Cindy

Droog

Read Cindy's bio and previous columns

December 10, 2007

Large, But Not in Charge

When I woke up this morning, I knew it was Tuesday. It wasn’t until about 2 p.m. that I figured out it was Wednesday. Around that time, I went to a meeting. In the wrong conference room. Thankfully, I escaped before they decided to assign me something.

I have a condition. It’s called nine-months-pregnant.

Just a few short weeks ago, the last thing I wanted to hear was, “Wow! Look at you! You’re all baby!” I assumed that meant: You have no other womanly shape about you any more. You are a lump.

But now, I’m embracing that statement. I have accepted what it really means. I am all baby, and therefore, no brain. I know it won’t last. I know I must have about half of my brain left, because I’ve managed to navigate my way from work to daycare to pick up my son without getting lost, forgetting to buckle his seatbelt or making sure his favorite truck stays in my backseat.

As for the other half, it hasn’t been easy for me to admit that its disappearing act is real. I’ve always prided myself on staying balanced, on not experiencing things like cycle-related mood swings, the split personality associated with my Gemini zodiac sign or the tendency to act crazy based on the alignment of the moon or the planets.

So, when I started to lose my mind over the past four weeks, I thought . . . well, I just didn’t. I stopped that wild thing called “thought” and simply embraced things that were routine with all my might. And, I’ve grown to appreciate them more.

For example, I used to get bored reading the same book to my toddler eight or nine times in a row. Now, in the last few weeks of pregnancy, there isn’t one single thing I can think of that I’d rather be doing. I know the words. I know the pages he’ll want to stop at, and the pages he’ll turn before I’m done reading them.

I no longer prod him, “Is there a different book you want Mommy to read?” Nope. I just happily repeat.

At work, I still show up early. I still go to meetings. I still do my job every single day. I’ve had trouble going above and beyond my call of duty lately, which bothered me tremendously at first. But what I’ve realized is that there is beauty in this familiarity, in the nothing-but-mundane days where I say good morning to a group of people I truly enjoy spending 50 hours a week with. To a boss who likes work to be fun when it can be. To my messy, seemingly chaotic cubicle and my office-brand coffee. (It’s no Starbucks. But it works.)

Maybe I am giving in to hormones a little. Perhaps I’m preparing myself for the amazing flood of love that pours out the first time you see a new baby by looking around my current environment, sans newborn, and realizing that I have a whole lot of other things to be thankful for.

I swear I’m not planning to wrap any of my coworkers into a little blankie, burrito-style as my husband and I call it, and snuggle them in the middle of the night. And tears of joy probably won’t run down my face, and I probably won’t call my grandmother in Ohio to tell her the news when an invitation to join a new project team gets sent my way.

But I do love my job. My coworkers. My company. I’ve realized that it can be a little too easy, too tempting, to use a Working Mom column to vent frustration. So call it hormones. Call it pending birth. Call it, as I jokingly did last week, being “large, but not in charge.” Of my emotions.

Or call it what I’ve decided to this week: A welcome change of heart that – the longer I can hold on to it, just like that newborn – the better.

Editor’s Note: We are very pleased to announce that Cindy Droog gave birth to a healthy Alec Thomas Droog on November 20, 2007. Alec, Cindy, dad Tom and big brother Anthony are all doing well.

© 2007 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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