My friend Nicole was just featured on the Today show in a story about “Mommy Envy”. This is funny for several reasons, one being that Nicole is the gorgeous, always composed mother of two gorgeous, always well behaved kids. Sometimes when I see Nicole I think “I have GOT to get a haircut” or “I have GOT to get rid of these shorts that I paid $8 for and have now worn for 4 years”. Not because she does anything to make me feel like that; it’s the opposite! She’s one of the friends I have that I feel better, after I’m around her. But she’s just smooth, and self-possessed, and seems to have it all together.

According to her she doesn’t! She feels envy of her friend “with four kids”-that’s our friend Mary Jean, who I’m also “envious” of–because she’s super relaxed and I don’t think she ever yells at her good kids. Sometimes as I’m hollering like a fishwife (and watching myself from the outside) I think why can’t I just be calm and let this stuff GO?

What’s funny with the story (and the accompanying blog) is that when you read it you know that ALL of us feel some sort of mommy “envy” (even Natalie Morales!!) I think it’s a testament to everyone wanting to be their best (not necessarily THE best, just their own best) and by definition when you’re a mom sometimes you’ll have lollipop stuck to your shirt, you won’t have taken a shower that day, you’ll be wearing grubbies, and you’ll be toting a 35 pound kid down the street because she’s just skinned both her knees and needs a little love (just ask my neighbors! “Sometimes” this happens!) You’re not “the best” or even “your best” then. But I think-I guess-you just have to let it go.

But when the stories are “Mommy Envy” or “Alpha Moms vs Beta Moms”–it’s natural to keep the stereotypes going. The Alpha vs. Beta is those moms who are go, go, go–always have everything prepared, clean perfect kids, etc, vs the “Betas” who pass off store-bought for home made at the school bake sale, who lose kids report cards, etc. “Today” illustrated it by showing a clip from “Desperate Housewives”…where Lynette is sitting under the soccer goal, and crying b/c she’s a failure–and Susan and Bree talk about how it’s tough for them, too…this only makes sense if you’re a “DH” fan, but at the time, I remember thinking “THAT’S how I feel!”.

That was Natalie Morales’ reaction, too–”Oh good, I’m not the only one!” Point is, none of us is all alpha or all beta, I don’t think. All of us think our friends are doing it better. For right now my kids are small enough that they think I’m doing it right, but I’m sure there will come a time where they will be HAPPY to tell me how many of their friend’s moms ARE doing it better.

But now that I’m old and wise, I know that MY mom did it right (even though I’d told her often SHE was wrong). So I just have to keep doing it as right as I think I can. And not be jealous-or envious-or classify myself as an alpha or a beta. And ignore the media, that does.

A friend told me today that she was expecting and said I’d have to fill her in on how I manage the “work life balance”. At that very moment, I was closeted in my office downstairs while my not-yet-two twins were coloring on everything they could find with markers (their definition of “coloring book” is very, very loose)–then rinsing their hands in the toilet water. Emma, my 3 1/2 year old, was amusing herself by cutting up curtains with scissors. So does it count as balance if 3/4 of the family is engaged in destructive behavior??

But that was a passing moment and as we spent the day doing chores and clean up–just little things around the house–I thought back to some of MY favorite days growing up. My favorite days–no hesitation in this answer, and I get nostalgic just thinking back–were afternoons spent with my mom while she would sew on her sewing machine and I’d bake–just across the kitchen island. Or I’d work on some project in the family room while she puttered (again, usually sewing). It’s fall in my memories, and we always had the record player on–Broadway musicals or the “Mix” radio–and there is just a feeling of comfort and of peace that I associate with that time.

So I know I have to be careful, as I overprogram myself and keep too much going on, to keep days like today with no solid plans–thrown in the mix. I actually hauled out my own sewing machine and fixed curtains with Emma. We made some cookies and the babies got issued clean sponges to wipe down everything with (they are big time sponge fans). And, I just burned the cookies as I worked on this blog–typical!

But burned cookies or no, I think part of the key to MY balance is fitting in what I can where I can and making “cleaning” , “yard playing”, etc part of our activities. Hopefully my kids will one day look back and think of their favorite days spent with me, doing little things here or there.

Or they’ll think back and say “That lady made us clean up all the time with sponges! Why did we have to wash our marker-hands in the toilet? And she always burned the cookies”…

One of our great partners and supporters is www.mommytrackd.com…a great site for moms who are working or staying at home and just want to be connected for a laugh or a “me too!” moment. Today, in their weekly email they had some “Celebrity Mom Sound Bites” and I was reading them and thinking here and there how apropos some are—even though I have a healthy dose of cynicism because mommy-hood must certainly be easier if you’re a celebrity with the appropriate help, no?

They had a great quote from Tina Fey…kind of sums up what we’re hoping to get to, what we’d love people at our conference address:
“The ideal situation for a parent is one that no one has – having a fulfilling job that requires you to work three days a week. It’s better for the parents, because they get to spend time with the children and also have a source of pride and achievement – and income – outside the home.”

Then I got to Teri Hatcher’s and as I read it I instantly started to cry.
“… I’ll work a 14-hour day, four days in a row and feel like I’ve been run over. But I don’t call it tired, I call it, ‘Nothing is right, and I’m no good at my job and I’m horrible and no one will ever love me.’ This is a serial problem for mothers. We’re trying to be everything all the time. The best mom, the best worker, the best wife or the best dater. And it’s too much.”

That sort of sums up how it’s been lately! I guess it’s that I’m so TIRED and that’s why when I hear all the news stories about birth order and how we spend all our time with our oldest, so they’re smarter—I think “I KNEW I broke my twins, it’s all my fault they aren’t geniuses”. Is it because I’m TIRED that I cried on the way to work because I feel like “Why do I go and why does this matter”? And cried on the way home at the thought of having to face the grocery store—and cried again when I thought “Why are you crying about going home!!” It’s certainly the “Tired” that makes me look around my house and threw up my hands because it’s a pig sty inhabited by people who live to smear messy ice-cream hands up and down the steps—and I know THAT’S my fault too because I let them eat ice cream everywhere!

Anyway I guess all of us go through the “Nothing is Right” phases. I guess we all come out of them too. But this blog’s about how working moms do it and I think sometimes, it’s just hard to do it…

I’m going to let Tina Fey some it up.

“I think every working mom probably feels the same thing which is you go through big chunks of time where you’re just going ‘this is impossible — oh this is impossible.’ And then you just keep going and keep going and you sort of do the impossible.”