Mom life, month two: project managing the awkward stage

It's an awkward stage for all of us.

In 2015, I took a job as an assistant project manager for an extremely specialized group within the sales department of a large publishing house, where I’d been working since graduating from college in 2012. I didn’t know much about the role of an assistant project manager, but the job promised the chance to be more creative than I’d been in the assistant gigs I’d had to that point—and I was excited about that! Plus, I felt confident that I had the right personality for project management, whatever it meant exactly. I was—and still am—organized, efficient, detail-oriented, and a good communicator. (Let’s normalize owning our strengths, okay?)

I stayed in this job for about two years before leaving the publishing industry to freelance full-time, and it turned out that I actually was a good project manager. I even got promoted from assistant to associate—a distinction that remains unclear but that felt big at the time. And while I didn’t stick around with managing projects long-term, I’ve found myself calling on some of the skills I learned in that role—all of which my already project manager-y personality helped me refine—in other areas of my work and life.

I have, for instance, long joked about the pride I take in being the house manager of our home. (Confession: I kind of love the maddening minutia of keeping an eye on how much toilet paper is left in the house and making sure that the laundry is more or less always done.)

And in the nine weeks since Will’s arrival, my project management talents have really come in handy. At least once a day, I joke aloud (often to myself) about how I’m project managing the s*it out of things around here. Someone’s gotta do it! And I’m glad that someone is me… most of the time.

The last time I shared an extensive update about my experience as a new parent, Will was about a week old. I was pleasantly surprised by how I was transitioning to life with a newborn and by how much I was loving motherhood.

A week of (mostly) pleasant surprises

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still loving it—and I’m incredibly grateful for every moment I get to spend with Will. But I’m going to be real. For me, month two was way harder than month one.

Capturing Will's two-month photo—or attempting to—really said it all.

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Currently Reading: Happiness Falls by Angie Kim

You’re probably sick and tired of hearing me share about this book. What can I say? It’s been taking me a minute to finish! I can only blame some of that on the chaos of parenting because while I’ve liked Happiness Falls, I’ve found it kind of dense and tricky to get through. I’m learning a lot and enjoying the family story, but I’m also ready to move on to something new.

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Maybe it’s because I was so insecure about my ability to hang with a true newborn. Maybe it’s because I’d heard one too many horror stories about the first few weeks of a baby’s life. In any case, I’d braced myself for a full ass-kicking in that first month. And when it didn’t feel like a full ass-kicking, I kind of figured I’d escaped most of the frustrations I’d feared. I still wasn’t expecting parenthood to be easy, but I’d already survived the toughest transition! I had it under control!

I’m still confident that I have it under control—I am, after all, a capable project manager—but this month really was much harder for me. And since everyone’s experience with parenthood (and everything else) is different, I think it’s important to share candidly about all versions of the ride.

Here’s what I’ve decided: for babies—definitely my baby—two months is an awkward stage.

Don’t get mad at me for saying so. We all associate the phrase “awkward stage” with braces and bad hair and bodies we didn’t know what to do with, and I’m not suggesting that any of those things apply to Will. I mean—can we take a moment for how adorable my kid is?

The last few weeks have felt awkward in other ways.

Here’s what I mean.