Freakout Friday

It’s not enough that it’s the week before Sales Conference, and the end of our fiscal year, as has been previously mentioned.  Now, the fates are ganging up on me.  In fact, exactly when I think it can’t get any weirder, it does, so I almost hesitate to post now, lest something amusing and blogable happen.  I may have to update this post if something good comes up.   

First, my babysitter called in sick today.  Not her fault, certainly, because she apparently had quite a day from hell yesterday too.  In fact, she’s NEVER called in sick, so she’s certainly owed this one.  And she reads this blog, so if I dared to say that the planets probably could not have found a worse day for her to be sick, she would feel horribly guilty about something that isn’t her fault. 

I got mom on the phone and asked her to come over here to watch IT Boy.  She first demurred, saying it would be easier to have IT Boy at her establishment.  I demurred (ok, freaked out) back, saying that 3 service providers were due today and to change them at the last minute would put all of us over the edge.  In fact, the 3 were due at 9, 10 and 11, and I called mom at 8.

So, mom gets here around 8:45.  We wait, and wait, and wait for provider #1, and she doesn’t show.  Oh, wait, no, that’s her, pulling in at 10am, right behind provider #2.  They do some sort of cage match/jello wrestling thing, and agree that #2 should stay, and #1 will reschedule.

This is a lot of work.  And requires a lot of brain power.  And in between performance appraisals, powerpoints, session agendas, objectives and salary planning, I ain’t got none of that.  Plus, IT Boy was none too happy to see ANYONE today, and sobbed through session #1, which was really supposed to be session #2, but you get the picture by now.  IT Boy calmed down at the end of the session, but provider #3 just arrived, and I could hear from upstairs that as soon as she came in the door, he just lost it and broke down.  Ah, that’s my Boy.

Finally, I track down the mom who’s kid was supposed to come here for a playdate with Little IT this afternoon.  I left messages for her at home and on the cell.  I was a little worried that we’d have to change both kid’s pickup instructions with the school office, because yesterday I heard of a mom who did that and the office never notified the kid and she took the bus home to find no one home.  The mom called me around 10am and said that she had been at school all morning.  Little IT went over to her, told her everything that was going on, and arranged to have the playdate at her house with that mom picking them up.  Without a doubt, hearing that was the best part of my day.  My kid is working for the team!  GO LITTLE IT! 

Just another day in the life of a working mama. 

 

Bustin’ Loose

Ever have that kind of day when you wake up thinking you can take on the world and it doesn’t work out that way?  You get dressed, head downstairs, and something happens to give you a sign that it’s not really going to be that kind of a day?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yeah, I can relate.

 

Continuing my conversion to “haus-frau”

Because my scrapbooking addition will be taking up more of my time, how will I be able to cook dinner for my hungry family?  Never fear, Let’s Dish  is here.  It’s a fun concept - grab a couple of friends, or head in yourself, and put together a bunch of meals to take home, freeze and cook later.  You come into the place, don protective gear (see below) and pick which meals you want to make.  At each station, you assemble the ingredients for a meal and place them into ziploc bags to be frozen and cooked later.  In just over an hour, I had the makings of 4 meals (you could also do 8 or 12, I started small).  The benefits?  You don’t have to chop anything, or clean up for that matter.  It’s more expensive than making it yourself, but it’s cheaper than take-out.  You make it yourself, fresh, and you can also control the ingredients that go into it. 

I thoroughly enjoyed myself, not just because of the food, but the company.  I went with Kris, who works with me, and she brought a friend from another publishing house not to be named.  :-)  As you can see, a great time was had by all. 

 

I’ve cooked two of the meals already, and they fed 4 people heartily.  The French Farmhouse chicken was delicious.  The Portabella Beef Stew was good, but the reviews in the house placed it at less yummy than the stew I make myself.  Let’s Dish claims that each of the dishes feeds 6, but those 6 people must be very small and not so hungry.  I know portion size is an issue in my world, but 6 people would starve if they had to share one Let’s Dish dish.  Since you see exactly what goes into each meal, I can say that they were pretty healthy, especially when combined with a big yummy salad at mealtime.  Mr IT is struggling to get the concept (”You can’t just do this yourself at home?”) but I think it’s something I would be happy to try again. 

 

Leaving the “Mafia”

With the Writer’s Strike sucking up all the creativity in the world and forcing us to watch the likes of Paradise Hotel (yes, it’s coming back, but no you won’t get a hot link from me), a new scripted television drama is nothing to be ignored.  Although, after watching two episodes of Cashmere Mafia, that may be exactly what I need to be doing. 

You can read a full synopsis of the episode at TWOP, because it’s one particular plot line that I want to comment on.  Zoe (no, I can’t get the umlaut or whatever it is in her name, but you know who I am talking about, so go with me here) is a working mom, which means she dresses up in sexy nighties hours after firing yet another nanny.  Yes, we all do that.  Anyhow, she finds herself in conflict with a stay-at-home-mom with kids at her kids’ school.  Victoria embodies every bad stereotype of a SAHM, so immediately, I began hating her.  When at the end of the episode Zoe gives Victoria her comeuppance, I was so happy I was cheering.   Happy because evil Victoria is against people like me, and needed to be taken down a peg.  Poor Working Moms, we need to band together against the evil of Victoria…

Hey…wait a minute.  I don’t know anyone like Victoria.  No one has ever over mothered my kids on my watch, or (sorry again honey) hit on my husband.   Most SAHMs that I know are rather giving and friendly.  So why the need to dredge up a storyline pitting women against women for the sake of drama?  The more I thought about it, the angrier I got, but not at the characters or SAHMs.  I got angry at the writers for making these one-note characters.  Zoe is good and Victoria is bad.  No shades of grey here.  Life just isn’t like that, and if this is an indication of how they will be telling their stories, there will be no more Mafia for me.  I’ll suffer through watching more Disney Channel shows with Little IT.  You can at least find multi-dimensional characters there, more so than on ABC, apparently. 

 

Snow Daze

UPDATE!  The schools in the area erred on the side of caution and cancelled school for today.  Me?  I’m sick, so I’m trapped in the house with the kids and a cold.  Fun stuff! 

Little IT came home with a note today advising that the weather forecast for tomorrow might necessitate an early dismissal from school.  And so begins the game of fun that all parents, especially working parents, enter into.  Fear, dread and loathing all in one tidy, snowy white package. 

What’s your plan for an early closure?  Do you have a neighbor ready to get your kid of the bus, or pick him up at school if need be?  Or will you be caught utterly off guard, as I was about 3 years ago.

I was on a business trip in Seattle in mid-February.  The day there was sunny and bright, crisp and cool.  I was driving to the airport to pick up a colleague and head to a business meeting when my cell phone rang.  It was the “transportation manager” at Little IT’s school (who knew there was such a position.)  He informed me that Little IT was on her way back to school via bus because there was no one at my house to pick her up off the bus.

Well of course there wasn’t.  It was Tuesday, and mom was to pick her up at school.  No, he said, after school programs were cancelled, so she was sent home on the bus.  She wasn’t in an afterschool program, I protested.

After a lot of “who’s on first”, I figured out the following - the Northeast was in the grip of a major ice storm.  My instructions to school were that she would be picked up, except the ice was so bad my mother could not make it out of the steep driveway of her apartment building.  Mom called my neighbor, and arranged for Little IT to go home on the bus to his house - same route, different stop.  However, the bus driver did not have this info and would not let Little IT off the bus.  Instead, she returned to school and awaited….something.  There really wasn’t a plan at that point.  I got a hold of Little IT at school.  She was, get this, the last kid left at school.  Made me feel like parent of the friggin year.  When I got her on the phone at the school she sounded shakey but was putting up a brave front.   I talked to the principal who said Little IT was fine, but had been crying.  She reassured me that she was staying with Little IT until she was picked up, whenever that might be.  Throughout all this, Mr. IT was at work in the city, where the weather wasn’t so bad and he had no idea what was going on.  Next call was to my neighbor, who agreed to brave the storm and head to school as soon as another neighbor got home and he could get him to watch the 7 kids assembled at his house.  It took about an hour of  phone calls, but in the end, Little IT did wind up safe and sound.   

What a relief.  Here I was, Miss Worst Case Scenario groupie and self-confessed MacGuyver Jr. and I was totally helpless, thousands of miles away and utterly incapable of helping my child.    It did cause a number of changes:

1.  Mr. IT was signed up for the “blast”, which is how they notify parents of emergencies at school.  It probably would have taken him at least 90 minutes to get home, which wouldn’t have been of much help, but it would have made me feel better. 

2. I changed the emergency pick up instructions to allow Little IT to go home on the bus and get off with our neighbor. 

3. I set up a back up to that plan, and a backup to the backup.  You can’t be too prepared, and it does indeed take a village to get through this stuff.

Here’s hoping tomorrow is not too icky, and no kids are left stranded at school.  Take the time now to review YOUR worst case scenarios and make sure your child(ren) are not left flapping in the breeze. 

 

The Mommy “Wars”

I just got done reading The Mommy Wars by Leslie Morgan Steiner.  Normally, these books are like brussels sprouts to me - don’t like them, don’t want them, keep them as far away from me as possible.  This is surprising to many of my friends and co-workers, but I have my reasons.  I happen to live in a community where I rarely feel like there are any conflicts between stay-at-home-moms and “working” moms.  In our town, we have women who used to have careers outside of the house and now don’t.  We have women returning to the workforce after taking time to stay home with their kids.   It’s a little of everything, and I rarely feel any judgements.  OK, that’s not to say when a parent shows up 30 minutes late to pick up their kid from a birthday party that there isn’t a bit of buzz.  But that’s about it. 

I’ve faced the whole “you work?” battle much more at work than anywhere else, and surprise, more from men than from women.  Here’s a great example - some time ago, a memo went around that a woman was leaving her job to be a “full-time mom.”  I was taken aback by that.  Was the implication that those of us who worked were “part-time moms”?  Because I have a c-section scar that brands me as a mom 24/7.  Was this person, a male person I might add, implying that I was less of a mom because I was pursuing a career? I whipped the note back at him with these comments and more sprinkled around it. He replied that he didn’t write the note, his boss did, and he couldn’t care less about what choices women were making these days. Fair enough. So I sent it to his boss and asked him what was behind his choice of words. In truth, I should have let it go there, but no, I persisted. The boss never responded, and when I asked him in person, I was told to give him a break, and that’s exactly what she was doing. He stopped short of suggesting that my bare feet retreat back into the kitchen, but that’s what it felt like.

Anyhow, why did I read this book? It was a gift from a friend who thought it was “right up my alley,” so I felt obligated to at least crack the binding. This friend reads this blog sporadically, so I don’t want to come out and say, “Wrong way alley, babe.”  But I’m a lot more interested in double teaming on Eric Clapton and Pattie Boyd’s dueling tomes than I am reading a “I’m right because I stay home with my kids” vs. “I’m right because I am a good career role model for my kids.”  Let’s face it, the majority of our kids are doing all right, and by our I mean both SAHM and working moms’ kids.  This book did have a little of I’m right, no I’m right, so that bothered me.  At the same time, it did present almost every viewpoint that was out there, so in the end I felt that it made me more sympathetic to ALL moms.  Something happens when you become a parent that changes you forever.  We know that the decisions we make will impact our children for better or for worse, so we struggle with them.  We have only to look at our kids and find a single fault to be ready to place the blame on a decision that we made.  Worse, at times others find those faults in our kids and blame us and our decisions.  But the truth is stuff happens, and it’s not always something that can be blamed on the fact that mom had a job and wasn’t home to make cookies.  Or vice versa.  By calling this book “Wars”, the author implies that there are sides to be taken.  When in reality there is one side, and that’s for our kids and what’s best for them. 

Overall though, I was disappointed that a woman had to dredge up the whole “mommy wars” angle. The book was an OK read, but do we need yet another book in the media drawing a divide where there really shouldn’t be one? In the end, we are a lot more supportive of each other than the media gives us credit for. And that’s what the story should be.

 

There’s no Alice Cooper song for this occasion

For most, school is already back in session or soon to be.  My 3rd grader (where did the time go?  Didn’t she start preschool, like, yesterday??) has her first day tomorrow.  A new school year means many things.  For parents, one of the most dreaded next to school supply shopping is the call to volunteer.  Whether it be for the PTA, your kid’s classroom, AYSO or Little League, everyone seems to want a piece of your time.  What’s a parent to do, especially one who has little time on her hands?

I’m here to tell you to listen the call and step up.  There’s nothing quite as rewarding as being involved in your child’s life, and as corny as it is, you do get back much more than you give.  I’m proud of the fact that I work for an employer that gives me the flexibitiy I need to do my job effectively while keeping things functioning on the home front.  Even so, I’m not going to be able to be at every school function, every Brownie meeting or even every soccer game.  So how can I contribute?

The best piece of advice I can give to any parent, but especially a working one is to find something that you can do that will serve a need.  Some task that is unique to your skill set and may not be to others.  Take Brownies - they meet on Thursdays after school.  That’s one of my worst work days and I am rarely home before 6pm.  I thought, how can I help the troop when I can’t make the meetings?  For one thing, I could take over emailing responsibilities for the troop.  One less thing for the leaders to do.  Doesn’t have to be done at the meeting.  Can be done on my time. 

What about a blog?  Great way to keep track of upcoming events, and for parents to review what happened at past meetings.  I can work in this with my daughter, and maybe there’s a techno badge that Girl Scouts offer that she can qualify for.  Maybe we can turn this over to the whole troop to contribute to.  So many options. 

I was team parent for AYSO last year, and every week I sent an email with the place and time of the practice session and the game, as well as what jersey the kids were supposed to wear.  Parents told me that they came to rely on those emails and found themselves unable to function without them.  I like when I can set the bar high. 

So I challenge all parents out there - do one more thing for the kids than you did last year.  I gurantee you won’t regret it.

 

Late for work

Today, I was slightly late for work because I overslept.  Luckily, I work from home two days a week, so my commute involved me walking downstairs to get some tea and then locking myself into the guest room to start my day.  Net net, 5 minutes late. 

 Why did I oversleep?  Because my 11 month old is going through a sleeping thing.  I’m not really sure why, but he does go through periods where he is simply a demon baby when the sun goes down.  Friends and people I met at BlogHer all commented on what a dream baby he is.  Yes, when the sun is out.  We offer anyone who takes a shine to him a spot on the 2am shift if they are interested.  Husband I thought he was teething, but this is about a week of going to bed at 8, waking at 10 or 11, and simply not going back to sleep in his crib.  I hate feeding him during the night, because we don’t want to get his stomach used to that.  But if he’s hungry, he’s certainly not going back to sleep until he hits the bottle.  Last night, we tried “Ferberizng”.  After about 2 hours of screaming and his sister visiting our room 4 times to inquire why we were torturing her brother, we pulled him into bed, gave him a bottle, and he fell asleep after about 10 minutes.  He’s an awesome kid as is his sister, and we love them to bits and pieces - at this point, we just want to get him in a better place for all of our sanities.

 I’m going to troll around some parenting blogs and see what strategies have worked for others.  If I can stay awake long enough. If anyone reading this has comments, feel free to share ANYTHING in the blog, if even if it’s a simple been there, done that, you will survive. 

This has been going on all week, to be truthful, but it was much less painful to wake at 5am knowing that I could go back to sleep.  Working at home has been so much of a blessing for me.  I’m able to work my schedule so I do mostly phone meetings and things to don’t require me to be face to face with others in the office.  Come fall, I’m going to have a babysitter at home on Fridays, so I can have lunch with the little man and have someone to take DD off the bus after school, which will make it even more of a happy day.  Now, to that second cup of coffee…