We are nearing the end of a mostly good, but very long month.

I've not met the deadline I was hoping to, but I've made more progress than I expected.

The kid has some sort of gut thing. Either her tummy is just out of whack, or there's something else going on, in any case, we have to get a stool sample to the doc as soon as she poops during business hours. I don't understand though how if a kid poops through their diaper they have to stay home the next day, but if a kid poops in his underwear, which is uncontained, then why he gets to stay there. I know accidents happen, but the kid has like adult sized poops because she doesn't eat crap like the kids at school. Anyway, enough waxing on the poop...

I show up to every single fucking department event. Every single one of them. I haven't missed an event or meeting yet (unless the meeting was in conflict with another meeting). I even showed up to the faculty research thing in the middle of a fucking severe thunderstorm and flash flooding warning, and was one of the three people from the entire department there. I could not attend the poetry reading last night. The first fucking event I've missed since I was pregnant. LET ME SAY THAT AGAIN: THE FIRST EVENT I'VE MISSED SINCE I WAS PREGNANT, so the first event in FOUR FUCKING YEARS I've not been able to attend--

Boss: You were not there last night. You missed the poetry reading last night.
Me: Yes, it was impossible for me to make it. I couldn't be there. I let [event organizer] know that I would not be able to attend. (I was careful not to mention childcare or anything).
Boss: Yes, but you weren't there. There were no students there. [uh, okay?]. Many people noticed that you were conspicuously absent.
Me: Well, I couldn't make it. The email was only sent out last week.
Boss: We've had posters up for two weeks.
Me: Well, I couldn't make it.

I'm kicking myself for not thinking fast enough to point out that I've not missed an event in FOUR GODDAMN YEARS!

It's clear that whatever I do is not enough, and whatever I do not do is as damning as if I had held a kitten sacrifice for a Satanic Ritual during the speaker's presentation.

I know stuff like this shouldn't shut me down, but it does. And it makes me want to spit at my boss. I know that's hostile, but whatever. Yes, I understand as an untenured junior faculty member up for tenure next year means that I must attend everything, but I do attend EVERYTHING. More than Prince Colleague and other colleague up for tenure this year. My list of attendance at functions like these over the past five years is one page single spaced. Which, yes, I know that given that in my tenure portfolio, it will over shadow the one event I didn't attend, and if whoever is looking at it goes, "well, she missed that one event last year, denied" then they had no intention of supporting me anyway. I know no one even three weeks from now will remember that (or maybe a vindictive person will), and it's probably true that my absence will be more of a focus than my male colleague's absence, but whatever. It's still demoralizing and it shuts me down when I have shit to do.

That being said, I'm really going to miss my alone time with my kid. I by no means want this to be anything permanent (we both miss her dad lots!), and I have more to say about this, but I don't want all the good things about my month to be thrown in with my boss's asshattery. Perhaps I am unjustly hard on my boss, but Boss makes it very hard for me not to be.