Weekend Wrap-Up of the Week Before

While I was busy reliving our crazy weekend in Houston- being fancy and marching for science - the rest of the week unfolded. Monday started out very delayed after I went to bed for the first time at 3:30 a.m. after taking Claire to her first ever ER visit. (It was scary; she's 100% fine now.) I was tired. It was a groggy start to the week.

On Wednesday all 3 kids had dental appointments. Unlike last time, Cora did not try to attack anyone who touched her mouth. Instead, she was delighted to be there and giggled her way through her oral exam. Her teeth look great! Claire's do too!

Landon's are healthy (taking away sweets for a month last fall seems to have incentivized him to brush his teeth regularly), but they are badly misaligned. I arrived at the very end of the appointment (James had taken them all there at 1:30, but he has to leave at 2:45 for coaching; we high-fived as switched places. Two working parents y'all, it's a daily exercise in logistics) and the dentist recapped the exams and said, "With Landon, we're looking at braces sooner rather than later."

"Oh, like in the next year?" I asked, thinking 10 was young for braces and also wondering if Cora was going to steal another toothbrush.

"No, like you should call to make an appointment with the orthodontist tomorrow."

Oh. I was neither emotionally nor financially prepared for that.

So he now has an appointment for this Thursday. I'm glad we went ahead and maxed out our Health FSA for the year, though that was supposed to be for my massages and not Landon's braces. Good thing I haven't actually scheduled any massages yet. He's just a tiny baby though? How can he need braces?!

Except he very much does because the current alignment of his teeth means that his upper and lower front teeth connect with every bite and he's already chipped off a little piece of his front tooth and that's an adult tooth so we prefer they stay in their original shape.

Since I'd taken the last two hours off work for the appointment, we got to spend a little extra time together before afternoon activities. The girls wanted to color and read, but Landon immediately asked to go outside and play baseball. I do not play baseball. Landon does not play baseball. But James got him a glove, bat, and some practice balls for his birthday two years ago and we pull them out every now and then to play around in the front yard.

But ever since one friend had a birthday party at a TCU baseball game last weekend and another friend told him all baseball players make $60 million a year, Landon is ALL IN. I told him we only had 10 minutes before we had to leave for gymnastics and he responded "you can throw like 100 balls in that amount of time mom." He has high estimations of my abilities. Also, "That one was outside my stroke zone, Mom." ranks highly in the list of phrases I never thought anyone would say to me.

Thursday was Take Your Kids to Work Day! I've written about what this day means to be before (funny enough, as part of last year's TYKTWD post and also some career musings that sound an awful lot like my recent thought tornadoes); it was genuinely one of the more impactful events of my childhood. For my kids, who find it more surprising that men can be lawyers and work in offices, it's more of a party and fun chance to spend time together.

Being the government, there are no resources devoted to the event, so it's all employee run and fund-raised. They did such a great job! All the kids got badges and were sworn in as investigators, learned about investing money, and then lead their own investigation into the big bad wolf and whether he defrauded the three little pigs. It was super cute.

Also, there was pizza and playtime outside.

Totally typical day.

Despite the efforts of the organizers, the kids still aren't totally sure they know what I do all day, but they are SUPER jealous I get to ride on an escalator every morning before I do it.

Determined to use the rest of our day as productively as possible, we stopped to get haircuts on the way home from "work." Landon requested hair product and learned about styling creme. Claire got her bangs trimmed and Cora desperately wanted a haircut of her very own. "You cut mine too?!" she asked hopefully of each employee. Someday Cora, someday. You may be 7, but you'll have that first haircut section filled out in your baby book.

After a few minutes at home (more baseball!), it was time for swimming - or Take Your Kids to Work Day Round 2!!

Swimming is serious; also accessorized

James had had a significantly more productive day than me- guest lecturing at a TCU business class again (Product Innovation), Shark-Tank-style judging their end-of-year projects, and then driving out to his warehouse to check on his latest shipment of Bricks.

But we got to join in on his last part and his first love- the coaching. I love so much that he gets to coach our kids- he's so very good and I trust him completely with their talent and enthusiasm, and I know he loves getting to see them at the pool twice a week. His whole face lights up when we walk in.

Cora helped him coach the big kids' class before having a swim lesson of her own.

All in all, Thursday was a great and thoroughly exhausting day.

On Friday we signed up for swim team. All of us. Even me (gulp). And Cora. We're pushing the "6 & Under" age group limit a bit- Claire joined when she was 4 and she was the youngest one on the team. Cora will be exactly 3.5, but she can do 25 yards across the pool and I figure she's stuck at the meets all day Saturday anyway. Why shouldn't she have an event? Plus, look how she rocks the tiny regulation all black swimsuit I had to scour Amazon to find her. Size 22. It's the tiniest cutest thing I've ever seen.

She refused to take it off for the rest of the day, including a Friday Night Movie Night showing of The Secret Life of Pets. This summer is going to be amazing. Assuming I still remember how to swim.

And that was the week! Now I'm only one day behind and we're about to leave for our final Casa Manana children's play of the season (The Little Mermaid!!), so we'll save today for later and talk about food. This week's was delicious!

Monday: whole wheat pasta with tomato cream sauce. A meal that always feels like a cheat because it's so quick and easy, but it's delicious, and as noted above, I was tired.

Tuesday: Bean and Rice Burritos. Why were these so delicious? I loved the Mexican rice in the rice cooker. Our grocery store happened to have a "House-made Taco Tuesday Trio" in the deli made up of white queso, guacamole, and pico, so we I used all of those things on top, plus some sliced olives, chopped cilantro, and more chopped tomatoes. I used whole wheat tortillas to wrap up the refried black beans and Mexican rice. Kids thought I was a culinary genius.

Wednesday: Meatloaf (I finally found my perfect recipe by mixing together a bunch of other people's recipes!), Roasted Russet and Sweet Potato Wedges, Roasted Cauliflower and Carrots. Cora inhaled her veggies and potatoes, but the meat hurt her feelings.

Thursday: Slow Cooker Chicken Tostadas. Another new recipe that was simple yet somehow super crazy delicious. I think the chicken could use more seasoning (I'll add a 1/4 cup homemade taco seasoning next time), but the kids LOVED the tostada ("mom you made a FLAT TACO!") and I got to use up the rest of my Taco Tuesday Trio from the deli. I also put more refried black beans underneath the shredded chicken and cheese before broiling the tostadas.

Friday: We were supposed to have this chicken spaghetti, but the giant organic chicken I'd bought and frozen from Costco many moons ago was still frozen after 4 days in the fridge, so I had to fight it with tongs and a large fight to get the giblets out and after that horror show (the bag of innards broke and got everywhere), and then it took forever to boil and long story short the kids had mac and cheese, I had champagne, and then James and I ordered Chinese after they went to bed.

Saturday: Chicken Spaghetti! Finally made on Friday, ready to go in the fridge for tonight after our Casa Manana children's play!

Sunday: French Onion Pot Roast over Creamy Polenta It feels sunday-y. With carrots and cauliflower. And maybe brownies? We'll see where the day takes us.

Career Days

I wrote the first part of this back in April. I don't know why I never published it, I assume other things were going on, but I stumbled back across it just as I was about to write about my experience volunteering at Elementary School Career Day. So we'll start there first.

~ ~ ~ Take Your Kids to Work Day, April 2016 ~ ~ ~

Yesterday was Take Your Kids to Work Day. Cora was not invited (next year I'm sure, she just needs to decide she wants to follow directions [blogger's note: she has!]), but the big kids were all about it. This was year 4 of our TYKTWD shenanigans and just look how young and squishy they looked in year 1!

I've written about this before, but I have very strong memories of my dad bringing my sister and I to his office back when he worked for Shell Oil in Houston and it was Take Your Daughters To Work Day. I'm sure for many it was an excuse to skip school and an annoyance to parents who didn't get any work done, but as a 13-ish year old girl who was really good at school but had never seen any women go to work in a professional office environment, it made an immensely powerful impact. We lived about 45 minutes away from Houston, so my dad got up early in the morning to drive to the park and ride and take a bus into downtown. We went into the city maybe a handful of times over those 10 years and I didn't have any memories of his office. So being at Shell, which had an entire giant sky scraper downtown and seeing all these professional people bustling to and fro in suits and briefcases... the shiny elevators and big desks... the women- so many women!- so put together and business-like, I honestly had no idea that existed. Maybe in an abstract way, I knew my dad worked with women, I had just never seen it. And seeing is a very powerful thing.

Obviously, my kids are well aware women work, and now boys are included (which is appropriate since in my house it is a little more of a stretch to picture an adult man in an office than an adult woman), but I still enjoy the day and the opportunity to spend more time with the kids and see them interact with new people in a new way.

It's hard to believe I could have been at the SEC long enough to be on our 4th Take Your Kids to Work Day. (A day I enjoyed thoroughly but still had to recover from post-Cora's-swim-lesson with a sangria swirl margarita. And then I recovered from that by dragging my tequila-fueled self to barre which was a terrible decision because I ended up subbing this morning's class. I should have taken the kids to that.)

When I first moved to the SEC, I assumed I'd be here for 3-4 years. Long enough to gain some precious deposition and case management experience, bring a few cases before the Commission, and generally get to know the securities litigation area (because, though I pretended to be a business litigator, I was really an IP attorney for most of my time in Austin). I assumed that when my former boss at V&E left his new post as SEC Regional Director to return to private practice, I'd go with him. I honestly enjoyed most of my time in private practice and I loved the actual work. To this day there is much I miss about being a BigLaw attorney and I never thought I was saying goodbye to that gilded legal cage forever.

Then I started my new job here. I immediately fell for the autonomy of the position, even if it frequently scared the crap out of me. Successful rounds of testimony gave me much-needed injections of confidence after BigLaw told me only partners could be trusted with anything of any importance. I enjoyed digging for facts and finding the story, basically mimicking what I'd found to enjoy about managing litigation discovery as a junior associate, except now I was also the partner and I could do whatever I wanted with the facts and story I uncovered. Plus I had subpoena power, so doing the uncovering was sometimes a little easier than it used to be.

But I fell hardest for the life. The "go home after 8.5 hours of work and LIVE MY LIFE" life. And not just that, but go home and build a life to live! I found hobbies and sleep and barre and yoga and a third child. I found a deeper well to support my husband and parent my kids. I found dimensions to me I had buried since college. My life is so much broader and so much deeper and so much MORE than it could ever have been when I worked on nights and weekends. Containing my work hours within regular working hours has been extraordinary.

But even still, and even though I really like my job, there are things I miss about being a BigLaw defense attorney. I don't know that I miss them enough to go get them back, but I worry sometimes that staying where I am is somehow settling in a way that my former gold-star-getting self would be disappointed by, because I know, underneath, that I'm in it as much for the lifestyle as for the work itself and in some aspects the defense work fulfilled me more. Then again, my former gold-star-getting self didn't have time to work out, so I'm pretty sure I can outrun her.

~ ~ ~ Career Day, November 2016 ~ ~ ~

Last week I did my 3rd round of Career Day at the kids' elementary school. Career day is exhausting and it always seems to pop up at a bad time, but at the end I'm always SO glad that I went and did it. I think it's important to represent professional, office careers- the ones that, unlike the very practical and visible (and obviously very important!) doctor, veterinarian, policeman, firefighter, etc., are a little harder for kids to see and understand. I think it's important in my kids' very socioeconomically diverse school to talk about grad school, working in an office, working to help people in a different, more academic way. I think it's important to show up as a professional female, in her pantsuit and loving her job. I just think a broad representation of careers is important and I'm glad I can offer mine.

For any other lawyers out there who will ever volunteer at their own kids' school (or another school! Even if you don't have kids, schools LOVE professional volunteers to speak on career days and if you know of one you should volunteer!), I thought I'd write up a bit of what I say. Being a lawyer is a little hard to explain to the really young grades, but I try, and I've had some really wonderful discussions and Q&A with the older grades.

After I introduce myself, I start out broad. I tell them I'm a lawyer, or attorney, and I work with our laws to make sure they are followed and applied the right way. I tell them that I loved school, that I loved to read and write and that reading and writing are still what I spend most of my time doing. I tell them I studied hard and got good grades, that I went to college and did the same, and THEN I went to a special school called law school for another three years after college so I could learn the law and become a lawyer. I talk about how there are lots of kinds of lawyers, just like there are lots of kinds of doctors, and then I get suggestions from older classes on types (criminal and divorce always come first, so I try to talk about how lawyers help with adoptions, we help business grow and merge and hire new people, we help create wills and charities, we help people find an answer to an argument they can't solve themselves) or just describe a few for the younger ones.

I talk about how being a lawyer is important because we make sure everyone is treated fairly. How even if you did something wrong, you still get to tell your side of the story and lawyers help make sure the punishment is right. I'll give hypos like, "let's say your sister tells your parents that you stole her toy. Would it be fair for them to punish you without hearing your side of the story? Would it be fair if they punished you but she never got punished for stealing your toys? Lawyers help make sure that your parents hear your side of the story and that rules are applied consistently and fairly." If I have time, I've done a surprisingly fun hypo with older classes- 4th grade and up, about a contract dispute surrounding an agreement to paint a house:

"What if you hire someone to paint your room. You tell them the paint color - electric blue - and you agree on how much you will pay them and you go to work. You come home, and your room is neon pink! What should happen?"
--> You shouldn't have to pay them!
But what if you didn't actually say "electric blue," you just gave them a paint number?
--> They still got it wrong!
But what if you gave them the wrong paint number?
--> Then it's your fault!
But what if you gave them the wrong paint number but you also told them after how excited you were to have a blue room?
What if he tried to show you a sample of the paint color but you didn't answer him back?
What if it was your fault and the painter already spent his own money on the paint?
What if it was his fault, do you have to pay for his time for painting the wrong color? What about the right color? What if he doesn't want to paint for you anymore? What if he is the only one who can paint your room?

And so we go on. It's fun watching them start out with black and white answers of fault and then realize that sometimes both people are wrong and both people are right and then you need lawyers and precedent to figure out who owes who what. It's hard making commercial litigation accessible, but I had 5th grade class SO into that hypo they were all ready to start writing their briefs.

And then I talk about my job specifically. I give a very superficial story of an offering fraud, about your friend saying he can double your money by investing it in an oil well (because it's always an oil well) but goes and buys candy instead. All the kids are horrified their friend would do such a thing. I tell them I read a lot and ask a lot of questions and talk to a lot of people and then read some more. I need to learn the whole story so I can figure out if the person we're investigating actually did something wrong and that many times they haven't and then I just close my case (like sometimes your sister tattles on you but you didn't actually do anything).

I tell them one of the most fun parts of my job is "taking testimony" where I swear a witness in and ask questions on the record in order to get to the bottom of things. Then I ask for volunteers and swear the witness in and try to discover if they've ever broken a rule in the cafeteria or classroom. The kids LOVE this and it's super fun to catch them breaking rules, though usually the younger kids are too honest for me to trap. I did get to trap Claire this time- she said she never got out of her chair in the cafeteria, but then I asked if she was in the cafeteria right now. She told me no, in a voice that said she felt sorry for me for asking such a dumb question, and then I pointed out that she must have gotten up from her chair in the cafeteria in violation of the rule. The class loved it. Then we talked about the fact Claire would have a lawyer who would point out why my statement was wrong - she may have gotten out of the chair, but she didn't necessarily break a rule to do it.

I get lots of questions along the way and I love answering them. I usually have 30 mins in each class and spend the last 10 or so taking testimony until the clock runs out. And then I do that 3-4 more times. I do my own kids' classes and then get drafted for a few others. It's exhausting but really fun and rewarding. If nothing else I try to promote the idea that lawyers = fairness and you should always always get one!

Little Lawyers

Today was our second year to participate in Take Your Kids to Work Day at the SEC. Cora participated for 10 minutes, but Landon and Claire stayed the whole day.

Like last year, there wasn't a lot of actual working, but we did have a very short game of hide-and-go-seek in my office, followed by some coloring and singing of Frozen songs. Which is exactly how I normally spend the hour of 9:15-10:15 a.m.

Once the real program began, there was a very special federal court room visit for the older kids where they would get a tour by federal marshalls before sitting in the gallery and watching a criminal sentencing hearing. Landon said he wanted to go and though he was under the recommended age limit, I knew I could trust him to sit still and be silent as required, and Claire came back up to my office with me. So while Landon got more courtroom time than your average 3rd year biglaw associate, Claire turned my binder clips into earrings and colored me 87 pictures of Easter eggs that we cut out and hit around my office.

After the courtroom tour it was time for a hot dog lunch and playtime on the rope jungle gym in the park outside my office. Again, a perfect representation of what I do each day. Landon seemed pretty impressed by the courtroom and told me a bad guy was wearing handcuffs and had to go to jail for 9 years (drug offense). He's going to be so disappointed when he realizes I can't send anyone to jail and my subpoenas aren't even self-executing.

After playtime the kids split into groups and did a scavenger hunt around the offense which was a huge hit and then we all gathered in the biggest conference room to watch Frozen. Claire can't WAIT to work at the SEC when she's a grown-up.

But in all seriousness, I have very strong memories of going to Take Your Daughter to Work Day with my dad when I was little. I remember waking up SO early, riding the bus into downtown Houston (we lived about 45 minutes out), and walking into the giant Shell office building. It felt so foreign and special. My dad worked at Shell for more than 20 years, but we lived so far from his office that it was a very separate part of him. Whereas my kids knew where all the juice boxes were in the kitchens at the firm, and could navigate their way to my office door from the parking garage, we never visited my dad at work. And unlike my kids who know a few dozen female lawyers and would currently find it far less noteworthy to hear about a friend's dad who stayed home than a friend's mom, I had never seen a professional female until I started walking into One Shell Plaza back in the early 1990's.

And it blew my mind. All these women, moms!, wearing suits and high heels and Going To Work. At the time, the General Counsel of Shell was a woman and she did the intro speech and I still remember seeing her on the podium addressing us all and feeling like the world had opened up. I could wear a suit. I could talk to lots of people. I don't know how much Shell spent on that program, and I have no idea if they still do it, but it definitely made an impact on me. And it's not that I had any real concept yet of staying home v. working, or that my parents ever said I couldn't or shouldn't work, it's just that I'd never seen it. And seeing is so much more believing or hearing or hoping. I think it was a bigger moment for me than I recognized at the time.

My kids are clearly well aware that both men and women work outside the home (and inside the home/pool!), but I still think it's nice for them to see it, even if they walk away mostly thinking I watch movies and climb on ropes all day.

18 Months In

I have a half post written in answer to a friend's question about how JP's swim school plans and successes have affected my own career plans (which, last time we talked, were to be at the SEC for 3-4 years and then go back to private practice, almost certainly in another, larger city). I still intend to finish that post, but in the last few weeks I've been sidetracked by musings on the life side of the work-life discussion. Because even though there are things I really do miss about working at the firm (writing! fancy things! extra money! writing!!!), and a part of me will always be wondering what I will do next and how I can use this section of my resume to move up for the next one, right now there is absolutely no doubt that this life is the best one for my family and that makes it the best one for me.

I knew, immediately, that steady hours and non-working nights and weekends would be better for the kids and for me as a mom. And I assumed it would be nice for JP and me as a couple. But it wasn't until I'd been at my new job for a few months that I fully realized how much better it was for me, even separate from my other roles. I was talking to CM online one night a few months ago when she told me about her new job. Even then, 14 months into my own job change, I struggled to put into words what a life-changing thing it has been to work at work for a set and predictable number of hours and then come home untouched by blackberry or email until I returned to my office again the next morning. I used the phrase, "there is just more of me left for me," and while that still doesn't quite cover it, I suppose it comes the closest.

And now, 18 months into our new life here in Fort Worth, I can see the effects that having "more me for me" as they have reflected back onto the kids and JP. It's not just that I don't negotiate down on the number of bedtime stories because I no longer have a red light blinking on my blackberry and a laptop already logged in ready for me to get back to work as soon as I close their door, or that we can play and relax at home before I start thinking about making dinner- those were immediate effects. It's the changes I've been able to see in them because I have time to simply do nothing but be around them. It's the quiet moments, the random questions and conversations. The world is harder to figure out at 6 than it was at 2, and unlike when he was 2, I can't just structure Landon's day around mine. His day, his life, has stared taking it's own form and the times he wants to talk to me about things beneath the surface can't just come forth because I have 20 free minutes. When I was at the firm the kids were the perfect ages for that life. For a 12 month old Claire, any time mommy or daddy were in her line of vision was a great time! She was completely happy at daycare and completely happy when we picked her up. And at 1, 2, and 3, it was the same for Landon. Their days were filled with routine and fun and love. I genuinely never believed that working full-time in a demanding job was a detriment to their life, and I still believe that was true. But now, for this phase, I can say that I'm glad it's different. While the kids are always thrilled when I pull up in the driveway at the end of the day, their day doesn't start over because I'm home the way it did when they were little. It simply continues, and I'm as much an observer as I am a participant, and I've found, increasingly, that the observing- the being there- is vitally important.

Separate from the simple quantity of time, the predictability has been the most important. In some respects, this isn't a change the kids feel- I think I only picked them up late from daycare once, but oh I had days of white knuckle driving down MoPac praying I got there in time. That doesn't happen any more. And for Landon, my mellow happy go lucky child, the predictability of my schedule has almost no effect at all. But for Claire, my little planner, it is huge in a way I couldn't have anticipated when she was 20 months old and I accepted this job. Each morning while I brush her teeth and attempt to brush her hair, Claire likes to get the schedule for the day- who is taking her to school, what's in her lunch, who is picking her up, and what we're having for dinner. She can roll with change and surprises, but she likes to know the plan for the next day and week and month as far ahead as possible. And she remembers every detail. It's a little thing, but I was thinking yesterday about her ballet recital in May. How I made the mistake of mentioning it more than 2 months ahead of time and how EVERY DAY she asked if I would be there. At the firm, I always hedged. I would try, Mommy plans to, etc. While I worked with great people who would have had no problem in theory with me stepping out for a recital in the middle of the afternoon, if a briefing deadline had come up or an important client call was scheduled, I wouldn't have been able to go. It's part of the deal you make when you join a firm like that. And it hurts even now, months after my early arrival and full camcorder-holding attendance at the program, to think of how truly crushed she would have been if I'd missed it. And that's an issue that will continue to grow as the kids get busier.

My new life has benefited JP and me in ways we couldn't have foreseen either. He never would have started his swim school if we hadn't moved here. It's possible he wouldn't have needed to. If we'd remained in Austin he might not have been one of the 3,000 cut from his company last year, but he might have. And separate from that, we've both mentioned many times how impossible I think it would have been for me to have remained at the firm while he remained at Dell. His commute and hours combined with my hours and unpredictability... I really can't imagine it as the kids have gotten older, and we most certainly wouldn't have decided to add another to our brood. So a change would have needed to happen. Here, the change was forced upon him, but what a change it has been! And how rewarding it has been for me (and him, clearly) to be able to support it so strongly. On the concrete side, it is only because I can control my schedule that he can make the schedules for his now more than 150 clients. And less tangibly, it is because I could feel the changes in me that came from working for something that made me happy that I could understand better what he meant when he said working at another large company wouldn't do it for him. It has been a difficult year for him, but I've been able to be there in ways I'm not sure I could have at the firm- the stresses of doc reviews and briefing deadlines invariably leak their way into your personal life, and I'm as glad I could give the extra as I imagine he's been to receive it.

I still work hard all day Monday-Friday. The kids still need full-time childcare and I still need to run errands and plan ahead for the week on Sunday. That was something else that surprised me a little- the schedule sounded so much easier that I handicapped what working "regular" full-time would be like a little too much. It's still full time. Many weeks it's no less than I worked at the firm. The difference is the predictability, the control, and the absolute inviolability of my nights and weekends. I've never wanted to stay home full-time. I truly don't think I'd be as happy personally, I know it wouldn't be good for my marriage, and financially it's never been an option anyway, but this sharp divide between work and home- the clear compartmentalization of both facets of my life has been, well, rather extraordinary.

I still worry and muse about what will come next. A very real part of me misses being a big firm lawyer. I miss being a defense attorney. I still believe that at my core, I'm more defense attorney than prosecutor. It may be superficial, but I miss being a woman on partnership track at a large firm and working towards something the statistics say is nearly impossible. I've always gone after the gold stars and it was hard to walk away from one so shiny and hard to reach. In some ways, leaving that intangible ideal was harder to leave than anything concrete in that office. There are days where my current job leaves something to be desired for me; for all the hours and junior associate drudgery, that actually rarely happened at the firm. But this job is good. It could be great as a forever position and it could still be a stepping stone back to the firm when the kids are even older or to something I can't even see or imagine yet down the line. Most days I can trust in that and be very satisfied on the work side. Because every day, every single day, I am seeing, observing, getting more on the life side. And that's mattered to me, to the kids, to JP, and to me again, in ways I couldn't have predicted when I gave my notice to BigLaw 18 months ago.

8th Wedding Anniversary date on Monday

Kids at Work

Last Thursday was Take Your Kids to Work Day at the SEC. Forty-two mini regulators flooded our halls to review public filings, subpoena brokerage records, sniff out insider trading, and attend a mock trial of the Big Bad Wolf for harassment of the Three Little Pigs.

There was also some word practice:

And some very important coloring of a rhinoceros.

The kiddos got an excellent idea of what I do all day.

 

You know, the usual snuggling, coloring, climbing a rope jungle gym, and afternoon nap taking.

 

Two of the women in my office made these t-shirts on their own dime by ironing on copies of the SEC seal. Landon LOVES his and wore it to school the very next day.

 

Claire was supposed to take a nap while Landon did the scavenger hunt (Claire generally refused to leave my office without my accompaniment and was perfectly content to sit and color and talk to me all day). She got her nap mat all arranged, had her baby tucked under her arm and would then pop her head up and exclaim, "I taking a nap!!" any time someone walked in my office.

 

 

There was no actual sleeping, and very little work was done (though I did have a call with an opposing counsel partner at a major NY law firm in which Claire's voice could be heard saying "Hi!!! Mommy I want to talk to Gigi too." She associates the phone entirely with my mother), and I still don't think the kids have any idea what I do at my job, but it was a very fun day topped off with a stop at Chuy's happy hour for a round of waters, free queso, and some enchiladas for me!

Lawyer High

I spent 18 of the last 30 hours in Washington, DC. I love that city at all times (much like I love any city at any time), but in Spring it is particularly glorious. As I walked past the embassies on Massachusetts Ave. and through Dupont Circle to meet a friend for dinner, I was treated to bright blue skies, flowers exploding everywhere, and temperatures at a balmy 65-70 (15 degrees warmer than Fort Worth).

I was there to give a presentation to about 25 people far more important than me from different divisions all over the SEC regarding my biggest case. It was a big deal. I enjoy presentations and public speaking and I've been pushing this particular issue for months now, so I was excited to go, but my wardrobe constraints did give me pause when I was packing Monday night. My 1 inch baby and its penchant for hamburgers and sandwiches has given me enough of a belly to make it impossible to button my usual tailored work pants. However, I have not yet filled out enough to keep up my maternity pants. I hate the Bella band- I know it is secure, but I can't handle standing in front of a room of 25 men knowing my pants are unzipped and unbuttoned with only a stretch of black spandex holding them up against the weight of gravity and my belly. Luckily, my favorite navy blue knit work dress was still zippable, small size notwithstanding, and the criss-crossing of the bust line actually concealed my pregnancy very well. At least until I turned to the side.

baby!

The presentation went well. Very well, actually. The second highest ranking person in my whole work universe "stopped in" and ended up canceling meetings for the rest of the morning to stay until the end and asked a lot of detailed questions. He sent a very nice note to my boss's boss's boss, who forwarded it to me, about the presentation and the case and after 10 months of work, it gave me a huge smile to see, even through the blinding headache I get every time I fly in a plane. A headache not helped by my inability to sleep in hotel rooms which has reached acute levels- I was awake until at least 3:45 this morning, slept fitfully until 6:30, when I just gave up, got dressed, and went on with the day. I love traveling, it seems cruel that my body handles it so poorly.

Anyway, as I was standing up, walking through my power point and answering arcane accounting questions regarding the unusual and complex structured transaction, I had three thoughts: (1) who would have thought my Plan II degree/philosophy and biology degree would ever take here?; (2) this is why I love being a litigator- working for months to become an expert in something you'd never heard about before and will discard once your case is over, only to do it again immediately on the next one; and (3) this feeling- this high from talking to a group of smart, engaged people about something I've put so much time and effort into, and having fun while doing it, this is why I can't ever imagine not working. These moments may only come every few months, but I can stay high on them forever. I love being JP's wife and Landon and Claire's mother, and I get an enormous amount of satisfaction from both of those roles. They are part of my definition of myself and they are undoubtedly a big part of my foundational happiness. But, and I had a moment where I felt this to my core in the middle of the presentation, they can't give me this. This feeling of intellectual competence, of professional satisfaction, of just being a lawyer- and I get a lot from that too. I crave it and I need it and I would be a less happy person without it.

I don't think I've been having any particular career/mom uncertainty in recent weeks. My two worlds seem to exist peacefully these days, now that there's a bright line between them (which has been interesting from a work/life balance perspective, since at the firm what worked best was just blending the two together as closely as possible), but I welcome moments of clarity and try file them away. Moments after the meeting ended and I shook some more hands and made just enough small talk not to seem rude, I ran out of the office, 3 1/2" heels, suitcase, and all, to bypass the Union Station cab line and hail a taxi few streets away. I had a 1:40 flight out, a mere 18 hours after arriving, so I could get home in time to pick up the kids from school. After a nice 3.5 hours of reading on the plane (finally read Divergent- so good! starting on #2 tonight even though I should go to bed), I drove to school to collect a Clairebear so excited she could only scream "Mama!!" over and over when she saw me and a Lanman who had missed me enough to offer to share his daily sticker for good behavior. And so my world clicked back over again, but the high from the legal one lingered remained, even as I switched out my dress for pj pants and my heels for fuzzy crocs I won't actually admit to wearing. It's a good day when it all comes together.

Go to Law School, or Not

I got a request from a blog reader to write about the most recent in what seems like a long stream of articles about Why You Should Not Go To Law School. I thought this particular one made a few good points, particularly on reason #1 why not to go to law school, though it should be noted that the author never actually practiced law.

For my part, I love being a lawyer. I really do. I love reading, I love thinking, I love writing. I love being paid to read and think and write and being rewarded for doing it as clearly and analytically as possible. I loved school my whole life, I loved every subject I ever took and I did equally well in all of them (except physics, my brain is fundamentally incapable of understanding physics, which I always found ironic everything we do is governed by it, but I digress), and I sometimes wonder if I should or could have done something else. But any time I think about the "what ifs," I remember what I just wrote- that I get paid to read and think and write and to do it all as practically and clearly and analytically as possible. There is truly no better combination of my love of reading and writing and my inability to think outside the realistic and practical box I live in (which is why I could never have been a true liberal arts major and was a Plan II biology/philosophy + a lot of math classes major instead). I think I had some of that in my head when I applied to law school, but it wasn't nearly that defined.

As I wrote when I posted the Huffington Post article on facebook, "I love being a lawyer and it's a career that's been good to me so far, but there is way too much truth in this post not to share." That's still my review of the article generally, but since I haven't read it again since I skimmed it on facebook a couple weeks ago, I'll take each of his 6 reasons not to go to law school and add some commentary of my own:

1. I like arguing and everyone says I'm good at it.

This is a stupid reason to go to law school. First of all, arguing is a stupid thing to like. Who likes arguing? Debating, sure, but arguing- to me that just means you didn't grow up enough after about 5th grade when you're supposed to start learning that you don't just insult someone when you disagree with them. And even if we pretend like "arguing" is the same thing as intelligent debate, lawyers don't spend a lot of time doing it. As a transactional attorney you will spend almost no time doing it- you negotiate, you push for your client's goals in whatever deal you're working on, and you spend a ton of time reading and editing form deal documents. (For the record, I hated being a transactional attorney.) But even as a big law litigator, you still don't spend much time arguing. You read a LOT, you research and read more, you write, and you persuade and advocate through your writing. You argue in person before a judge almost never, but even when you get to do that, you're not really arguing. You're advocating your client's position, presenting the facts and law in a way that is most favorable to you. You're listening and adjusting and persuading. To do your job well you area always ALWAYS more analytical than argumentative. Incidentally, this is also the more successful approach when "debating" with anyone, including your spouse.

2. I want to be like Jack McCoy from Law & Order [or insert your favorite legal TV show character].

I don't have much comment on this one except that it's clearly another dumb reason. I've never seen Law & Order and I avoid legal type dramas on TV, in books, and in the movies because they either annoy or bore me. There was a show on some network a few years ago about junior associates in a large law firm that was supposed to be more realistic- "The Deep End" or something like that, and it was terrible. It was by turns either boring or unrealistic. I enjoyed being a junior associate more than the average person, and there were times I truly genuinely loved being a junior associate, and even then I could not describe my job to my parents or to JP in a way they found very interesting. If I can't do that for my loved ones, there's no way any TV show can really show what lawyers actually do and get good ratings from the masses, so they make stuff up, as they have license to do, and pretty much everyone is the happier for it.

So, talk to lawyers, talk to junior associates, talk to recent graduates from your law school to find out what they really do. But round up a little on the enjoyment factor- cases are always more interesting when you're actually involved in them than when you're just hearing about the assignments outside of the bigger picture (a large portion of which is privileged and can't be shared).

3. It's the only way I can use my humanities degree.

False. I have no stats for you, but I'm pretty sure that's false. Don't get $150,000 into debt because you're out of ideas. If you really don't think you can use your humanities degree, it would be far more cost effective to simply change your undergrad degree to engineering or computer science or nursing and spend 3 more years where you are.

4. I want to change the world/help homeless people/rescue stray kittens/do something noble.

This can be a good reason, a very good reason, but you need to know a lot more about what it is you want to do and what your financial situation is going to be right before you do it. Be practical about it- learn a little something about getting a job in public interest- it's hard, it's not like they just hand those jobs out- learn about the job, learn about the pay, and learn about your potential school's loan repayment programs. And then, once you've learned all those things and you decide to go anyway, hold strong. If you are really passionate about public interest, odds are you will be substantially less passionate about being a first year at any law firm in the top 100. It's a lot of fun to enjoy what you do and you might be the rare person who knows what that would be- hold on to that during OCI. Also, if you're really passionate about a cause, there are lots of other ways you can work for it, both directly and indirectly, that don't involve having a JD, so explore that too.

5. I don't know what else to do.

See #3. That $150,000-200,000 you're now in debt means that you will have to do this thing you've apparently randomly selected for a very long time after you're done learning these expensive things that will have little practical applicability to what you're about to go do for a long time.

6. I want to make a lot of money.

I don't know what to say about this one. Starting salary for a 1st year in Big Law is $160,000/year. It goes up from there topping $200k about 3-4 years in, depending on your firm's bonus structure and if you have the hours to earn one. 2,000 hours is the usual standard, and let me tell you, 2,000 hours blows. It requires long periods of utter misery. It's not 2,000 hours worked, it's 2,000 hours billed directly to a client. Meetings, writing article, some travel, training, firm events, entering time, spending 30 damn minutes to clean the mountain of papers off your desk- none of this is billable. You're at work, you're not with your family, you're working, but none of it helps you get to 2,000. Want to know what does? Nights and weekends, lots of them. But everyone already knows that, and it is precisely what you're paid that "lot of money" for. So, knowing that, and knowing you have up to $2,000/month of law school loans you're repaying, you have to decide if it's worth it to you. You also have to keep in mind that there are very few of those high paying jobs, there are a TON of law school graduates every year, and you will only last in that job for an average of 4 years before you inevitably can't stand it anymore and leave to go make much less money somewhere else. For the average graduate of a top law school, it will take a long time to ever again make as much or more than you did in your first few years out. It's a strange path. So, this isn't a good enough reason. I made more than JP when I was at the firm and he was at Big Co, but the payments on my loans are 3x his and I was out for 3 years for grad school while he was out for 2. After all that I suppose I still made a little more, but not much, not enough to make someone who doesn't have a better reason to go to law school go to law school. Don't let this be your reason.

I wrote on this topic two years ago too, but the truth is, no one call tell you if you should go to or not, and no one really should. I didn't go for any of the reasons above, but I'm not sure mine were any better. I enjoyed law school quite a lot, particularly once I survived 1L year, and I wouldn't change my decision to go even if you'd erase my loans for doing it. I like being a lawyer quite a lot too. I like being able to speak a language and understand a system that seems mysterious to many. I like explaining that process to others. My career so far has been hard and rewarding as I think one can expect any fledgling career to be, which of course means many days it was only hard and not rewarding and many other days it was not hard and rewarding only if you are someone who gets a genuine thrill from creating charts and tagging a million documents in a certain orderly way. Lucky for me, I am one of those people. I like being a lawyer and economy notwithstanding it's worked out for me so far (yet another reason why law hasn't worked out for everyone, even those who do really like it).

So I'm glad I went to law school and if you think you should go, don't let all the recent articles stop you. If you're not sure, read the HuffPo article- read all the articles, talk to others, learn more, and really try to think of other things you could spend your time and money on and then explore those too. Though really, that's the sort of analysis you should do for any kind of career path that involves grad school, law school is just getting the sharp focus right now (which, for the record, I don't think is bad, as long as you take all the articles, including mine, as part of a wide collection of thought, and with a big grain of salt).

Two Sides of the Same Lawyer

When you're a lawyer, coming to Washington, DC feels like coming home.  You walk the streets and know that at least 50% of the people walking past you have passed the Bar.  They would probably get whatever dorky lawyer joke pops in your head and would also understand, without additional explanation, why deleting comments on your own blog violates exactly no one's right to free speech.  They're your people, or at least the people of one facet of your being, and you're in their mecca.  Also, the Home Office of your new job is very fancy and you feel fancier for being able to say you work there.  Even if your "there" is actually a regional office in Fort Worth, which is decidedly less fancy.

And for me, being in the city, even in sweltering temperatures 10 freaking degrees higher than the ones I left behind in Texas, felt like home.  Walking to everything, taking marvelously efficient public transportation, being asked by a homeless man to run away with him to California (yes, really) -- home!  On Tuesday night I met up with one of my best friend's from law school to travel to Alexandria, Virginia- another state, and yet a short metro ride away (having lived in Texas most of my life, it will always blow my mind that you can cross multiple state lines in a matter of minutes) to meet up with law school friend #2 and her adorable 4-month-old baby.  A baby I got to snuggle while he looked at me with very blue, very skeptical eyes.  You can tell both his parents are lawyers.  After hubby-lawyer came home, we girls headed out to a wine and cheese bar to chat and eat cheese and drink wine.  After dinner I rode the metro back to DC with Friend #1 to see her absolutely gorgeous apartment in Dupont Circle and drink more wine until we realized it was midnight and a Tuesday and holy crap I need to get back to my hotel to take advantage of the springtail free bathtub before my early day began on Wednesday.  And though I was (am) completely in lust with her little apartment, and I loved loved loved getting to see my friends, I think my favorite part of the night was leaving her place at 11:55 p.m. on a Tuesday, turning a corner, and finding cafes with people still in them, cabs circling about waiting for me to flag them down-- so much noise, activity, LIFE at midnight on a Tuesday.  I smiled the whole cab ride back to the hotel.  I was born and raised in the suburbs of Houston, but The City - Any City feels more like home than any suburb of anywhere ever will.  I used to think it was just Chicago, but now I know it's not.  Wherever we move next, we're downsizing even more and living downtown.  And after JP mows the grass every weekend during another 110 degree summer, I think I can get him to move with me.

Unfortunately, despite the late hour, long day, copious amount of wine, and FABULOUS hotel room (I think it might be the nicest I've ever seen, and I've stayed in some very nice hotels thanks to the BigLaw amex), I didn't sleep all night.  I canceled a much anticipated early coffee get together with my cousin, and patched together 3.75 hours of sleep before packing up, getting dressed, and racing out the door to my big meeting.  This was probably my second favorite moment of the trip: wearing my favorite dark grey slight houndstooth print suit, with super long pants legs that have to be worn with my 3.5" black hidden platform heels, and fitted jacket (and lilac colored satin shell underneath, and silver pearl necklace and earrings to complete the outfit), walking quickly out of the Mandarin Oriental with a suitcase and shoulder briefcase purse, and hailing a cab to headquarters.  In that moment, I felt like a lawyer fullstop.  I may be low on the totem pole of a large government agency, I may not understand half the accounting terms the guy I was interviewing kept saying, and I may not know much of any practical law (do not call me if you get pulled over by the cops, I have absolutely no idea what you should do), but in that moment, I looked and temporarily felt the part, and that made me smile, even on less than 4 hours of sleep.

Then the day got crazy - prep prep prep with the assistant director; interview, question, and take notes with the guy I was there to meet; successfully move up my flight home by 4 hours; RUN out of the headquarters to hail a cab out to Dulles where I fidgeted my way through security, staring at my watch every 2 seconds, still in my suit and very high heels.  At 3:20 I'd made it to the terminal of my 3:45 already-boarding-flight and realized I hadn't eaten since 7 p.m. the night before.  And that was the meal where I drank more wine than I ate bread and cheese, and before that I hadn't eaten since a snack in the DFW airport at 10 a.m. the day before, and oh, maybe that's why there's black dots hovering in the periphery of my vision and my hands are shaking. Right.  Well at least I profited from the per diem.  I inhaled some white rice and orange chicken, bought the first book I saw in the bookstore (Julie Garwood's the Ideal Man; it's terrible, cost me $8, and only took 2 hours to read on a 3 hour flight).  I re-read the first half of the (terrible) book to keep the guy next to me from talking to me the rest of the flight (he was nice, but oh so chatty, and while I am normally friendly, I see no point in investing in temporary airplane seat relationships).  But the mad dash and near blackout was worth it- I got home just before the kids went to bed and I got to talk to JP- really talk to JP- for the first time in many days.

All in all it was a great trip, minus the insomnia and total lack of eating, and I want to go back.  Friends, hailing taxis, super fun interviews of helpful experts, feeling like a power lawyer, and soaking in a springtail free marble-surrounded-absolutely-gorgeous bathtub in a room I cannot believe we get to book it with the standard government rate... it was a very fulfilling 36 hours in The City of Lawyers.

And then tonight, long after the power lawyer glow had worn off and I was in a normal lawyer skirt, cropped cardi, and open toed heels, I decided to make the tasty summer beer cocktail to go with our inaugural meal from JP's Father's Day grill.  I mixed all the ingredients- frozen pink lemonade, beer, vodka, water, sprite- and lifted the heavy glass pitcher and SMASH.  The bottom falls out, shatters on the floor, and liquid- sticky sweet pink liquid flies everywhere.  All I can think of are the bugs that are going to come over, drink my cocktail, and invite all their friends to come back and get drunk.  I must stop them.  I pull off my beautiful leather peep-toe pumps and skirt, both soaked in tasty beverage, and start mopping and scrubbing and mopping some more in my cardigan and pink thong and think, wow, what a change in 24 hours.  From suited up and out on the town, to half naked and scrubbing floors and hoping neighbors don't drop by- two rather extreme sides of the coin of me.  

But dinner was tasty, my kitchen is now very clean, and it's extra nice to be home.  

Doing This

While driving back from lunch today, a co-worker turned and asked, "what would you be doing if you could have any job and money wasn't an issue?"

And I thought, and I thought, and I finally said, "I think this one."

He called me a nerd and a suck-up, of course, and then after reminding me that my car was not bugged (and I'm a whole 4-weeks senior to him and don't need to suck up to him anyway), he asked me again. And I said with more conviction this time, "I'd be doing this." If I could make the rules I suppose I'd be doing this while earning double and triple vacation and would use my magical "money doesn't matter" card to take trips with JP and the kids all over the world every few months. But day to day? I think I'd be a lawyer. And if I'm going to be a lawyer, I'd want to be a lawyer for the SEC. At least at this stage of my career.

He reminded me one last time that there are no rules and I don't need to couch things in terms of "this stage of my career," but I can't help but think that way. Someday I might like to be a law firm partner or general counsel of a financial institution, maybe, but I'm not qualified for that job right now and can't imagine doing that job right now, so I don't want that job right now. And you guys, I really love this job. I ran 8 telephone conferences today, questioned a witness, talked to two name partners of AmLaw 20 law firms, and sent out a ton of correspondence, all of which I know will be answered immediately. This job is amazing. I'm sure there are others that are even more amazing, but I don't want for what I don't know.

I think the answer to this question is supposed to something artsy or creative- some hobby you love but that either doesn't pay well or that you aren't quite good enough to get paid for. But I don't have anything like that. I enjoy photography, but I have no interest in taking pictures of other people or inanimate objects and my kids will only allow so many flashes in their presence. I like music in a pedestrian, radio-station listening kind of way. I used to be a good flute player and I'd like to pick it back up one day, but not full time. I am terrible at drawing, painting, and anything else artistic and am at peace with that. I'm good at making Shutterfly photo books, but really, how much time can you spend on that over a month or year? JP's answer would be something entrepreneurial- some activity you enjoy that you could now magically make a living at. But I don't have any ideas or desires there either. The mere thought of owning my own business gives me hives, insomnia, and a headache almost immediately. I would not handle it well, even in this hypothetical world.

Then there's charitable causes. And I am probably revealing myself as a terrible and/or selfish person, but I have no innate desire to do much of anything related to the number of charities we support. I'd like to have more money so I can send them more money, and I'm so glad they all have talented and dedicated people that do their work and fight for their causes, but I don't actually want to DO want they do.

Later it occurred to me that I could/should have said, "stay home." But I don't have any interest in that either. Work less? Sure. Take more family trips? Definitely. Skip work without repercussion on days Claire is being extra adorable or Landon wants to go to the zoo? Yes please! But not having a job or career... that's just not my dream either.

I briefly entertained saying doctor or teacher, both past career plans of mine, but I rejected them over the years for good reason. Law suits me. It combines writing, analytics, creativity, facts, rules, team work, individual work, and high heels.

And so by a combination of lack of imagination, hobbies, skills, and entrepreneurial or charitable drive, a genuine love for what I do, and an overly practical mind that doesn't respond well to hypothetical situations, it appears that I'm working in my dream job. And what a lovely thing to realize as you drive circles up the parking garage on your way back in to work on a Wednesday afternoon.

6 Week Report Card

I think I said "I love this job" about 27 times today. At least. Though, since I was in meetings with third parties and/or on the phone with investigative subjects much of the day, I kept most of my exclamations inside my head.

But seriously, I LOVE THIS JOB. It's taken a few weeks, and I still have a lot to learn- and I still do at least five things that terrify me every day, but I'm getting the hang of things. I know where to find stuff, know who to ask to do stuff, know the words to use to describe the stuff I'm asking about. I can make calls on my own, I've memorized my warnings under the Privacy Act, I don't fear answering my phone, and I don't get quite so scared to call people and ask questions about things I don't fully understand. Because it doesn't matter if I ask questions that might make me sound dumb (though I'm realizing more and more that my questions aren't dumb, I only fear they're dumb because I'm not a stock/options/financial statement reading expert)- what's important is that I ask the questions and do whatever I need to do to understand the transaction in question in order to best serve my client. And when your client is the federal government, people seem to have a lot of patience with you.

I worked 12 hours today - banking 3 credit hours for a future day off (the glories of government work- if I choose to work extra, I get it back 1-for-1 in vacation later), bounced between four investigations, made five phone calls with third-parties, met with one group of auditors, grabbed a lunch of queso-smothered steak nachos with a group of male co-workers who find my lunch-time appetite amusing, typed up an investigative report, and talked with an options expert in D.C.

I love this job.

In a separate check-up, our renovations our done!  Roger the Contractor is no longer JP's work-from-home co-worker and we have three (almost) fully-functional bathrooms!  Here's a preview of our new master bath (formerly a dark brown very old tiled, drop-ceiling'd, teeny tiny claustrophobic nightmare of a space), with Claire standing on the bench enjoying the rain shower. We love it!

Short-timer

I have 7 days left in my office. When I started at the firm on September 2, 2008 I honestly never thought I'd leave. I knew it was a possibility, floating out there in the ether, but I didn't really think I'd do it. I liked being an associate and I was good at it. Every case was my favorite case, at least until the end when I was on a case in a different section in a different area of law and I finally realized that being a mid-level associate kind of sucks. You get enough authority to be the one at fault if anything goes wrong, but none of the credit if they go well. Still, for years 1-3, I loved my work and was possessive and proud of my cases. I constantly tried to think of more ways to help, ways to make things easier and more organized. I was a chart queen. I could find any document anyone had ever thought they'd seen that was related to the case. I always wanted to do more. I'm not sure if it's just that that type of attitude cannot survive in BigLaw, or if I might still be that way if I'd been able to continue to work on the types of cases I enjoyed, but I look at formerly eager me and kind of shake my head in bemused wonder. It took 3 years, but by the end of last year when I was being volunteered to write all the post-trial briefs for my huge IP case I wanted to unplug my phone, close my door, and hide under my desk. No more, please, no more.

I had my year-end review last week. They weren't going to give me one since I'm leaving and all the partners are mad, but I worked hard last year and those reviews are a pain to fill out, so I wanted to hear what people had to say, particularly since nearly all of that work was in a brand new area of law full of people I had to prove myself to over and over in order to gain substantive assignments. And I got them, and despite all of the misery of that case- working until 4 a.m., winning motions, and then getting screwed out of going to trial- I credit it for 90% of the substantive, learning experiences I've had at the firm. It also provided all of my responses to interview questions at the SEC, and the kick in the ass I needed to apply for that job in the first place. So I'm grateful for the experience and I'm proud of the work I was able to do. One reviewer in that group said "LL is an immensely talented writer" and "has the unique ability to treat each new assignment - no matter what it is - as a new learning experience." Given the ups and downs of that case, and the times I sat in my office wondering how in the hell I was going to be able to write this brief and make the arguments we wanted to make, it was really nice to hear those words. (And to know I won't be working with them again.)

In the past I've felt like a defender of large law firms. And I still think they can be a great place to work. Yeah the hours suck, but you're paid for it and the hours aren't so great at smaller shops either, and the work can be awesome. You can bill entire days to writing legal briefs- wrestling with facts and case holdings and legal theories to your nerdy heart's content. I also had the opportunity to work with some truly brilliant lawyers. I could absolutely see myself coming back to the world of BigLaw again, but as a partner or counsel, not an associate. I will not miss having to pretend like "each new assignment is a unique learning experience," even if it means my acting skills are going to get a little rusty. I'll still be working hard at the SEC, but it will be different. Different work, different environment, different schedule. No clients, no entering time, no pretending I'm thrilled to be drafting a Motion to Compel over something nobody cares about. No time stolen from my family to do a crap assignment on a Saturday afternoon that no one thought of until that moment. No time stolen from my family in general- no checking a blackberry outside of work hours, no checking the cancellation policies when booking a vacation, no being half-present when I'm with them but waiting for an email from a client or partner. They kids are getting older, Landon is going to start having more activities, Claire would already like to play full contact sports- I want to be there for that, and I want to do it while still having a career of my own. And crazy enough, this next position will allow for that while furthering my career farther and faster than the firm every could. Sometimes it all makes me so happy I could cry.

I just got boxes and bubble tape delivered to my office to pack it up. I have more here than I thought- 10 million pictures of Landon and Claire, art, diplomas, two lamps, books, boxes and boxes of tea, vases from floral deliveries... 12 days from today I'll be in a new office, probably a little terrified to actually have to DO the job I managed to convince my seven interviewers I could handle.

But it's going to be fun, and with every day that I get closer to my new job, I realize just how done I was with my current one. Twelve days.

Job Details and Other Things

Thank you all so much for your excitement and congrats on my news. I can't tell you how wonderful it all was to read- I always love comments, but on Friday I was practically giddy every time I checked my gmail account. And it was a trying day. Some partners did not take my news well- nothing terrible, they're just very sad and disappointed (for them, most acknowledged it was a pretty amazing move for me). One teared up. One is actually kind of angry. Others expressed excitement and just told me to make sure I kept the firm in the running when I was ready to go back to private practice. I know everyone will get used to it- it's not like associates don't leave all the time, it just wasn't very fun walking around and breaking the news to people I've worked with for more than three years. This is the only real "grown-up" job I've ever had, it's crazy and a little sad to think that in a few months I'll be making my morning (and afternoon and late afternoon) hot tea somewhere else.

But oh my goodness am I excited. Even when breaking the news to the partner I'm closest to, the one I knew would be the most upset (though I underestimated her reaction), I couldn't help grinning. Truly couldn't help it. I wanted this so bad you guys and I'm so excited about this adventure for our family. Though the 6 hours I spent on Friday filling out all the federal employee background check/employment paperwork was not particularly fun. You have to list all your jobs, addresses, and international travel going back 7 years. Since I'm still a young'n, that required me to list my parent's address from the months I lived there before I got married. I also had to separately list all the countries I visited, which included my post-college self-funded tour around Europe (UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, and Greece). And it's not like it was a nice text box to fill in, it was a maze of drop-down menus and "saving" and moving to the next screen to "add another trip" and do it again. It took Forever. And I just realized I left out Vatican City, but does anyone really consider that a separate country besides the people who work at the Vatican? I made appointments for finger-printing and photo-taking, filled out more paperwork, and even billed a few hours. I got home at 10 p.m. Kind of ironic one of my later nights at work recently was the day I told everyone I was quitting.

On to the timing details: We're hoping to get our house on the market by the first weekend in February (though it's frustrated by our long-planned, long-ago-payed-for ski vacation that starts tomorrow; terrible timing, as it turns out). We hope to move in mid-March. I plan to start at the SEC on April 1st, though if the stars align and everything moves faster, I told them I would be happy to start sooner. I'll stay at the firm until a week or two before my first day at the SEC (with the rather painful pay cut I'm taking, each firm pay check has increased in importance). I've picked out a neighborhood near downtown that I'm completely in love with, but I am going to need help with daycares, so all you DFW people who commented, expect a post requesting your collective wisdom soon (blogs are so handy for moves to entirely new cities!). And then I think we need some kind of happy-hour meet up with frozen margaritas after I move.

And a few other random matters, since I'll be gone for the next five days and this blog will be temporarily dedicated to exclusive coverage of my kids all bundled up in ski suits:

(1) My dad is doing great. Well, great for a guy with a bunch of broken ribs, a broken sternum, a broken sacrum (bones near bottom of spine, which explains why he's been in so much pain while sitting), and a mass of other bruises and hematomas. But he can sleep for several hours at a time, he's working a few hours a day from home (by choice, he's getting antsy), and he's had my brother/his best friend home for the last three days. It'll be a long recovery, and he's going to get a whole lot more stir crazy, but for now he's glad to heal and feel all the love of family and friends through email and phone calls. I continue to refuse to dwell on what could have been (with a 98% success rate) and am just so glad he's home.

(2) JP took Landon to get a haircut on Saturday. Since Landon's first haircut (oh my gosh, look at the little toddler Landon! he's about the same age Claire is now... his babyhood did not go by quickly, but toddlerhood has flown), they've gone to the barber shop together every 6 weeks or so for a little trim. Except this time, Landon came home with all of his hair buzzed off:

Once I recovered from my shock, I decided he looked pretty adorable, and EXACTLY like my little brother when he had his little buzz cut at age 5. Which is funny, because Landon has always looked more like JP than anyone in my family, so maybe the matching hair cut is unduly convincing.

Claire was also intrigued:

And (3), speaking of Claire, she is (a) adorable; (b) suddenly looking much older and it's freaking me out; and (c) never, EVER without a book in her had. Ever.

kills me

And now I'm off to bed- tomorrow is a big day of travel before SKIING on Tuesday! Packing for a ski trip for a family of four with two car seats and one kid who still needs her pack 'n play and diapers and sippy cups has destroyed my previously proud reputation as a light packer. Business travel is so much easier- a carry-on suitcase and my kindle in my purse. Now I have 5 checked bags (ski stuff is bulky), 4 carry-ons, 2 gate checked car seats, and a pink blankie to lug around. But I suppose getting to travel with JP and the kids makes up for the extra burden. We're going to have so much fun!