Great Wolf Lodge

This past weekend, we took a short trip up to Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas.  The idea was to give Maya one list "kid" trip before the new arrival.  (Though Maya may be spoiled when it comes to trips; she did ask me about a week before we left whether the people at the place we were going would speak English.)  Great Wolf Lodge met almost all of our requirements: it was very kid-centric, it was air-conditioned (hey, it's 100 degrees out and I'm pregnant!), and it was within driving distance.  (The restaurants could have been better.)  Even a last minute ear infection didn't keep us away.  The place is basically a hotel/resort with an indoor (and a little bit outdoor) water park and a bunch of kid activities (crafts, "magic quest," etc.).  We did it ALL.  And while it was very theme-park cheesy, we really didn't have to wait in lines for much at all (the longest we waited was less than 10 minutes for a picture with Wiley the Wolf).

When we arrived on Friday night about 10pm, Maya was awake enough to LOVE the fact that she got bunk beds in a wolf cave as her sleeping arrangement.  When we woke up on Saturday, we started with breakfast, and then hit the water park as soon as it opened at 9am.  This was a brilliant idea: the place was much less crowded in the morning than in the afternoon.  Maya loved the wave pool, the water fort (several stories of water fountains and sprayers), the lazy river, and even the "toddler" area (though there were plenty of things for bigger kids in it too).  She balked at the water slides, though.  We swam for a couple of hours, then grabbed some lunch and got Maya set up with her magic quest magic wand. Throughout the hotel, there were all kinds of treasure chests, pictures, and other things that could be activated by a wave of the wand.  Maya could activate her personal "quests," which were basically scavenger hunts that took her all over the hotel.  She loved it (and Tim did, too, I think).  After a solid nap, we headed back to the water park for the afternoon.  We tried out the outdoor pool for a bit, but it started storming, so we went back inside.  After showering (again), we had some pizza for dinner and then went down to the lobby in our PJs for story time (ok, Maya was in her PJs) and a photo op with Wiley.  After that, we did a little more magic quest before turning in for the evening.

Sunday morning, Maya announced that she didn't want to swim but do magic quest all day.  We had some breakfast and played in the arcade for a while until magic quest opened.  By 9am Maya had changed her mind, so back into swimsuits we went for another turn around the waterpark.  On Sunday, Maya was brave enough to try out the smaller water slides (they were a couple of flights of stairs up, and she had to do them alone, but she LOVED them).  We did a bunch more swimming before cleaning up and grabbing more lunch.  Maya and her dad did a bunch more questing after lunch (while I took a little rest) before we headed home.

Work Life Balance

My father sent me this article today.  It's about the much talked about appointment of the pregnant (yes, its relevant) Marissa Mayer to head Yahoo!.  The conversation addressed in the article is one about "work-life balance," which is, for how its commonly used at least in my world, code for "how to be a mother and a professional at the same time."  (Though there are plenty of other things we ought to also consider in the balance of work and life, and it applies (or should) equally to men; the recent article in the Atlantic on "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" has some great examples.)

Here's what gets me and why I'm bothering to write a blog post about it.  When people refer to "work-life balance" there is an assumption that what women are really looking for is an answer to "how to put in less time at work now that I have a kid."  This is really simply not a fair characterization of the desire for balance.  When I read the article yesterday in which Mayer referred to the fact that she would take only a short maternity leave and still work during that leave, I thought to myself "people are going to jump all over her for saying that."  Honestly, the response is tamer than I expected, but I'm still surprised by the perspective.  She's going to be CEO of Yahoo! for crying out loud.  Of COURSE she's not going to take six weeks completely off of work and do nothing at all work-related.  I assume (and I think it's a pretty safe assumption) that her work is part of who she is.  Work-life balance doesn't mean you spend six weeks being only a mom.  The corollary would be that later, she would take a block of six weeks and be ONLY a CEO.  That's not going to happen either!  It's all about balance.  Actual balance.

Sure, it's not really a comparison as her job is much more demanding and higher profile than mine, but when my daughter was born, I was an assistant professor in a technology field at a tier one research institution.  Teaching and research is part of who I am.  I don't lock them in my office at the end of the day---I didn't before my daughter was born, and I don't now.  My daughter was born on the day of the final exam in my undergraduate course.  Yes, I did call in a substitute for that (balance, after all...).  But the day I came home from the hospital, I graded those finals.  Did I HAVE to?  No.  I could have gotten someone else to do it.  Multiple people even volunteered to do it for me.  But I had invested an entire semester of my life in teaching those students.  Grading the finals was, in part, a way for me to measure and understand their achievements.  My efforts would have felt incomplete without that closure.  For the next four months, I kept a pack-n-play in my office on campus.  There was a baby swing in my research lab.  Sure, I cut back, and my hours were at times unpredictable, but I kept up research with my students and fulfilled other obligations on campus.  And had the luxury of having my baby with me. And I honestly believe that she and I have both benefited tremendously from this balance.  Can I do better?  Always.  But I'm learning.

One of the things that I took away from the Atlantic article was that what is missing is not the ability of women to balance work and life.  It's about the social pressures (inside and outside of the work place) that do not provide an atmosphere that's supportive of this balance.  I for one am excited about the potential that Mayer has to enact a change.  This is a test, really.  It's something of a test for Yahoo! specifically and for the technology field in general.  A chance for a company to show that they can be supportive of this balance.  That the company can provide working hours and environments that encourage women (and men!) to balance their families (and other life obligations) with their success at work.  And this time, the CEO is the one having the baby.  She's the one in charge, defining the policies and setting the example.  What an opportunity.

Zurich Day 6

Wednesday (our last day in Switzerland), we took the train to Goldau and then the cog train up to the top of Mt. Rigi.  It rained every day we were in Switzerland, and Wednesday was no exception, but the rain broke long enough for us to enjoy a very nice hike along and around the mountain.  When we arrived at the top of Mt. Rigi (Rigi Kulm; the place with the big radio antenna in the photos below), it was freezing cold, sleeting, and the fog was so thick, you couldn't see more than 20 yards.  It was so thick that it was hard to find the signs to tell us which way to go on the path.  As we descended along the ridge, it started to clear off (or, truthfully, we started to get below the clouds), it warmed up, and there were beautiful views across Lake Zug, Lake Lucerne, and into Lucerne (and lots of other small towns).  We stopped for lunch at one of the mountain restaurants (it was delicious) before finishing the walk to catch glimpses of the Alps and a lovely waterfall.  We arrived at a lower train station about 15 minutes before it started raining again.

This is Lucerne through a telescope.  And Tim.

Here's a 360 degree video of the view:

Tim made me stand behind this.  I don't even know what it was.  It's weird, right?

I got to wear my sunglasses for a little bit today!

Someone had to try it.  Should it have been me?  Probably not in hindsight, but no one was injured.

It was clear at Rigi Kulm for all of about 10 minutes before it started pouring down rain again.

This gives you a sense of what we heard most of the day:

Dinner was fodue...

... and Entrecote with french fries and wine.