Tinafey To the left is a picture of Tina Fey who is obviously the only mother on earth who CAN do it all. It was either that or a stock picture of a woman unsuccessfully juggling a briefcase, a grocery bag and a baby. I chose IRONY. Anyway…

I had a post all planned to write this evening. Something about babies and the Oscars. It was going to be HILARIOUS. But it will have to wait. Because today is the day that this whole blogging/working/mothering thing came to an ugly head.

I'm actually in Utah right now. On what was supposed to be a ski vacation with my husband's family. I haven't mentioned it yet because life moves faster than I am able to write about it.

Another reason I haven't mentioned it is because I came extremely close to sitting the trip out due to a freelance project. But at the last moment, I decided that what I can do from home, I can do from Utah.

Which is true.

When you don't factor in the "missing out on all the fun" part.

Even so, it was all going pretty smoothly. My clients are a pleasure to work with and our cousin Robyn (Saint Robyn as we will now call her) doesn't ski and agreed to watch Mazzy during the day. So I've been working most days while everyone else skis and then working at night while everybody else drinks beer in the hot tub and watches movies and eats ice cream and makes fun of me because they know I have no time to defend myself.

All fine and par for the course.

Until today.

Today, besides the fact that I realized February ends on the 28th meaning everything that is due on the 1st has three days less to get done than I thought (please slap your palm on your forehead in my honor), I was also plagued with numerous computer problems.

Crashing. Freezing. Unexplained uploading glitches.

But by far and away, the WORST problem is that the only outlet willing to acknowledge my laptop charger appears to be the one by the kitchen table. This makes things difficult because (as I've previously mentioned) Mazzy believes that the computer exists for the sole purpose of showing her videos of her herself. If not obliged, she goes beserk. So I've been working upstairs in my room with the door shut until the laptop dies and then coming downstairs to work/recharge at the kitchen table while Mazzy whines at my leg and Saint Robyn does her best to pull her away.

Let's just say, ignoring the baby feels a lot better when she cannot see me.

And then to top it off, I had to do a conference call at the exact moment that my husband was putting Mazzy to bed. The fact that Mazzy is not used to her dad putting her to bed combined with the fact that she received absolutely zero attention from mommy today made bedtime quite the tantrum-esque affair.

Not that I was present for the tantrum. I was just hearing her wail her head off through the wall as I tried my best to concentrate on the call.

Inbetween underlining revisions and circling deadlines, I kept thinking that if she was still crying by the time I got off, then I would have no choice but to go in and comfort her. But when I got off the phone, almost to my disappointment, she had already begun to settle down.

So you know what I did? Just to solidify my standing as a horrible mom?

I went in and scooped her up anyway.

If she had started to cry again or begged to be let out of the room, I think I would have lost it. Her further discomfort would have been entirely my own doing. But luckily, she melted right into my shoulder as I sang her to sleep.

In that moment, I am aware, I needed her more than she needed me.

And now I'm blogging about it because I needed a break from work and writing about the Oscars wasn't gonna cut it as a stress reliever.

Plus, everybody else went out to dinner.

If I wasn't trying to wean myself off of emoticons, there would be a frownie face at the end of that last sentence.