first name: Jenn

age: 32

current city: Chicago

living situation: I live with my husband, Tom, our one-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and our six-year-old pooch, Rowdy, in the neighborhood of Logan Square. Despite the smaller square footage that is often inevitable in urban living, we have loved starting our family in the city and I will continue to maximize every square inch of our condo (you’re welcome, Container Store) so that we can raise Elizabeth as a city-dweller.

occupation: first grade teacher

how do you structure your time and space? Sometimes it feels like I’m “juggling” time and space instead of “structuring” them. My husband’s work schedule changes week to week, which created quite the juggernaut when it came to finding childcare. After countless phone calls, emails, and conversations that ended with “this just doesn’t seem to suit our needs, thank you for your time,” I scoured our neighborhood parent email list for any insights. This led us to a small, cheerful, and cozy daycare that is not only two blocks away, but also totally flexible and responsive to our crazy scheduling needs. The daycare has been an absolute lifesaver, and I love knowing that Elizabeth is already part of a little community of kids (that’s the teacher in me).

Because I am a teacher of young children, my work days are pretty much saturated with the needs, quirks, and personalities of kids, so I am very careful to handle all student-related issues at work (or on the bus on the way home – I begrudgingly decided that adding my work email to my phone can make my commute productive) so that I can focus on the needs of my own child when I’m home.

At home, my husband and I have made sure to keep Elizabeth’s bedtime consistent and the bedtime ritual short and sweet so that we can have time to actually sit down to dinner together after she’s in bed. I love this time of day. It’s our chance to have face-to-face talks and just unwind after a busy day of working and parenting.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives,

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? First of all, it’s always dangerous to ask a Chicagoan anything that pertains to weather! That said, a clear blue sky shines outside my window and the flowers in my pots on the balcony are blooming like crazy, so I’ll choose to forget that I live in a city where winter’s grip can be paralyzing.

Today’s blue sky is perfect for where I am in my life these days. I’m off work, enjoying so many little moments with Elizabeth: her first steps; her symphony of babbles, coos, and first words; and the unbridled excitement with which she greets each day. This is like having another maternity leave, although this time it’s with a baby who is, to be completely honest, so much more fun than she was during my actual maternity leave (plus, this time I’m not fretting away about milk supply or frantically calculating how much sleep I might get if I go to bed right now). I love having the time to take long walks with my husband, Elizabeth, and our dog; opportunities for extended coffee & cocktail dates with friends; and time to hit the gym on a regular basis. The only challenge of this season is knowing that it will end!

-what season(s) preceded this one? During the months right before and immediately after Elizabeth’s birth, I was in a holding pattern for a while: straddling those last cold, dark days of winter and the early blossoming of spring’s promise. When I was six months pregnant, my youngest brother, Will, died in a car accident. He was only 19. The shock, the sadness, and the emptiness took my breath away over and over again. Will died in late March, just when winter was ending, but it felt like winter was all around me, despite Mother Nature’s signs. It turns out that Elizabeth, who was born less than four months after Will died, was my spring: full of promise and potential; always growing; constantly blooming. I, of course, have nurtured her, but she also nurtured me out of those dark days into a peaceful and abundant spring. I deeply miss Will every day and I know that I’ll never be completely the same without him, but Elizabeth has been my redemption.

-what season(s) might your future hold? “In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer.” So said Albert Camus. For a few months after Elizabeth was born, I thought about this quotation a lot (it was a preferred badge during my graduate school phase of “decorate the apartment with quotes”), and I thought that Elizabeth was, both literally and figuratively, the “invincible summer” within me. But, as my grief over losing my brother has dissipated a bit, my perspective has become much broader. I see that not only Elizabeth, but also my husband, my siblings, my family, my friends, my love of my career, and—most importantly—my own spirit and resilience in the face of a cruel winter are the seeds for future summers.

favorite family activities: Our family is scattered across the country, so traveling continues to be a favorite pastime, baby and all. We also love taking walks, visiting our friends around the city, and taking advantage of Chicago’s plentiful parks, most especially the swings!

favorite solo activities: My husband indulged my fascination with photography and gave me a great camera—a Nikon D3000 DSLR—for Mother’s Day, so I am beginning to learn more about photography. I really enjoy seeking out small moments of interest or beauty and snapping a photo. I love reading, although I don’t do as much of it now as I used to. Oh, I am also a very amateur urban gardener with a nice collection of flower pots adding color to my balcony.

source(s) of inspiration: My husband, Tom, is an ER Nurse at a Level 1 Trauma hospital that serves some of Chicago’s poorest, most dangerous neighborhoods. He sees patients who are at the lowest possible points in their lives. He always reaches out to them with humanity and grace, finding great joy and meaning in his work. I stand in awe when he tells me about his days at work.

My sister, Elizabeth is younger than I am but I look up to her a lot. She has never been afraid to be wholly true to herself, which is precisely why we named our daughter after her.

best MakeShift moment: My best MakeShift moment occurred the first time I traveled solo with Elizabeth. I was feeling together, organized, and on top of things after wrangling a car seat, Snap ‘N’ Go base, diaper bag, breast pump, and eight-week-old Elizabeth through the ticket counter, security line, and drop-off point for the X-Ray machine. As I reached to take Elizabeth out of her seat, I saw that she was absolutely covered in poop. It was everywhere. As I went to grab her car seat off the conveyor belt so that I could put her down and regroup, the TSA guys said, “sorry, ma’m, you can’t take that off the belt once you’ve put it down.” So, I looked at him with a withering look and said, without a trace of irony, “Oh, so you’ll hold her, then?” Needless to say, I got the car seat back. (And I learned that it’s not a bad idea to pack my own spare shirt when tossing an extra Onesie in the diaper bag.)

[if you or someone you know would make a good “mother of invention,” please check out the nomination process and questionnaire located on the sidebar to your right.]