My love-hate relationship with Legos

My 7-year-old son is obsessed with Legos. It all started a few years ago with Duplos. I never imagined that big colorful interconnecting pieces would later be the bane of my existence

In the beginning, I loved Legos. It was a project we could sit and do together and we could easily build something with wheels in 30 minutes and then it would be an hour of play with whatever we built. As he grew older, his obsession with Legos grew with him. I taught him how to master the steps of the Lego instructions and he would ask me for help every so often. It was a great way to develop his motor skills and he was so proud of the Legos he built. And here is where the love hate relationship blossomed.

As soon as he mastered the confidence to build Legos by himself, he started wanting more advanced Lego sets. Once I realized it could give me an entire morning free while he spent a good two hours building a set, I fell deeply in love with Legos. There was no fighting with his brother and he was fully engrossed in the Legos until that set was built. It was just as effective as the catatonic state we experienced with television, but with actual brain activity. Once he completed the set, he was so excited to play with it that I gained more peace and quiet time. This included no wrestling, biting (luckily only the 4-year-old was resorting to this), or whining about boredom. I COULD GET USED TO THIS! My love continued to grow. He would use his imagination to build his own creations outside of the building sets. His friend sent him a binder of self-made Lego instructions and he would build everything from a sailboat to sunglasses. We bonded over a Lego mock-up of his Kindergarten classroom that we displayed at the school. l felt incredibly blessed to have left my job to spend my morning building Legos.

It was the more complex sets that started the first stirrings of discontent. The 7-year-old was quickly building a Lego house. I must emphasize the word “quickly” as his brain works like his father’s. He likes to take short cuts when at all possible. While perhaps an admirable quality, one I have trouble comprehending (I bet you can imagine the effect this particular quality has on our marriage). When the Lego house was finished, there was a big gaping hole in the roof. When I questioned the hole, his exact words were “it’s good enough”. Are you kidding me? Would an architect think a hole in the roof was good enough? My son, ever so rational, reminded me it was just pretend and no one was going to really be living in the house. He was not going back 6 pages in the Lego instructions manual to rebuild the roof. While I knew I should have not been arguing considering he just built a model for ages 10 and up, I could not get past this. My husband gave me the eye roll as just as I was getting ready to stress the importance of rebuilding it. I held it together. The house sits on the shelf with a big hole in the roof. It takes every ounce of willpower not to mention it every time I am in his room. And yes, I will admit it, I have been tempted to rebuild the roof myself.

After the Lego house build, I tried to keep my distance with the Legos. However, it was impossible. The Legos were literally overtaking our house. The Lego sets were displayed on a shelf in the 7-year old’s bedroom. The shelf grew to cover the entire desk. Once this space was used, the playroom started acquiring Lego sets. My 7-year-old, who apparently was born without an ounce of organizational skills, started to leave Lego sets everywhere. We are talking not even full complete sets. If he was playing with the Lego airplane, but the wing fell off, you could bet I would find it on the floor later with the wing stashed in his closet. He was apparently proud of his work as Legos kept appearing everywhere, even in the bathroom. My husband who is a neat freak was not so happy to have to eat breakfast with Legos, let alone shower with a Lego camp set up on the vanity. In addition, there was the Lego minefield. About once a week, my husband would manage to step on a Lego, usually a stray Lego guy left stranded on the floor. If you are reading this, you know how painful it is to step on a Lego of any sort, especially one with legs. You did not want to be in the vicinity when it happened. Cursing, screaming, and threatening to throw all the Legos in the garbage was the common theme.

I took it upon myself to try to renew my love of Legos. I thought if I could organize the Legos, I could regain some control in the situation. This was my first mistake. Any parent of a Lego child knows Lego and organizing cannot be in the same sentence. First, I purchased several plastic shoe box containers. I had this fantasy that I would store each Lego set and instructions in a separate box. I was already slipping into Martha Stewart mode and imagining my 7-year-old excitedly labeling and decorating each of these boxes. This lasted for about a day once I realized only about 3 sets fit in these boxes and the ones that fit in larger boxes were either too wide or too tall. Next I decided that I could try to organize the Lego pieces by color. After three days of whining and complaining, we finally had a color coordinated box for each Lego color. This lasted for a full week before the 7-year-old kept dumping all the pieces on the floor and mixing colors. He also decided it was too much work to restock the boxes so Legos were again strewn all over the playroom floor. I HATE LEGOS!!!

We finally resorted to spending $40.00 on a Lego sorter, another overpriced Lego item for suckers desperate like me. The box contains four levels with holes so the small pieces fall to the bottom. You can separate the boxes when building to find the pieces by size. The flaw in the design is when the boxes are separated, the Legos fall through the holes and get buried in the carpet. Hence, I am still constantly finding or stepping on Lego pieces. This remains our current method of storing Legos and quite frankly I am still not feeling the love.

While I know my son’s love for Legos will continue to grow, I am fairly certain my relationship is over. If anyone reading this shares my grief, please tell me you have a better solution for managing the Lego madness that has overtaken our house. Perhaps I could fall in love once again…..

Failing family dinner 101

As I read all the articles and blogs on parenting, there is always an emphasis on family dinner. In a recent book published, the author indicated that the family dinner was one of the most important building blocks to instill confidence in children. In theory, during this meal time, your child can discuss his or her day and you can share your own highlights. The end result is supposed to promote family togetherness and a close-knit bond to remember in your adult life. I must be doing something seriously wrong as we certainly are not creating any of these memories during our meals.

Look at the following picture. See how everyone is smiling and using silverware? They are passing dishes to one another and genuinely look like they are enjoying the meal. Does anyone really have meals like this??? My kids are approximately the same age and I cannot remember any meal where our family dinners resembled anything close to this picture. For starters, if I was smiling this way at our family dinner, you can for sure bet I started drinking the wine while cooking the meal. Next, if my husband had a fork and knife in his hand, he certainly would not be smiling at our youngest son. He would be screaming across the table about eating with utensils. The fact that the boy actually has a utensil in his hand has to be a prop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While I love the idea of a family dinner and should be encouraged by this picture, unless my children go to some dinner boot camp (btw does anyone know if this exists, I may want to sign them up), I don’t see it happening.

Let’s recap our family dinner last night. It always starts with potential. On this particular evening, we were having spaghetti Bolognese. Usually spaghetti is a win with the 7-year-old as this falls into his four food groups of pizza, spaghetti, tacos, and hot dogs. However, as the sauce was not marinara, he started to whine as soon as he sat down. This set the tone for the meal. We told him to suck it up and eat it (yes those were the exact words, you can tell we need some help in proper parenting.) Also, for anyone reading this and my plea for better parenting skills, I have to plug http://parentingandstuff.wordpress.com/2013/02/16/what-it-is-what-its-not/Parenting and Stuff blog here.

We all have our pasta and begin to eat and rather than having the pleasant conversation about our day, the drama begins. First, the 7-year-old thinks he is old enough to no longer have his noodles cut up, but refuses to twirl. We watch him attempt to shove pasta in his mouth while extracting any meat particles at the same time to ensure he only gets the sauce. It is of course a disgusting sight to see so my husband patiently tries to teach him to twirl the pasta. After two attempts of not able to twirl, the 7-year-old gets fed up and stops using his fork at all and shovels the spaghetti onto his bread to get it into his mouth. This infuriates my husband and he proceeds to yell about his lack of manners and “USE YOUR SILVERWARE” (see why I think the boy in the picture’s silverware is just a prop?). The twirl discussion is resumed while I get to sit across the table and see spaghetti noodles slurped in any possible way. Of course, as a mother, I am worried that he may choke on top of poor manners when I see all the spaghetti he is attempting to get in his mouth. Please pour me some more wine. While the twirling discussion continues, the 7-year-old knocks over his full glass of milk. Since I had to buy the farmhouse table with planks that expand in the winter, the milk is everywhere in the cracks and I start screaming and most likely cursing as I spent way too much money on this table and if milk gets stuck in the cracks, it will smell forever. Oh another proud parenting moment.

While the 7-year-old is busy strangling the spaghetti, the four-year old has his own issues. His noodles are cut up so thankfully we only get to see one child shovel their food in on this evening. Rather, he focuses on yelling out potty talk and singing songs about poop and sexy lady. I curse gangnam style for the obsession that has entered my house. As I try to maneuver the discussion away from twirling, choking, and poop, the four-year old decides he is ready to stop singing and start talking. The words that came next though were not what I was envisioning as part of sharing our day. As my focus was on the 7-year-old and willing him not to choke, I did not realize the four-year old only had one hand above the table. The next words out of his mouth were “dad I have a bone in my pants”. Yes, we can thank my husband for that. He taught his 4-year-old the word “boner”. And apparently my four-year old has discovered his penis during our family dinner. Finally, something we can all smile about.

I would love to hear if anyone’s family dinners look like that picture. Well perhaps only comment if your meals at least loosely resemble mine. I don’t want to shatter all my confidence as a mother.

Surviving days of Matchbox cars and Candy Land

Last week my mom asked me if I was bored not working. I made the mistake of saying that I wasn’t at all bored (hello, has she paid any attention to my running two kids around since I left work??), but admitted that I get a little stir crazy stuck at home with my 4-year-old. If your mother is anything like my mother, you can imagine the guilt trip that followed, but let’s save that for a future post.

Being at home with a 4-year-old in the middle of winter does pose some challenges. While I have prided myself on crafting, cooking, and baking in my prior posts, a girl even pushing Martha Stewart behavior does have her thresholds.

While trips to Target used to be a source of joy and could fill an entire morning as an extracurricular activity, we had to recently retire this outing. First,Target is a dangerous place to go when you are no longer working. I find it hard to stay focused on the groceries and necessities when fabulous accessories and Nate Berkus’s new line for Target are two aisles over from the cereal. Target is an obvious marketing genius…and I have fallen victim to their ploy.

The second reason the Target excursions have been retired is I have learned Target or any grocery store with the four-year old is no longer as fun as it was at age 3. At 4, there is attitude. He is adamant about what cereal he wants and has a whole arsenal of reasons why he needs the fruit snacks, easy mac, and pop-tarts to come home with us. Being trapped indoors with processed food is not a pretty picture for any of us or my daily battle with the scale. Target shopping would have to occur only during school hours. While this strategy was good in theory for buying healthier food, having time to wander aimlessly at Target is certainly not good for my relationship with my husband or our budget.

Thus, outside of a few planned activities and school, there are days where we have long hours at home to play. Some days, the hours really do seem endless. My four-year old is obsessed with cars. Every day I have to pick one of two cars and decide which one I like better. This game can go on for an hour, sometimes two, depending on how many Matchbox cars he can find in different areas of the house. If I choose the car that he has already selected, I have to choose again. I am averaging the wrong car choice about 80% of the time. Once this part of the game is over, we line the cars up on the rug and park each car in a perfectly straight line. Next, I choose a color and he parks the cars by color in each row. I am starting to think there is definitely going to be OCD meds in his future.

There have been countless hours of games as well. Caribou remains a daily favorite. For anyone not familiar with Caribou, you find the matching letter on the game platform and look for balls that may be hiding under that letter. Once you collect all the balls, a magic treasure chest opens. Who in the hell came up with this game? Why is the treasure chest so fascinating to a 4-year-old? I don’t know what possessed me to take this game with me when we moved. I was pretty ready to hang myself playing it three years ago when my older son was obsessed with it. We also play Candy land and Monopoly party. If anyone else has played these three games all in one day, you will understand why this may be the only time I started to wonder if I should have left my job. Dealing with an irate client was easy in comparison to falling down into gum-drop land over and over again. It takes all my willpower to not uncork the wine a bit earlier after our game marathons.

While the television should be my saving grace on these days, it is virtually ineffective. How is this possible? BECAUSE OF CAILLOU. Sweet bald little Caillou is ruining my life. Don’t be fooled if you have not watched and you think this is a show about valuable lessons. Not only is his whining tone extremely contagious, I get questions from every episode. Why don’t I have a Grandpa like Caillou? Can you really eat fish that swim in the lake? Why doesn’t our cat act like Gilbert? Can I sit on the Zamboni when we go ice-skating? Why mommy why? And the theme song is constantly in my head. This phase cannot pass soon enough.

Although I am certainly grateful for this time now and know I will someday cherish Matchbox cars and Candy Land (I don’t think it will be possible to ever cherish Caribou or Caillou), someone, please give me some new games to play and ways to banish Caillou from our existence.

50 things I promise not to do this summer

My resignation  was in April of last year.  As I still had a 6 week window of  school in session, I  had a lot of time to think about all I was going to embrace as a full-time mother.  I was so stinking happy that I was not going to have to project any more sales forecasts, I may have gone a wee bit crazy in planning my first official summer in total mom mode.

My first clue should have been the spreadsheet I found on a Crafter’s website (could this have been the tipping point for the Martha Stewart behavior??).  The spreadsheet was titled ” 50 days of summer fun”.  I got right to work on this and sat down with the kids, deciding together about all fun 50 things we were going to do on our summer vacation.   Keep in mind, I was still in worker mode so the zen approach to being at home full-time had yet to kick in.

Considering there would not even be a full 90 days of summer vacation,  this was most likely the start of my over-compensating tactics as a result of working full-time every summer for the past 6 years.

The Summer 50 list did not seem at all daunting at the time. After all, there was a few sleep-overs at Grandma’s and at the cousins thrown into the mix to allow me adequate breaks.  Realistically, the list should have been called 25 days of summer fun because once we reached the second half of the list,  the big-ticket items were taken.  You can only get so creative with beach, pool, bike ride, and picnic in so many numbers.  We started to include water gun fights and getting ice-cream cones as full day line items.  By number 47 on the list I was beyond stretching for activities:

47: Puppet show (3 year old’s suggestion after watching Caillou that morning)

48: Play the grocery store monopoly game (Do you have any idea how much time this takes a 6-year-old to match the squares to the game board??)

49: Write Lego instructions (It should have read “Mom will write Lego instructions while 6-year-old builds something and 3-year-old cries that he is  bored and wants to go outside”)

50: Fix it projects with Daddy (I needed some relief and the 6-year-old did have real tools).

Once the list was finalized and in motion, there were other problem factors I hadn’t considered.   The beach and pool situations required me to get into the water. This meant taking off the cover-up or shorts and showing off my beyond white flabby legs. Let’s be honest, even though I was working from home, those legs were seeing the gym once a week at most.  In case I haven’t mentioned it, I was definitely a workaholic who couldn’t find time for regular gym work-outs between conference calls.

I also didn’t take into account that there would be a record heat index and daily temperatures averaging 90 degrees.  Line items such as “lemonade stand” , “make ice-cube popsicles”, and “bike riding” would not survive in excessive heat unless I was in the mood for whining, dehydration, and more whining.  Some of my spur of the moment decisions turned out to be big winners.  There was the afternoon lunch at the highway oasis.   Who knew that S’barro overlooking cars on the highway would be the best meal I would hear about for days on end.   Every time we drive by it, even now, the boys beg me to stop again.  Truly a proud parent moment. Of course, when I was bragging about this quick thinking to my husband,  he gave me the one eyebrow look.  Please, It’s not like I was the one eating at S’barro.

 And finally there was the exhaustion factor. Between lathering up the boys in sunblock,  packing up all the sun toys, the snacks, getting all the sand out of the car again and again, and sucking in my stomach every time in a bathing suit, it all became pretty tiring.  I was relieved when summer was over and we could retire the list.  We didn’t cover all 50 items, but hit 41, an impressive 82 percent.

While I am looking forward to this summer, there certainly will not be any “summer fun” lists.  I have been doing yoga which won’t eliminate my pasty appearance, but at least the flab factor will be down.  The boys will be in summer camp a few days a week so I can do a little planning for one activity per week, but I promise I am limiting to ten items at most, we will not create any list, and these will be full day excursions.

I know I shouldn’t get ahead of myself, but if anyone has any ideas for something to beat out my fabulous lunch at the oasis, let me know……

The Martha Stewart Effect

As I settle into full-time motherhood, I find myself over compensating for lost time and pushing Martha Stewart behavior.  I have been called out on this a few times.  The verdict is not out if I should be embarrassed or proud of this new title.   I have yet to decipher if I hear a hint of wistfulness in my friends voices or is it really sheer pity?

Valentine’s day is a prime example of my conversion. In the past when I was working, I would run to Target at the last-minute and scramble to get the Valentines completed the night before.  There was always a fight and a lot of tears shed because any mother who followed this same strategy knows that there are slim pickings of Valentine’s at the final hour.  Last year I was lucky to find one box of Ninjago Valentines, but because there was not enough cards in one box, I had to buy Hello Kitty Valentines.  I sold it to my son that he could give the Hello Kitty Valentines to the girls, but he was not happy. I think his exact words were “there is no way I am writing my name on some girly valentine”.   I know there was a lot of bribery involved to get him to pass these out.

This year I took it to an all new Martha Stewart level.  Let’s start with the trip to Target in January. Yes, I know, I have already impressed you.   First, did you know it can get really expensive to act like Martha Stewart, especially when you are no longer working?  At Target, I was drawn to a glass heart canister for Valentine candy.  Mistake number 1.  The canister which I chose to fill with candy hearts dressed up the counter immediately.  The boys were so excited, I let them each take a couple of hearts and read the words as part of our Valentine fun.   That evening my husband laid into me about the sugar in the candy hearts and I was just asking for cavities.  Of course, I told him to relax, they are only having one or two, lighten up! It was only a week into my candy heart display that the boys were taking more than one or two heart candies.   However, the future trip to the dentist was not  my immediate pressing concern. It was leaving out candy hearts on a counter with easy access during the longest  month of the year when it is too cold to do anything but stay inside the house for hours on end.  The sugar high and wrestling matches that resulted were enough to teach me my lesson.

After the candy fiasco, I concentrated my Valentine efforts on creating a Mindcraft Valentine box, glitter glue Valentines cards, and a bevy of crafts that would be considered a bit over the top by any normal mother.

There have been other instances of Martha Stewart behavior. For the 100 day of school project, I caught myself spending too much time on Pinterest and bought 100 googly eyes to celebrate the day. On a Sunday afternoon, I found myself using a hot glue gun that I recently purchased and glue gunning 100 googly eyes of all shapes and sizes.  I am embarrassed (or proud?) to admit that the glue gun purchase was to create my son’s Halloween costume from scratch when I made him a life-size Lego brick costume.

The Martha Stewart effect has carried over into other areas  of my life. I suddenly have a passion for creating stews and soups from scratch.  This is coming from a girl who cannot do anything without a recipe.  There has been at least two times in the past month that I have whipped up homemade chicken noodle soup from scratch and used leftovers to create some fancy stew.  I am buying organic carrots, and stocking onions and celery in my refrigerator.  I don’t cook, my husband cooks gourmet meals.  I am reading Better Homes and Gardens. There is something seriously wrong with this picture.

Is it possible that I have been converted?  Martha Stewart mothers make me physically ill (don’t take offense, I just didn’t think I had it in me), I cannot possibly have become one in 8 months.  As I start to panic that this transformation may be occurring, I still don’t think I could master a “Martha Stewart Living”  craft and I did complain about the glue gun glue stuck to my fingers so perhaps there is still hope for me.  The test will come this Spring if I suddenly have the desire to start gardening with real bugs and bees in sweaty outdoor conditions.

If it goes this route, please tell me a support group exists for this type of behavior.

Bathroom Humor

It is a new year and as I look back on 2012, I find it hard to believe I gave notice to resign from work a year ago. Of course, after almost twenty years in the same job, a resignation in January had to drag on for a solid four months until I officially said good-bye.  I cannot decide if I was really that loyal of an employee or I could not come to grips with reality that I was leaving my high paying salary to take on two crazy kids.  Ultimately,  when I am willing to admit it, I know it was the fear that kept me there.

So this brings me to month 8 of my new mommy career and I still cannot find the time to write a blog and manage two kids.  I know I spent way too much time complaining of lack of time in my last post, but for those of you who have kids, support me on this one.  I really am not LAZY!  Well okay, maybe a little, but after years of multi-tasking, it only seems fair to continue  my zen lifestyle for a tiny bit longer.  Let me share an example of my prior work life balance and perhaps you will cut me some slack.

It was 6:30 pm on a weeknight when I was working on a fraud resolution issue for work (oh, the perks of working from home…).  I was on the phone with my client when my husband told me he was leaving for dinner plans he could not cancel.  Let me preface this by noting this was not a business dinner, just an out-of-town friend in for the night.  I thought my panicked look would be enough for him to cancel his plans, but only succeeded in delaying his exit for another 35 minutes (apparently the maximum time threshold his friend could wait for a meal).  Although it was after 7 pm,  I knew the television would buy me time.  As soon as any cartoon was on the screen, it equated to a catatonic state, especially for the 6-year-old.   However, after five minutes, the 6-year-old yelled out his bathroom needs. ( This is why they invented mute. If you work from home use it.)   I knew it was serious as he doesn’t walk away from the television with a normal bathroom situation. I got him settled with books on the toilet (this is a whole other post).  As soon as I returned my focus to the call,  the three-year old, newly toilet trained, and who idolizes his big brother decided he had to go at this exact moment.  I got him settled on the potty seat in the other bathroom all while on speaker and mute and pretending  I was  100% engaged in this call to ensure we did not get fired.  Now with both boys nestled on the toilets, I was targeting for at least a 6 minute window of uninterrupted time.  It was about three minutes into my window when all hell broke loose.  The 3-year-old has finished, beaming with pride to show off his work, and still needed to be wiped. The 6-year-old who likes to hold his poop for days on end chose  to finally let loose and as a result,  clogged the toilet.  He starts screaming for me, panicking, as the water is filling and starting to overflow.  I once again leave my office, now in search of the plunger to take immediate action.  Now if you can only imagine the scene at hand.  I am on speaker and mute, intermittently answering work questions, standing with two naked boys, and attempting to plunge a toilet which on its own is no easy task.  While we didn’t lose the account, that episode was a defining moment in knowing a career change was in order.

These days when I am busy managing the toilet chaos (which is frequent in a house with two boys) , I remind myself the days may be  long, especially the days the now 7-year-old decides it is time to finally get on the toilet, but this time is oh so short.

5 months later….I have found a little time and sanity

I was really in over my head when I thought I could take over full-time parenting of two children and maintain a blog at the same time.  I was under the impression that handling multiple Fortune 500 accounts with international clients (ok stretching a little here), would certainly prepare me for full-time motherhood.

My biggest mistake was thinking I would have so much more time now.  I used to hear stories of the stay at home moms and how their houses would be messy and what could they possibly be doing with all that time all day? None of my friends staying at home warned me that a three-hour block of time where your child is thankfully at some activity goes by in about 30 seconds.  Furthermore, no one prepared me for the utter exhaustion I would feel at the end of the day from running the boys everywhere and trying to use my brain to come up with ways to keep them constantly busy.  Did you know an hour at the highway Oasis for lunch is comparable to a 4 star restaurant for a 4-year-old?  (I do have to admit the falafel sandwich was pretty delic for eating over the highway) .

About two months into my new career, my marriage started to suffer.  Perhaps falling asleep on the couch every night by 9 pm hardly left time for my spouse.  Then there was the unspoken judgement of the house always looking like a bomb went off (no exaggeration) when I was no longer spending my time working.  I found it impossible to do the simplest tasks that I was completing when I was working full-time.  Unloading the dishwasher become monumental when in the past I had unloaded the dishwasher, made lunch, and participated in a Webinar at the same time.  The laundry situation was not any better and there were several times this summer when my husband could not handle the piles and tried to sneak in a load.  This small act of kindness would cause more duress on our marriage as not only did I feel like a complete failure as the mommy maid, he shrunk two of my favorite shirts.

It took a while for me to understand the primary factor in my newfound laziness.  It finally hit me, it was TIME.  Time became the crux of my whole new motherhood role.  First, I thought I would have an abundance of it. Once that proved to be inaccurate, I just went with the flow.  Any time I didn’t feel like doing something, I could just tell myself it could wait until tomorrow.  It felt so nice, almost in a zen like  state to not have the mounting pressures of deadlines upon me.  However, my zen like state was not cooperating with the state of my house or my marriage.

Now here we are 5 months later and  I am finally starting to adjust to my lifestyle.  It did help tremendously that the boys went back to school at the end of August.  Of course it is easy for me to write this now almost three months later, but in August I was crying in Target after I dropped off my youngest in the three-day a week preschool program. There I was all alone in Target with no one in the cart and I should have been skipping through the aisles with my “me time”.  Instead, I found myself looking at all the  babies and toddlers riding along in the cart and feeling envious.  Perhaps if I hadn’t tried to cram in 6 years of parenting fun in one summer (This will take up a whole post), I would have handled Target with umm a little more grace.   I have since made  Target runs together with my 4 year old on the no school days since my mini melt down, but I have grown fond of my alone Target outings where there is no begging for pop-tarts, fruit snacks, or cereal in our cart.

So after five long months of parenting, I have found some sanity and a little time or perhaps that should be reversed?  I know the school day has contributed greatly to this cause.  As winter  break is around the corner, I am sure I will lose all momentum again. However, at the end of the day, I am loving my motherhood career even on the days when I am uncorking the wine at 5:00pm.

Ready or Not, IT’S OFFICIAL!

I have just ended my long time career as an overly stressed account executive to be a full time mother of  two rather rambunctious boys (age 4 and 7). I am trading in long hours, financial budgets, revenue projections, and power point presentations.  Good-bye staffing and forecasting analysis, performance monitoring, and Webinars. The constant yelling and instant messaging of someone always needing my expertise is over.

WHO AM I KIDDING???  This is definitely a lateral move into ” full- time mother”.  I will still be doing financial budgets, but in a panic when we miss our monthly revenue projections.  There will be no one to lay-off and no more direct costs to cut. (No one can make me get rid of my cleaning woman.) After two months of missing our revenue projections, it will turn into full fledged panic of how to avoid foreclosure on our house we purchased with ummm…TWO incomes.

The staffing and forecasting will be replaced with forecasting and scheduling my children in a bevy of  activities to ensure I can have a few moments of sanity.  Performance metrics will still be analyzed on a daily basis.  Did my 7 year old show any improvement in his ability to focus on non Lego tasks or will I be creating a Gant chart showing an operational improvement  process with completion dates?

Tune in for my daily rant in my newfound career path…..