This is (obviously) not a political blog but our house has become quite the political hotbed with party lines being drawn in unpredictable (or predictable??) places. 

Let me preface this by saying that I watch the news every night at 6:30 (I tivo it so sometimes it’s 6:40, sometimes 6:45…) and I’ve done so since the oldest mini-voter was bitty. In fact, when at the pediatrician’s with my 1 week old twins and my 20 month old prodigy my pediatrician was SHOCKED when mini-prodigy looked up at the doctor’s screen-saver and said “White House”.  In response to my question of “Who’s the President?”  our early activist knew (without judgement) “George Bush”.

*Note: there is a far longer story here involving me attending a conference 35 weeks pregnant with twins, wearing clogs and only clogs due to unacceptably swollen legs and ankles,  allowed to go to DC only if I delivered a signature from keynote Newt Gingrich to my OB/GYN. Vague guidelines about “Get on a train if you feel uterine activity” were advised; to this day I don’t know what that means. I delivered not a signature but a full-fledged letter. I also delivered my twins 1 day early so he did NOT deliver them, being still on vaca. As far as “uterine activity”–I had ‘em 1 hour after walking into the hospital–any getting on a train would have meant twins delivered in Delaware, had they been born a week earlier than they were. However, this opened a whole political dialogue between my OB, my pediatrician, me, and occasionally the oldest princess which tends to border on weird.

Ok–so my kids are aware of what’s going on. I mean, they don’t watch the news–they quasi-watch it and get scolded through “THIS IS MOMMY’S TIME” for a lot of it. Did I mention 6:30, news time, is a tradition in my family? A tradition involving snacks and a glass of wine?? So that’s in part why I’m fairly tied to it. Brian Williams=Learning + Glass O’ Wine.

But they pick up a lot. I heard on the Today Show the other day this election is the perfect chance to teach our children about our differences, about what’s going on, and such. I’m not sure my kids are picking up “let’s agree to disagree, let’s discuss”. In fact, when today the oldest saw our local bank (her favorite) had been bought out  and so she might not be able to convert change to cash without a commission–she cracked herself up after saying “That bank is taking my money, is that Barack Obama?” She DOES listen to her daddy!

And true to partisan lines, one twin who’s been engaged in some obscure land-war with her daddy, involving no rules or reason but resulting in lots of “I WANT MOMMY” demands, is fully supporting Obama in our informal straw poll. Said poll was conducted when we got our “sample ballot” and tried to figure out if we were for or against the $10 million bond for our town. The oldest, who can now read to our detriment (we can’t spell around her, send confidential emails–or in fact any emails–without her reading them) read through the ballot and yelled “I’m voting John McCain” and then polled siblings and parents. 

WHAT am I going to do when I take her to the polling spot and they refuse to let her pull the trigger? I mean, her father claims he’s voting for himself, so arguably she could take his vote–but they simply won’t let her. She’s 4 1/2, so that’s fairly understandable.

All I’m saying is I can’t wait till the elections are over so we can go back to normal. Discussions of Elmo’s social policy, for example.

Go politics. 

As I set up these events one of the questions I always get is “Why can’t dads come too?” Indeed, dads can (and have) come. We even had a dad speaker at the last Boston event and I’ve been trying to pull together a dad panel since day one–reasoning, that I think even a lot of moms would like to hear the dad perspective on working, staying at home, and the struggle between.

Certainly there are a lot of similar issues faced by moms and dads wanting balance, wanting to get back in, trying to make careers work. There are, however, a lot of different issues too. From my perspective oftentimes Dads have an even harder time getting back “on track”, if only because far fewer of them are making the decision to take time off so they are still more of a rare breed. Dads may have less of a network to plug into as well. I think many of the techniques and tips–networking, thinking through options, talking about flexibility–that Detours covers are good for all.

However I kept looking for a good “brother” organization, one only for dads–and I found at least a few resources in researching this weekend that I wanted to share. Athomedad.org is a blog with links to many resources. I found another good site called DC Metrodads. And all of them are referencing a big national event, a Daddy Conference, with info at www.athomedadconvention.com. Interestingly, this Daddy Conference seems to be experiencing the same lagging fall registrations as Detours did, reinforcing my thought that everyone gets so busy in the fall it’s tough to commit–hope to see all of you in the spring.  

So tell a dad about these if they’re asking. And of course dads are welcome to Detours! 

Today, in showing one of my princesses “William wants a doll” on YouTube, I came across these other sweet reminders of my youth (was I raised by hippies? It didn’t seem like it at the time but now I’m wondering). Does anyone else remember (word for word) Free to Be You and Me? And if so–Marlo Thomas had some great and inspirational words of wisdom, no? Mommies ARE people.

I showed it to my almost 5 year old and I was singing along and crying. I mean, truly lame.  

Thank goodness it’s hurricane-ing or tropical storm-ing–or something, there’s a lot of rain, here today because it gives me an excuse for utter and complete laziness. I feel totally wiped just as I was going to start working on renewed self confidence. I’ve been reading articles and books, including the just-released The Comeback, by Emma Gilbey Keller (who’s keynoting our Fall Richmond event) and it seems I’m not alone in the feeling of mom ickiness. In fact I had to look no further than facebook, which as I just reported IS exactly how far I’m looking at any given time, to read a friend’s lament that the contractor on her house said to her “Now how old are your grandchildren?”…about her CHILDREN. How are we supposed to feel peppy and pretty and energetic with that kind of crowd response? 

How, in fact, is it even worth it when yesterday I was just trying to fight the battle of the disgusting house to come upstairs and find the co-conspirator princesses had mixed with equal measure one (1) bottle of self-foaming soap with one (1) [expensive] bottle of olive oil. Their intention wasn’t to put it all over the floor–that was just a side benefit. Their intention was to fill their swimming pool with it–the blow up pool was sitting with a forlorn 2 inches of water outside our house. But two inches of water and soapy oil makes one disgustingly greasy mess. Plus they were all slicked up like old men on a Miami beach so every time I caught them to scold they slipped away.

A month or so ago they “helped” by dumping an entire bottle of wax on the floor–that was a pain to clean up but darned if my floors didn’t like shiningly awesome afterwards. Olive oil makes your floors shiny but NOT awesome. So clean up clean up as usual and that’s why I feel like it’s not WORTH it to even put on something different than shorts and a polo shirt, barely worth it to pull my hair back, never worth it to put on lipstick, unless I’m actually working.

Then, we went out last night to go see everclear, an over the hill band playing for free for us over the hill used to be hipsters, and I slapped on some lipstick and nice jeans and certainly did feel good. Especially when my fanciest princess made a point of saying Oooh Mommy, you look pretty with lipstick.

I can see the need for self confidence but I can also see how quick and easily it is lost.Because it’s pretty easy to feel bad as a mom (like if your kids grease your floors on your watch or any myriad of other parenting disasters). Then you (I) suck it up in an office, suck up lots of stuff everywhere, and for me at least there’s always the need to put everyone else first. Even last night I was watching the drummer pounding away and thinking how I’d wanted to take drum lessons which is a really really weird thing to want. And not marketable.

I’m going to figure out something of “mine” though. Not drums but something. And I remember last New Year’s declaring 2008 “my” year, where I wasn’t going to take any c-r-a-p. I guess now my best bet is to start preparing for 2009 to be the year of me. But for today I’m going to wait out the rainstorm in a bout of laziness and at least not try to feel guilty about it. And I’ll gratefully welcome any ideas for keeping confidence up.

First off I haven’t been blogging a ton of late (I’m sure this has not been noticed in the world at large) but it’s because I am horribly, monsterously busy and buried with conference stuff and with my “day job”–where I work to pay bills and also where I work to get fodder for this blog.

Any spare time of mine has been sucked up into: facebook. It’s shameful and I was very disdainful of the whole facebook thing until a friend sent me her page and without trying–that is, without JOINING!–I immediately had 3 friends on facebook. A day later 2 more. Now I’m hooked. My husband is poo-pooing it but I notice him sneaking onto my PAGE sometimes and I am sensing the same poo-pooness as he exhibited when I was first given a blackberry and he proclaimed them stupid. Till he got one. And now he’s scrolling like a champ 24-7 (while mine remains plugged in downstairs and I’m not exaggerating here actually has a cobweb on it).  

Facebook is a tremendous time waster in that you scroll around looking for people, and in my case, I then spend time online chatting away with my friend Kirsten - who  I talk to over the phone maybe 9-10 times a day so the online chatting is just madness. But addictive. I’ve also gotten back in touch with lots of old interesting friends like Siobhan, one of those people who if I just THINK of her I start to laugh…with my apartment neighbor from grad school…and with people from lots of other lives. It’s a little weird and random.

I have to admit to getting two others hooked but can hold my head up high and say that at least I’m not using facebook to waste time playing scrabble or text twirl (ahem). That is I could hold my head up high till I wasted a full hour doing Gilmore Girls trivia, for goodness sake, the other day. 

So this facebook confession goes along with the fact that I’ve got no time because I’m buried, buried, buried at the day gig. And this brings me to the point of this post which is something I’ve been expounding upon lately: when getting back to work, I think you need to be really clear about why you’re getting back…and know yourself and your motivations. This has come up on a couple interviews I’ve done in the past couple of weeks, and I think it’s something I’m qualified to speak on from my personal experience and from what I’ve seen at Detours. As qualified as I am to speak on anything for which I speak on…

Are you going back because you want to hop back into the career? To make some money? To fulfill your soul through an entrepreneurial venture? To put one of your big ideas into play? There’s lots of questions, reasons, and answers. I think you have to look in yourself for some honest answers motivations, and then make sure you’re crystal clear when you go in about what you’re looking for. There’s not “right” answers to the above–there’s just right answers for you. I remember when I was getting back in someone told me “I never hire someone at a level below where they were because I know they’ll be unhappy within 6 months”.  

I don’t know if that’s always true. I think if you can honestly say “I’m going back to help out on some projects. I care nothing for titles or career trajectory at this point and I just want to keep skills fresh and make some dough”,  you’ll be fine working at any level if the projects are up to your skill set.

I know it’s true for ME though.  I walked back in thinking that since I’d done the VP thing, running a department, I didn’t CARE anymore about that. I didn’t for a bit but the problem comes in when–due to experience and capabilities–projects and people are handed over. So suddenly the simple project-based gig that you take (or that I took) becomes the old officer position I had. But not at an officer salary or–for me, worse–without the “respect” I’d hope for and that I’d once had as the official head of a department. I think it’s pretty easy for moms returning to the workforce to get taken advantage of and find themselves in a similar spot. There’s a level of gratitude from mom to company for taking you back, for giving you some flexibility where needed, etc. There’s also a feeling of “I’m not sure there’s anything better out there!” and even the knowledge, in my case, that I KNOW I’m being taken advantage of but how can I go somewhere else and leave my kids 5 solid days a week–that’s not what I want now (at least in theory although today I do kind of want that).

So that’s why I’ve been advising of late that you need to know what you’re looking for before you look–there’s great resources and coaching programs out there that can help you ask yourself some tough questions, and you need to give yourself some honest answers. It’s part of the discussion at my fall events and I’m going to listen to the real experts because as usual I’m great at spotting the issue and the problem with myself but not super - great at taking my own advice (I mean literally, someone said the words to me yesterday “You are a gigantic sucker” and I had no rejoinder). My Richmond partners, Mom-entum Resources, offer great  hands-on help on this type of thing; so does Jane Seibel, of Employmoms, who’s been a part of previous Detours and who will be in Waltham in November. But I think you also just have to be honest with yourself and then in my case, know as with everything this isn’t forever.

And when feeling overwhelmed and put upon and taken advantage of, there’s always facebook. There’s escapes that help–and as lame as it is maybe something to just help get you through is what keeps you from feeling trapped forever.

So I’m off to update my profile and play more Gilmore Girls trivia…Rory is waiting. 

So last week I had this awful week with a thousand fire drills and calamities (none of which were really serious but all of which caused elevated levels of stress).And things built and built including my yelling and the kids’ level of irritation and irritating-ness. And as I got to Friday I was barely hanging in there and then I ended up having to spend 5 hours of my day simultaneously (a): fixing my computer, (b): fixing my internet connection-separate and distinct issue from point (a); (c): dealing with a lack of brochures at a warehouse that I had no responsibility for but 100% of the blame - and all this while watching the kids. Or parenting them, or guiding them, or whatever.

I stood in the middle of my kitchen and thought “Something’s gotta give! I can’t do all of this stuff anymore…kids, “day job”, conferences, etc”. Problem is that what I like the most pays the least and in fact the liking and the paying are in inverse proportion (ie I like my kids the most-at least in theory-and so far they’ve been worth NOTHING monetarily despite my efforts to land them lucrative baby modeling gigs).

Then I plunked them in front of Mary Poppins and felt bad about my parenting and decided to deal with my other problems one at a time. Which I did. So I did feel bad about the yelling and the tv-watching but also congratulated myself that in a hellacious week I managed to hold off drinking at noon, which I think is a mark of good parenting. I think.

Then, we did some random stuff over the weekend including a corporate picnic for my husband’s company, who when they say they are family friendly, MEAN IT since everyone was able to bring kids to a first-class event with bounce houses, cotton candy, events, and more. Two things happened. One, a twin yelled in the car the whole way which wasn’t that sweet but my husband lost his cool (which he never does. He RARELY yells at them. Because he only has to put up with their nonsense for an hour or so during the week so when I’m on my last nerve end of the day and they’re running around like naked wild Indians, refusing to get in the bath, asking for milk, fighting over toothbrushes, etc-at that point more often then not I yell and then I feel bad and then in a superior tone he’s been KNOWN to say “You have to control yourself” at which point I get mad at him instead of them). Anyway, THAT guy yelled at them and though that wasn’t that fun, I did take the opportunity to say “See? THAT’S how I feel end of day sometimes and why I yell!” And for the first time I think he actually DID see.

On a better note, between the 500 and 501 run down the blow-up-jump-house slide by my kids, I was watching them and thinking “Why?” As in why did I let myself get so carried away? Why did THEY give and get put last when I was prioritizing things and why on earth am I making myself so nuts over silly things? Why did I choose to spend the bulk of my time with them and then spend said time grumpy? I think that from time to time you have to assess and prioritize, I guess. And I think for anyone that’s looking for balance–of career and kids–it’s especially tough because it’s difficult to be fully present and successful in each. And none of us are very good at letting ourselves do “the best I can” without feeling like it’s really not the best. I know that I have to keep working on it because I feel terrible when I’m the yelling person.

I know that I do because I yelled AGAIN today (Geez, didn’t I learn from my own weekend revelation?) I guess I also have to be better at letting things go? How? If you’ve got some good ideas on cutting yourself some slack…I’m all ears. 

Here’s either a chuckle or a really great shopping tip: http://www.heelarious.com/

but the days are interminable.

That’s not my quote; it came from Whitney Forstner, another mom of twins, who was sharing my general feeling of wonder at how I am so sad each time I fold up and put away a little shirt that the girls have grown out of…sad when I look at their baby pics, fat grinning little ones…sad when I think how big they are and how fast it’s going…yet each morning, I wake up thinking “How am I going to get through THIS day!” and as I swig wine, end o’ day, I think PHEW! Another one down. Aren’t these the days I’m supposed to be cherishing?? Before they grow out of grinning fat babies into skulking teenagers (when they are sent to Swiss boarding schools?)

I lived the dream and enjoyed the moment in some non-stop girl time over these last couple weeks. Upon being freed from the school calendar…of course, none of my girls are IN school, but whatever, we freed up after the 2 1/2 hour dance recital which is a whole ‘nother post…the kids set off for Wilmington and I set off for a whacky trip to Wilmington via California (note: CA is not on the way). Girls visited with the grandparents and then I got to drive them home, stopping to visit various friends. As a whole they were quite pleasant and the amount of Ralph listening was fairly confined (note: Ralph is MUCH better in concert than on the 6th hour of a road trip).

So in a sweet euphoria over this success we set off for Boston. I brought along my babysitter, which made me feel super-duper decadent the entire time. I got some work done, the girls hit their second children’s museum in two weeks–Boston’s great, but Wilmington’s children museum is bar none the best I’ve ever seen–and the babysitter had a hotel room while the girls and I bunked in together. This was a little NOT sweet as my bed-mate, one of the twins, is a kicker who likes to sleep (I found out) in the middle of the bed so I, an adult, clung to the side of the bed as she enjoyed full double bed splendor. The annoyance was alleviated by looking at the other two unintentionally cuddled up in their own bed…the innocence of sleeping kids…

We were in Boston for 2 1/2 days and they almost all refused to leave. Princess One just kept yelling “I want to live at the Westin!”. So spoiled. Our hotel points mean that the majority of her hotel visits are at Westins and at this point that’s the majority of her travel–oh and business travel with me, to Ritz and JW Marriott–and now SHE EXPECTS NOTHING LESS. Not for nothing I camped either in tents or the back of our Aries K Car station wagon till, oh, I don’t know, my honeymoon–but this one calls room service for Perrier at age 4. It’s a rough world ahead.

But everyone got their free lotion, pulled out their shower caps, donned said shower caps, and we all walked out of the Westin for our drive home which was NOT that sweet. The twins were tolerable, but oldest princess fussed and yelled ALL the way home except for a brief nap. I had to provide running entertainment and I couldn’t listen to my book on tape (because of swears in it) and had to spend a full 40 minutes involved in a game called “Which city is it??” wherein I thought of stuff that was either DC or Boston and she had to say which — educational except every one she got wrong (admittedly very few as she is a prodigy, by all accounts) she made me re-do. In some cases multiple times. Because sometimes, against her own prodigy nature, she would give the same wrong answer 3-4 times and then holler.

These are the days to remember, Billy Joel sang, and even with rough car trips and bathroom visits colored by me yelling “DO NOT TOUCH ANYTHING” as they touched each and every thing, I am glad I had these little trips. It was such a fun adventure to settle in with my 3 little ones in a hotel and find a tv show, eat a late-night (8:30) snack, and feel crazy. People kept asking me “How can you do it with three little ones on your own?” and I thought “My alternative is staring at the walls in my house!!” So it’s nuts but hopefully “These are the days…they’ll hold on to”…and remember the good trips as they are, in the future, slumming at the Four Seasons or something …

In my case, the price of peace and quiet is, evidently, $2000.

If you reference some of my earlier posts or perhaps run into my husband you will know that I am extremely, extremely cheap. I prefer frugal and careful but my husband says no, it’s cheap. I come from a line of cheapies. My grandparents, very well off, are fondly remembered by my grandma wearing $2 grocery store keds b/c why spend $20 for the real thing? (She was cheap, he wasn’t–there’s a story passed through of how for Christmas, she asked for a coat, she got a fur coat–wasn’t so un-pc then–and was overheard by one of her ten kids complaining “I just wanted a coat to go to the grocery store”!)

Anywho I decided that my girls deserved a new jungle gym for the back yard–our house came with one, but it was 8 years old, filled with splinters, had no rungs (since I tried to climb it to reach something and broke them all, a real boost to my ego–note to self, diet–) and the slide was “ganked”. Ganked is a new word Aunt Erin taught my impressionable youngsters so we’re pretty psyched about that. I guess it could be worse.

I was willing to pay $1000 for said jungle gym which would have gotten me a board with a swing hanging off it. The most reasonable we could do without it being one swing for three girls to share was about $2000. Now I’m aware that these items are for sale at BJ’s, etc but my husband said “I refuse to trust myself with my children’s safety” and a co-worker, who bought the Costco item, subsequently spent $500 on a truck, $700 on tools, and dedicated 17 hours to building the swingset. After BunkBedGate ‘07 I’m all set with projects that large.

Psyched about the jungle gym, kids are too. Played for a full 30 minutes. And then were done.

Till they found the BOXES from the jungle gym. That occupied a full 45 minutes. They played sleep (generally voted the most boring game in the world, but led DAILY by our oldest. To play, you pretend to sleep. Actually, our babysitter is a big fan of this one.)

I’m SO not throwing away the boxes. For weeks! What a great “free bonus”!

Truth be told they did return to the jungle gym. So that was good. I think they’ll get some good play out of it. In my ongoing quest to get them playing on things without me constantly in the mix this is about a 70%. I do need to push them on swings (they refuse to learn to pump) but if I’m not there they somehow figure out to have fun without me. Now if only said fun were all-day…

around our house. Why? because everyone has determined, evidently, that it’s socially acceptable to let it all hang out whenever they want. 

Exhibit A: the twins, after their forced “naps” (read: time to destroy their rooms so I can put them all back together AGAIN as I do every night–why? Why can’t I just let the stuff build up or let them put it away in a fit of nap-enforced boredom) came down yesterday  to the basement to do dressups still wearing their nap-time pull ups.  They stripped down and then forgot the put on the unders step, and then ALSO forgot the put on the dress ups step.

I came out off of the treadmill and found them lying on the basement floor with their stuffed Elmo chairs over their head, starkers.  I don’t think that item needs me to say anything to make it funny because it just is.  Equally funny was when I came back 2 minutes later bearing unders to find them sitting in their chairs like some sort of weird naked talk show.  

Exhibit B: it’s maybe 150 degrees in the shade around here. It’s completely unacceptable and though I’m cheap and it PAINED me to crank on the central air conditioning the other day, I did it THANK GOD because today, as we all staggered in after “Picture Day” at Princess Number One’s dance recital (for which she sported purple velvet and tights–regulation–poor thing) it was all I could do to make it in to the sweet coolness of the kitchen and collapse. The twins had turned bright red within 1.4 seconds of getting outside, so were ready to spontaneously combust after being in the car, out of the car, in the car, out of the car for all the picture taking.  

It’s so hot that I went and bought not one but TWO water items to simultaneously amuse my children and drown the lawn. They frisked and frolicked on the slip ‘n slide (the second; first, with a special shark feature, lasted not even 8 hours before being summarily returned for general crappiness–the shark head was supposed to shoot water at the slip ‘n slide and instead shot it at my neighbor who was calmly trying to power was his fence) and the pool with a slide until they were done at which point they all stripped down IN the yard (with a garage sale going on across the street!) and then it turned into trying to herd kittens because just as we cornered one inside to get her dressed, another would turn up streaking across the front yard!

Certainly, I’m glad they are happy with their bodies. I’m not sure my neighbors are though.  

And in the last, cutest exhibit, the twins this am (while wearing underwear–underwear alone, but underwear nonetheless) were bonking their bellies together and yelling “Cheers”!  

I hope this isn’t symptomatic or indicative of a whole hot summer ahead. Last night one of the twins chose “The Coolest Snowman of All” for her book o’ the night–irony? I’m not sure. All’s I’m saying is it better cool down soon because too much more naked around here won’t be socially acceptable for ANYONE.