already won.

When Eli started his new school a few weeks ago, I worried about the adjustment period. His old school was a traditional daycare, where most of the kids were in class together until the bitter end. His new school is more of a school with after-care (or "late stay" as he calls it), and only one other kid in his class stays late. I worried that Eli would feel sad at 3:45 when all the other kids were picked up by their parents to go home and he had to go across the hall to the "late-stay room."

Then I swiftly came up with a parenting move I'm still patting myself on the back for. I told him this: "At the end of the day, all the other kids are going to have to go home. But you get to stay and play more."

His eyes lit up. He actually clapped his hands with excitement. "I get to stay and play more!" he laughed. It made him feel special. It made him feel proud.

The truth is, as working parents we can come up with all kinds of reasons to feel guilty about the effect it has on our kids. But I have always made every conscious effort not to frame it as a negative, not to say "I have to go to work," not to apologize for somehow abandoning him. Going to work, going to school, even going to the late-stay room are just things we do in our family, because they are important. We are important.

Of course, this is easy for me to say now when I've had a good week, when I'm lucky enough to have a job with good benefits, when our family situation allows me to work outside my home. But it's something that's important for me to remember. I have a regular, full-time, outside-of-the-house job, and I refuse to feel guilty about it anymore.

Mr. Bear rides again

At 3.5, Eli owns every toy train from the Disney Junior show Chuggington, the entire collection of the Shalom Sesame series on DVD and about 200 MagnaTiles.

But he has never owned a teddy bear.

Last week, we borrowed Ira Sleeps Over from the library. I was very eager to share it with Eli. (He took one look at it and commented, "At the JCCA they have that book!" So jaded.)

If you're not familiar with it, Ira Sleeps Over is a classic children's book about a kid who's excited to sleep over at his best friend's house until his sister asks if he's planning to take his teddy bear. Much consternation ensues: Should he bring the teddy bear? Should he leave the teddy bear home? What if Reggie laughs at him?

After we read it I began to tell Eli about my childhood teddy bear, Mr. Bear. Mr. Bear is a medium-sized brown bear with a dapper red bowtie who now lives on my dresser.

That night Eli asked if he could sleep with Mr. Bear. "I love Mr. Bear," he said longingly. "Mr. Bear is my best friend."

Now, Mr. Bear is my longest-running relationship: 30+ years and counting. I had visions of Mr. Bear being torn limb from limb while roughhousing with Eli, or of his debonair bowtie being ripped from his fur.

"Haven't you ever seen Toy Story 3?" Phil said. "Mr. Bear has been waiting for years for someone to play with him again."

This morning I came into Eli's room and Mr. Bear was sitting on Eli's chair on top of a book. "Look!" Eli said. "Mr. Bear is reading that book! That's so cute."

He picked up Mr. Bear and lovingly laid him on the bed. "Time for you to go to bed, Mr. Bear. I'll tuck you in now." He gently covered Mr. Bear with his beloved soft blankie. Then he gave Mr. Bear a kiss on the head.

"Shhh, turn off the lights," he said in a stage whisper. "Mr. Bear is sleeping."

I didn't mind that it was 5:40 a.m. and I wished I was still sleeping myself. I was just happy Mr. Bear had a child to love him again.

* * *

Shortly after we put Mr. Bear to sleep I took Eli for a run in his jogging stroller, something we've done together a few times a week since he was 5 months old.

It was still dark when we set out, and the moon was a half-circle above us in the chilly air. "Look, the moon is following us," I said to Eli.

"The moon is racing us," he said exuberantly as he munched on his bagel (a running tradition). "Mom, start your engine!"

I made a vrooming sound as I puffed along.

"Moon, start your engine!" Eli called up to the sky. He hunched forward. "Ready...steady...GO! Mom, you need to go really fast!"

I flew down Metropolitan Avenue, where Eli always complains that the cars are going faster than we are because I run too slowly.

Somewhere along Yellowstone, we lost the moon behind the buildings. Daylight emerged. We saw some cherry blossom trees, to Eli's delight.

"It's spring!" he said happily. When we turned onto Austin Street, we saw the moon in the sky again, paler now in the daylight. And we followed the moon all the way home, where Phil and Ellie were just coming out for a walk.

"Dad, did you wake up Mr. Bear?" Eli asked. Phil assured us that he had not.

Sure enough, when we got back upstairs, Mr. Bear was still fast asleep under Eli's blankie. I hope he was dreaming the contented dreams of a bear who has a little boy to love him.

Requiem for the pacifier

On one of the last nights of 2015, I put my 3-year-old to sleep with his pacifier for the last time.

Last known pacifier photo: Dec. 27, 2015

 I didn't know it then — isn't that the way it always is with lasts? We'd been working up to it for weeks (or was it months? years?): dropping subtle hints about how the pacifier might be infecting him with germs, talking about when he'd feel ready to go without it, 'practicing' the art of sleeping with no paci ("And then I'll tuck you in, just like always," I'd say soothingly as he snuggled under his fleece blanket, pretending to be sleeping).

But we hadn't yet pulled the trigger: We hadn't yet called the Binky Fairy, or poked a hole in the tip, or pronounced it "lost," or taken it to Build-A-Bear to insert into the heart of a stuffed animal, or attached it to a balloon and launched it aloft, or hung it on a tree in Borough Park, or visited a friend's newborn to give it away, or done any of the hundred other things parents suggest you do when you're ready for your kid to give up his pacifier.

Because the truth is, I thought Eli wasn't yet ready to give it up. I knew how much it comforted him when he was sleepy, or sad. I knew he hadn't gone to sleep without it at night since he was literally 7 weeks old. If it were a blankie (he has one of those too), or a stuffed animal, I thought, I wouldn't try to take it away. How could I do it with this?

 For Eli, the pacifier seemed like a drug, one he'd take a hit off to function properly at stressful times of the day. In the midst of a tantrum he'd run back to his room and pop it in his mouth, sucking at it contemplatively while he scrubbed the tears from his face with his blankie. (This is exactly as pitiful a sight as you're imagining.)

So, like a drug, the pacifier became something secret, a hidden shame. I tried to impose rules: The pacifier is only for sleeping. The pacifier is only for your bedroom. And maybe your carseat so you can chill out when I'm driving instead of screaming like a madman. The pacifier is only for use three times in a day when not sleeping, then you have to put it away. On and on.

I wasn't sentimental about switching Eli from a bottle to a cup, or from diapers to underwear (well, I guess no one is really sentimental about that one). But something told me I was hanging on to his pacifier as much for me as for him. It was the very last thing left that signaled "baby," literally the only constant that had been with us from birth. For three years I'd listened to the sound of that squishy sucking noise when Eli slept. I'd fished pacifiers out from under dusty beds and from under car floormats, from the crumby depths of my purse and the crevices of the stroller. I'd produced pacifiers in strange hotel rooms and in doctor's offices, on long car rides and on long runs, in the middle of crying fits and in the middle of the night.

On our last night in Lancaster over winter break Eli announced that he would be going to sleep without his pacifier. "I don't need it," he said. "Just my soft blankie." As we read books, sang songs and cuddled in his hotel bed I actually felt my heart hammering. Was this it? Was it really going to be this easy?

Then, as I headed for the door, Eli stopped me. "I want my paci," he whimpered in the dark.

Phil accused me of being soft for giving it to him. But was a hotel room in Pennsylvania really the best place to try a paci-free night for the first time?! Instead, when we got back home, we practiced. And then after several nights of simulations, Eli got sick. He was so tired and so congested that for two nights straight he drifted off to sleep without his pacifier  — something he had literally never done before.

It was like a fever had been broken — the detox from the pacifier drug, if you will. And on the first night of the new year, he went to bed healthy, but without a pacifier, for the first time.

When you're a brand-new mom, you're so eager to keep track of all the exciting firsts: the first rollover, the first smile, the first steps, the first word. It's only later that you look back and realize you've missed all the lasts: the last time you swaddled him up in the Miracle Blanket, the last jar of puréed baby food, the last time you read "Where is Baby's Belly Button?" before he tore all the flaps off. As I reflected, a little numbly, about Eli's sudden departure from the land of pacifier addiction, I suddenly realized that without his beloved pacifier he might very well not ever take another nap in our apartment. At the thought of that I burst into tears like a cartoon character.

The next day, Eli decided it was time to "do my work," which somehow translated into moving his bed away from the wall and clearing out everything that had fallen behind it. In the rubble I was grimly entertained to see not one, not two, but FOUR pacifiers. I rushed to snatch them up before Eli could notice them and pop one back in his mouth, but Eli was too fast for me.

"Pacifiers!" he laughed. He gathered them up and deposited them into my hands. "Here, Mom," he said casually. "I'm not using my pacifier anymore."

It hasn't been entirely smooth sailing. The other day, in the midst of a morning meltdown, I heard Eli retreat to his bedroom and sob, "I want my paci," like he was realizing afresh the pain of saying goodbye.

Because even though he must know perfectly well where all those pacis have ended up (he's spotted them in the kitchen drawer), he hasn't asked for them back. Not once.

I don't think I'll miss the pacifier in our lives. What I will miss, though, is the sweetness it represented, the simple contentment of being able to bring peace and joy to my child with a teeny plastic bulb. It's no longer so easy to soothe his broken heart. But then again, growing up isn't easy, either.

Rusty Nobody is coming to town

When Santa saunters into the room at my husband's holiday work party, he's greeted with gleeful applause and shouts of delight. One little girl actually jumps up and down, squealing, "Santa!" The children are entranced.

All except one: my 3-year-old, who's glancing around with his eyebrows raised as if to say, "Huh?" When he spots the jolly bearded guy in the red suit, his eyes brighten. "Look! It's Rusty Nobody!" he exclaims. "Hi, Rusty Nobody!"

Who's Rusty Nobody? It's just a silly, made-up name Eli coined for Santa Claus — because he doesn't actually know who Santa Claus is.

Don't get me wrong: Eli loves Christmas. He just doesn't know that he loves it. He likes red and green well enough. He appreciates that every December, colored lights appear on the trees on our walk to school. He knows that some people pick out Christmas trees and bring them home — and this year, in just his third holiday season ever, I had to answer his first question about why we're not bringing home a Christmas tree. ("Because Grandma would have a heart attack" was edited out of my explanation.)

But at Eli's Jewish daycare, he spent the month of December learning what he felt were the most important things about Hanukkah (did you know that a menorah is actually called a hanukiyah? Eli does): that you can eat donuts fried in oil and how to cheat at dreidel (always turn your dreidel to gimel and then claim the whole pot for yourself).

So one day, when we were out admiring some holiday light decorations, it occurred to me that he probably had no idea who Santa Claus even was. We paused next to a giant inflatable Santa, his belly jiggling in the breeze.

"Do you know who this is?" I asked. Eli nodded enthuasiastically.

"Yeah!" he said. "That's Rusty Nobody!"

Sure, I thought, let's go with that.

December, more than any other time of year, sets up this kind of dichotomy: Why don't we get to bring a tree into our house? Why don't we string up colored lights?

I'm not a fan of the explanation that goes "We don't celebrate Christmas; we celebrate Hanukkah instead" — as if Hanukkah is supposed to be just some stand-in for Christmas where we've swapped out menorahs for Christmas trees and soufganiyot for figgy pudding.

Nor does explaining the complicated set of beliefs that separate Judaism and Christianity seem appropriate. After all, it's not like everyone who celebrates Christmas believes that the birth of Jesus Christ signified the coming of a Savior.

As I was puzzling over how to grapple with these questions, I realized something. I know that Eli knows about being Jewish — we light candles on Shabbat, we go to temple semi-regularly, we celebrate holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Passover — but does he know we are Jewish? For all he knows, maybe everyone lights candles and eats challah on Friday nights. Maybe everyone gives tzedakah and sings the Sh'ma right before bed.

I'd been so busy trying to weave Jewishness seamlessly into the fabric of our lives that I'd forgotten to give it a name. To say, We are Jewish, the same way I would say We are New Yorkers or We are Mets fans or We are runners — to make it clear that it's something to be proud of.

As Eli grows older, I want him to feel the same way about Christmas that I did when I was growing up: It was fun to help friends decorate their trees and nice to see cool light displays at others' houses. But it wasn't my holiday.

So when Eli spotted his pal "Rusty Nobody" at my husband's holiday party, I couldn't help but stifle a grin. A few days later, we found ourselves in Amish Country, riding a steam train through the countryside. Out the window, I spotted a large nativity display emblazoned with the words IS CHRIST IN YOUR CHRISTMAS?

I had to admit that he wasn't. But then again, neither was Rusty Nobody.

Wonderland

It's winter break and I found myself with some unexpected time off from work, so we decided to spend a few days in Lancaster after Christmas. I carefully plotted an itinerary packed with all the things I thought Eli would love — a hotel with an indoor water playground, a train ride, a visit to an amusement park. I packed snacks, the iPad, three different kinds of outerwear (the forecast was wildly variable) and raingear (just in case). I factored in time for naps, meals and driving.

What I forgot to take into account were the wild mood swings of my 3-year-old. The first 24 hours of our trip were, for the most part, pretty fantastic, punctured by a few memorable hair-raising, death-defying tantrums — we're talking running away from Mommy and Daddy down the hallway of a hotel wearing only a wet bathing suit (tantrum level: expert). By the time we were seated for lunch at Good 'N Plenty — an Amish-style restaurant so famous that it has a whole brochure to itself — I felt rather on edge, and it didn't help that (1) Good 'N Plenty was virtually silent and (2) the couple at the table next to us looked exactly like this.

One blessedly peaceful car nap in the Amish countryside later, we found ourselves at Dutch Wonderland (which, for the uninformed, is an amusement park for young children with an unspecified, vaguely medieval castle theme and absolutely no Dutch connection whatsoever). (Side note: While Eli was napping, Phil directed me to drive to a roadside pretzel stand in the middle of farmland. They were closed, but a perusal of Yelp reviews revealed that there is a dude who drives from New York City to Lancaster twice a year just for the pretzels, so how bummed are we that we didn't get to try them? Side note #2, there was literally a sign on the door that said "Temporarily closed; if you need anything, come to the house and we will open for you," and we should have gone to the house and asked for a pretzel!)

The very first thing that happened at Dutch Wonderland was that Eli really wanted to ride the train, but he did not want to wait in the line to ride the train. If you are a parent who has ever anticipated and then tried to head off a public tantrum, you know exactly how this moment felt. All my fight-or-flight instincts started to kick in. It felt like I was in for a long afternoon of reasoning with Eli, of modeling patience, of desperately cooking up little games to play while waiting in line. In short: a long afternoon of acting like an adult. Oh, the humanity!

But by some miracle we were the last riders to make it on to the train. As we started to chug around the park, Eli giggled with genuine glee every time we saw the signal arms clanging down to block the track. And a funny thing happened: I started to have fun. He was so happy, so absolutely loving the ride that I stopped fretting about the next meltdown around the corner and started to enjoy seeing him so happy.

Hours later, we were heading out of "storytime with Princess Brooke" when it suddenly seemed to have grown dark. I suggested to Eli that it might be a fun time to go on the SkyRide, a kind of open-air tram that takes you all the way across the park, to see the lights in the dark from the air. When we realized the ride was one-way only, Phil said he'd meet us at the other end.

As we waited on line, it suddenly started to rain, and as we headed further up the stairs, I realized it was growing chilly. Our jackets were in the stroller with Phil. A guy coming off the ride advised us against it — "The rain hits you in the face and it's really cold out there!" he said — and I tried to convince Eli to skip it. But he was determined: He wanted to ride.

The ride is like a ski lift, in that it doesn't stop when your car comes around. So I hoisted Eli up into the seat and quickly settled in next to him, and off we went.

There was a brief, terrifying moment where I thought about all the tantrums we had endured over the past few days and about how high up in the air we were and how easily it seemed like Eli could slide under the bar. If he loses it in mid-air, we're goners, I thought. But the same thing happened that always happens when I expect the worst out of Eli: He surprises me by being a champ. He was totally unbothered by the chilly wind or the droplets of water beating against our backs or the fact that we were really, really, really high up in the air. He chatted away about the view ("Look at that ride spinning!"), our fellow passengers riding in the opposite direction ("Look, he's all by himself! He looks cold!") and my death grip on his arm ("Mommy, why do you have your arm around me so tight?").

Later, after we reunited with Phil and rushed in from the rain to a memorably awful dining experience known as "Merlin's Buffet," I tried to explain the whole experience to him while Eli nonchalantly munched on his mac and cheese: the rainbow holiday lights twinkling below us, the cool expanse of the dark sky, Eli's enthusiastic ramblings. And as I talked ("It was kind of terrifying, but also kind of magical"), I realized it was sort of a perfect encapsulation of parenting itself. It's holding it together when you're secretly concerned your kid might fall apart. It's preparing yourself to be surprised by your child and sparkling with pride when it happens. It's going on an adventure when logic says you probably shouldn't, knowing you can't stop the ride if you want to get off — and never letting go of your kid's hand.

It's kind of terrifying, but also kind of magical.

I've written before about how I struggled with PPD when Eli was born. And here's a secret: I continue to struggle with it, mostly in the form of guilt about how I didn't enjoy those newborn days like everyone warned me I should. The morning after the SkyRide I had this weird thought (while running on the treadmill at the gym, of all places): When Eli was born I could only see how high up in the air we were, how far we could fall if we slipped. I could only feel how chilly the wind was and how the rain was beating against my back. I only saw the parts of the ride that were the most terrifying, because I didn't yet have Eli to point out how the lights were glowing and the rides were spinning and the music was playing. I needed Eli to help me realize that the cold and the wet and the height wasn't such a big deal. I needed Eli to show me everything that was magical about the wonderland.

A beautiful world

Last week, on the advice of an ENT after a neverending sinus infection, I had allergy testing done. I hate needles, and I hate doctor's offices, and I hate medical testing in general, so as I sat there watching my arms begin to swell up and burn I started to feel flushed and lightheaded. I dropped my chin against my chest, willing myself not to pass out.

Then a semi-ridiculous thing happened: I thought about Eli at the doctor's office letting the doctor look in his ears even though he hates it when the doctor looks in his ears. I told myself, "You have to be brave like Eli!" And it worked.

That night at bedtime, I told Eli I had been thinking about him. "I was scared because I didn't want to get the shot," I told him. "But I said, 'I have to be brave like Eli!'"

Eli threw his arms around me like he understood somehow that I was paying him a compliment of the highest order. "You're the best mommy in the whole entire world!" he said.

They say that for everything there's a season, and December seems to be the season for sweetness for Eli; last December, I wrote about a poignant walk to school with Eli where he saw some holiday lights and proclaimed, "Lights! They're beautiful!"

This morning, on the same route to school with my bigger and more verbal kid, Eli gave Phil a king's farewell as Phil headed down the stairs into the subway. Sticking his head through the railing as Phil descended, Eli called after him, "Bye! Love you! See you after school! Love you! See you later!" Then he blew kisses. Hurrying to join me, grinning, he told me, "I gave Daddy kisses for the stairs." Then he looked down thoughtfully. "The subway is under the stairs," he said.

"The subway is underneath us right now," I agreed.

He studied the sidewalk, then looked up, taking in busy Queens Boulevard: the man in a can selling coffee and bagels, the dozen newspaper boxes in a row, the trucks unloading in front of Key Food and CVS. Then he looked up at me.

"This is a beautiful world," he said.

This is such a beautiful world, Eli, and I'm so glad you're in it with me.

Happy holidays.

It isn't a rat race. It isn't a race at all.

Every evening, I sit in my office and watch the clock as the minutes tick forward. When it hits 6 p.m., I grab all my things and race for the door.

It's not because I hate my job. It's because on a good day (and we all know how frequently the MTA has "good days"), it takes me at least an hour to get home. In an ideal world I walk through the door at 7 p.m. and we aim to have Eli in bed by 7:30.

Every evening is a race against time.

I spend that narrow half-hour on the bridge between two worlds, alternately wishing time would speed up and slow down. Usually I'm in such a rush to jump into our bedtime routine that I don't change out of my work clothes, sometimes shedding my tights in the foyer of our apartment and counting down the minutes until I can unhook my bra. (You know you've done it too.) (On some nights Eli has been known to survey me suspiciously and ask: "Why aren't you in your pajamas?")

If he's not already dressed for bed, I hurry Eli into his pajamas and into the bathroom to brush his teeth. If he stalls, I threaten to reduce the number of books we read at bedtime (three is the sacred number). I limit the number of drinks of water he can have and the number of times he can say goodnight to Daddy and the number of minutes I'll hang out in his room.

Then after I've left and am finally, blessedly unhooking my bra, I realize that I miss him.

In the mornings, too, we have plenty of time between when my early bird wakes up and when we have to leave for school, yet we seem to be always rushing. He doesn't want to walk himself to the elevator, or he wants a snack "for the road," or he wants to bring a gigantic fire truck, presumably so that he can refuse to let other kids play with it. I hurry to school, swerving the stroller around puddles and poop and people waiting for the bus, and then I linger in the doorway, wanting to watch him a little longer, not wanting to say goodbye.

I've written before about how challenging it is to be a working parent. (Funnily enough, it was right at this same time of year. I guess December, when the days are short and the holidays are imminent, is an especially tough time of year to be a working parent!) In the year since I wrote that post, there's been a lot in the news about companies offering more parental leave for newborns, but other than that, when it comes to flexibility and work/life balance, not a lot has changed. I still feel guilty racing out the door of my office at 6 p.m. when everyone else is still at their desks as if I don't have a single second to spare (spoiler alert: I don't), and I also still feel guilty racing Eli out the door of our apartment every morning as he casts pitiful glances backwards at all the toys he's leaving behind.

Lately there's also been a nice dash of existential melancholy mixed in, too: What am I doing this for? What's the point of all this? It seems like an apt question that applies whether "this" is "editing the copy on this PDF of this flier for the millionth time" or "snapping Eli's chuggers together, at his request, then waiting patiently as he has a complete meltdown in reaction to the fact that I snapped the chuggers together at his request."

This morning, when we were about three-quarters of the way to school, Eli announced that he had to pee. So I started running. "I see it!" Eli shouted as we neared his school, hopping casually out of his stroller as I panted and wiped the sweat from my neck. It was fitting: These days I feel like I'm always running toward or away from something, constantly in a hurry to get somewhere so that when I get there I can think ahead to being somewhere else.

(For the record, he squeezed out approximately one drop of pee after dancing into his classroom and breezily greeting everyone like he hadn't made me sprint the final quarter-mile to school.)

It's fitting then too that I'm participating in the holiday running streak, running a mile every day between Thanksgiving and New Year's. Because every day this month I've found myself out running, wanting to get it over with while simultaneously wishing it could last longer, not sure where I'm running to or how fast I'm planning to run there, not even sure if it's the best idea to be out running at all.