I’ve been immersed in a period of feeling like an epic failure and thus have not been sharing via the blog-world because who really needs to hear it? There’s no rhyme or reason but it’s all spiraling. In an effort to point out how ridiculous I am, the definitive list of failures:

1. Child One, the bossy older one, yells when asked to clean up ANYTHING and EVERYTHING. She yells things like “You don’t respect kids” (correct) and “This is so boring” (take a walk in my shoes sometimes, sister, during one of my conference calls). How did it come to this? Why didn’t I force her to be a better cleaner-upper a long time ago? Why can’t I now enforce the punishments better? How can this sweet child who is so smart turn Sybil-like and freak out over nothing?
2. Children Two and Three, twins, have a new habit of commencing a whine that starts when they get off the bus and usually culminates in one (or both) of them sitting on the floor and refusing to get up. LIKE AN INFANT. I have to entertain them 24-7. How did THIS happen? They used to play for hours alone while I worked, tidied, maybe did Facebook, Maybe. Usually I was working and contributing to society, only rarely facebooking. I try to stem the histrionics by feeding them so it’s like a non-stop buffet though the food is always shaped like bars. Second failure with this batch, they only eat food that is shaped like bars. And waffles. I’ve mentioned this before–but it ranks high on my list of failures.
3. Infant, the apple of my eye, can’t do the following–answer by raising her arms the question “How big is the Bee?” (that’s not really her name but she’ll think it is since it’s all we call her) signifying that she is “sooooo big”. FAILURE! For God’s sake she’s not learning all she can. And she only wants to play with office supplies like my files and post-its, clear evidence I work too much. Also, she’s supposed to be eating real food, here and there–but she hates baby food. It’s a pain to get her to eat it. So she eats: crackers, cheerios, and when I remember, fruit. And let me tell you how many days go by that I say “I forgot to feed her fruit!!” I mean, she’s nourished, but that’s from nursing her. And while I know that they say baby’s intake for year one should be formula or breastmilk I do NOT want to be the only source of nourishment forever and the way I’m failing at everything that’s the road I see before me…
4. Feel super uninspired by the impact I am making on the world as I believe it is diddle (as my Dad says).
5. Don’t feel like cooking anything.

So, I’m failing as a parent, as a mom, as a member of productive society, and each subsequent failure makes it all worse! I do consulting, and of course part and parcel of that is to submit work to clients that is then critiqued. Perhaps my attitude could be improved if I found that one elusive client who yells “Perfect” about everything I do. Perhaps I would feel better if my family did the same. There’s potential with the baby, MAYBE, but since she can’t do “so big” can she really be counted on to yell “Perfect” or even give me a thumbs up?

Today I brought my show on the road and went to the oldest’s first grade class to talk about my job. I left out all the boring stuff (obviously) and tried to highlight the fun parts of conference planning–like the important people I’ve gotten to meet, which has left them with the mistaken impression, somehow, that I work with Michael Jordan–who I’ve never actually met. I talked about all the key pieces and they then were given an opportunity to ask follow up questions. One asked what snacks I usually had at conferences.

“Lots–once we even had all different kinds of m&m’s!”

Follow up: What kind?

“Um, colored, plain, peanut”

Follow up: I can’t have peanut, I’m allergic.

“So then you’d go with the plain.”

No more questions.

So the sum total of my career as a productive member of society and as a mother is: ensure that there are snacks. And they shouldn’t be peanut.

How do I get out of the RUT?

The recent lull in blog posts was due to a much-needed trip to the Bahamas. Like most of the northeast, between plague-like germ conditions in our house causing a round of coughing that began December 1 and NEVER stopped with germs being spread and re-spread, and the ever-loving snow that stacked itself in feet outside my door, keeping us all trapped in with the germs–we were going crazy. Not Charlie Sheen crazy but maybe, honestly, only one more antibiotics prescription away from at least one of us heading down that slippery slope.

So we took the kids out of school for a week. (gasp!) I was never allowed to do this as a school age person, myself; when I broached the idea to my parents, our Bahamas co-travelers (extra hands at the pool so Mommy could occasionally get in a margarita) I expected some flack, but they were like “Why would you even think twice? Do it”. Sure, this may have been influenced by my dad’s desire to get on the water slides without pesky lines of school age kids, but off we went and so glad we did. Needed that break.

So that was the first step back to sanity and then yesterday I headed back to the gym after a 1 month hiatus, caused by 3 influencing factors:

1. Plague-like germ conditions causing incessant coughing which might, possibly, elicit dirty looks when children were brought in public – (take a guess how I know this) – have I mentioned the sickness string? Have you, too, lived the sickness string? Is there any family in America right now that has not spent the last 3 months coughing and revolving-door-rotating through the pharmacy and pediatrician?

2. So much snow that I would have to pull the children on a toboggan to GET to the gym after which what’s the point of doing anything but sitting in the steam room?

3. The baby’s massive freakouts at being left in childcare, which allowed me to maximize my workouts at 3 minutes.

We re-tried the gym, yesterday, now that the baby can sit and play with toys and guess what? She was able to rally and last a full 40 minutes in childcare. So I ran and gained clarity and realized that so much of what I’d been preaching and advising, I’d been completely ignoring myself. Is it the spring feel to the air? Is it the fact that there’s ALMOST no snow left on my yard? I know that so many people are in the same boat as me – sick of the winter and the germs and the trapped in. But here’s what I also realized:

1. It’s easier to work out in my house, on my treadmill. (It’s actually easier to not work out at all). It’s also for free (both those options). So I reasoned why even pay for the gym? And thus the only thing that got me out the door, going to the gym, I almost cancelled.

2. I can get by without a constant babysitter and I could save dough. And sure it got crazy and the baby played with crumpled up PowerPoints as toys but we could do it.

3. The world at large was frustrating me so I was ignoring friends and even relatives and just getting through my days, exhausted and just relieved to be at the end of each day.

So those things combined and it was easier, more economical–to just “get through”. And I found myself starting to hate everyone I knew and also myself. And so, after the treadmill, I said, “Self! Pull it the hell together”.

I know, personally, that when I hole up with myself and become too introspective, nothing helps. I was talking to a mom-of-twins-to-be, the other day, and telling her that what kept me sane, when I had three-under-two-years, was getting out every day and taking walks, just to get out. And now that they’re a bit bigger, and it should be easier–I have got to shake my own self up. Get out of my house, even if it’s easier to stay in.

This blog is supposed to cover how crazy it is to be a working mom and keep so many balls up in the air. I’m using it now as a public forum to push myself to get out there, and not just use the winter blahs to let everything spiral down around me. The winter, the germs, the lack of people makes it so easy to get to a dark, grumpy, depressed place. In the spirit of shared experience, I know so many who walk that line. I’m going to try to take my own advice to actively try to walk away from that line. So that’s my public goal as the spring sun tries to melt that last residual snow…I have posted before about getting outside, getting dressed in more than sweats, blah blah blah. But I guess we all need reminders.

Any number of things are right now driving me completely and totally off my rocker. I need not list them; you likely all are dealing with similar. My children seem to be on a one-day-a-week school schedule (but an every day a week yell and scream schedule) and our comfortable 4-bedroom colonial is rapidly transforming into an igloo complete with ice roof and ice driveway that is NOT big enough to hold the likes of all of us. All of us can barely stand the sight of each other except for of course the baby, who will not let me OUT of her sight. This, now, has become a mutually dependent relationship–I had to take a quick jaunt to the ER last week, just for fun (if you call kidney stones fun and you know what? After a week in my house with America’s favorite snow-bunnies, or anti-snow-bunnies, my girls, I MIGHT call kidney stones fun). The baby came along because she, as mentioned, won’t let me out of her sight and it was judged by my husband and I, neither of us thinking clearly, to be the best course of action so he could be in charge of everyone else without her yelling at them. But then I found I was so happy to have her, at 3 am, to cuddle with on the ER bed as I was all whacked on painkillers–and like I said, mutual dependence is now firmly established.

Ok, but what is the MOST annoying to me now, beyond all the “big girls” pushing all the baby’s toys ALL. THE. TIME so they make SO. MUCH. ELECTRONIC. BABY. MUSIC. NOISE. is that my twins have decided they will eat nothing, nothing, NOTHING, unless it is shaped like a bar or a dinosaur.

Let me backtrack to say I was a picky eater. I ate nothing but fried eggs (dinner) and bagels and cream cheese (lunch) for a TWO year period. And that old threat offered by mothers everywhere, “Just wait till you have kids that do this to you”, double-downed in my case.

We can barely go out to dinner–they won’t eat anything. They eat: Special K bars. NutriGrain bars. And an occasional noodle. I said they ate dino-chicken but that is only if we’re yelling and feeding it to them.

It is absolutely absurd. But what can we do?

I'm wicked cute and sweet but wait am I feeling hungry?

Option ONE…”This is what’s being served. If you’re hungry you’ll eat it”. FAIL. Because they are hungry. And in the case of one of them, in particular, a tiny hungry means a GIANT meltdown.

YEAH I'm hungry, where's my bar-shaped FOOD?

So to avoid books being thrown all over the room, closets emptied, screaming commencing that lasts 60 minutes plus–I’m not talking worst case scenario, I’m talking that’s what just happened–you have to feed the kid. So you give her a Special K bar. And her lunch sits there.

Option TWO. “Find something you want to try”. FAIL. They refuse. One literally holds her nose if we try to make her eat anything and says all manner of food “smells”. Submitted for your consideration as “smelly foods”…Noodles. Pancakes. Even chicken. Is she a bloodhound with the most advanced sense of smell ever? Can we rent her out as a bomb-sniffing twin? And if we do can they get her to eat something while she’s on the road?

Option THREE. “No dessert”. See Option One. Fail. Because now not only do they not have dinner, there’s no chance for getting any food in ‘em at all, even some of the sneaky Deceptively Delicious vegetable desserts. And the beast comes out.

I am, quite literally, at the end of my rope. I tuck into my scrambled eggs (I don’t like ‘em fried anymore) and think to myself “Some day you’ll have picky eaters…may they be triplets”.

Suggestions, please?

My blogging is becoming more restricted as I choose not to write about my prior jobs (in some cases interesting but not very professional and in other cases boring); have to be careful what I write about a lot of my current work–most of which is great, anyway–and now, it turns out, my husband has made it CRYSTAL clear he would prefer not to be included in my blog posting.

So as a quick swan song to ever including him again I am going to point out one thing that is nice (to be CLEAR there are many nice things about him, I’m here focusing on one). Amidst the plethora of toys that descended upon us over the holidays there were some fine products from Disney in the mix. I’ve been clear before that these are not my favorites–for the following reasons:

1. They are hoochy and trampy.

2. They are not meant to be operated by children as far as I can tell so I’m getting them dressed ALL THE TIME. The kids can undress ‘em and then that’s it.

3. There are dolly high-heels all over this house. ALL OVER. And they hurt like a, well, like a high heel driving into your foot when you step on them.

So I’ve been purging stuff like crazy because I’ve feeling encumbered and oppressed by my stuff–I’m sure part of it is I’m stuck inside a snowbound house, staring out at snow, staring inside at the cute but somewhat snot-covered (sick) baby. And as such if a toy was showing even an INKLING of being broken it is either being pitched or returned. (Sidenote–I thought I’d saved some of the girls toys for the baby but it turns out I didn’t. So she has like one bear and an old rattle to play with. On the upside, if I successfully keep this purging up, is there a chance she may NEVER KNOW the Disney Princesses exist??)

One twin got this fashion-art-thing for Christmas; light broke day two. RETURN. Old coloring books half-colored? GARBAGE. And then we came to Rapunzel…you see, Daddy had taken the twin whose art thing got bounced to Toys R Us to pick something new (I ACTIVELY work to avoid ever setting foot in Toys R Us up to and including offering to clean the entire house alone and grocery shop if he’ll make the 10 minute trek to Toys R Us instead of me.) In a shocking turn of events she picked out yet another Disney Princess (sidenote: there is no way the baby’s going to be able to avoid Disney Princess knowledge, huh?) It’s this Tangled/Rapunzel thing that you are supposed to be able to “print stencils on with iced water”–on her hair–hearts and stuff.

I thought back to the little Disney oven thing we’d gotten last year after the oldest filled her E-Z Bake with olive oil (don’t know why) that would have, if cooked, likely blown us all to kingdom come (GARBAGE). The Disney “Ice Oven”  purported to “use ice to bake delicious cupcakes!” Guess what. It didn’t. You stuck ice in and got some NASTY, NASTY thing that looked like chocolate but tasted like iced dirt. I mean, here’s what my girls created this year with their cake set:

Eat meeeeee...eat meeeee....

I’m telling you, this is GORGEOUS in comparison to what that ice-oven created. Or didn’t create. (PITCHED IT!!) So, the ice-water-hair-stamping thing, you guessed it, didn’t work.

And it was pretty cute to see the daddy of these four girls–the man who has no sisters. Grew up with legos and sports and jedis. Has to now referee princess-y screaming matches including dolls’ hurt feelings. This daddy sat on the couch with the twin, a cup of iced water, this ridiculous doll, and some silly purple paint brush and hair clip, trying to stencil hearts on her hair. Never mind that he can’t do the girls’ hair–I came home from a 2-day trip once and found the oldest one with braids in and asked how daddy managed? Turns out she just hadn’t brushed out the braids I’d put in 3 days prior. But he patiently tried and tried with this one. And the very next day, journeyed on his lunch hour to Toys R Us. To return it.

And get another, different (will it work? I wonder) Disney Princess.

And not for nothing, this was all 3 days after he’d spent lunch hour at the American Girl store. Picking up clothes for the oldest daughter’s newest and most favorite item, her Rebecca doll. (Who, by the way, she can SORT of dress. Not all the way, I have to do the shoes, but most of the way. This is one step forward one step back though–she spends so much time getting Rebecca dressed in the morning, now I have to get HER dressed to get her out the door on time). So daddy came home with the “movie dress” and entered into a whole conversation about what was new, clothing-wise, for Rebecca, as relayed to him by the folks at American Girl (Motto: “We make clothes for dolls more expensive then you ever buy for your own children and there is no “Old Navy” equivalent”).

Twelve years ago when I first met him I joked with him “What if we only had girls?” We both laughed to think of him as the father of only girls.

Twelve years, four girls later, I know that these girls are lucky indeed to have such a daddy.

Especially when I’m running around in the dead of night stepping on plastic high heels and purging the “broken” toys…

So I recently had a brilliant idea to take my girls, all four of them, to the wonder and glory of “Grand Illumination” in Williamsburg, Virginia. We’d meet my parents there and kick off our holiday season with a glorious display of colonial Christmas. Things went downhill fast and here is the story. Complete with play-by-play.

Background: This is not the first time I’ve been burned, so to speak, by Colonial Williamsburg. I chose it as the backdrop of my college experience and it was not my finest four years. However, my recollection was that the Christmas season was its finest–carolers, revelers, decorations, cozy feelings. I pictured us walking down through glowing candles hand-in-hand. How great for us all to be together there. I vaguely recognized the length of driving involved but blocked it out. Along with the fact that the baby HATES THE CAR.

Reality–delivered as highlights. Or lowlights.

4:30 pm Friday: We get on the road. We are leaving this late because one of the daughters is a daisy now and couldn’t bear to miss her daisy meeting. So we get on the road with the majority of NJ and begin our trek. Oh, I forgot to get gas. Stop to get it, baby wakes up, commences crying.

4:35 pm: Children begin asking for McDonald’s for dinner.

4:40 pm: Children ask again for McDonald’s.

4:45-6:30 pm: McDonalds is asked for in rotation every minute or so. Our background to the McDonald’s is the satellite radio Christmas tunes. By 6:30 I had heard Alvin and the Chipmunks mixed with the cast of Glee busting out their favorite carols enough and we stopped for dinner. At McDonalds. (2 hours later when we arrive in DC, our stopping place, I find 6.5 of 8 nuggets on the floor of my car).

7:00 pm: Twins are asleep, baby is not. This is bad on both fronts. Baby is yelling. She can only be quieted by my contorting my body with my arm behind me, holding her plug in and stroking her cheek. She recognizes her sister, my “helper”, who’s trying to cheek-rub, as an imposter and yells. So I drive with one hand behind me for an hour or so. Awesome.

8:30 pm: Get to our stopping point. Plans to “transfer” sleeping 5 year old twins are disrupted when one wakes up, sees Washington monument, and yells “The Pencil”. They then run around my aunt’s house for one hour. Are convinced to get in bed, my aunt and uncle come home, stir them up again. Fast forward to midnight at which point they are kicked out of my bed and into their own to sleep, talk, read books, watch porn–whatever gets them out of my room. Think to myself “should not have let them sleep in car”. This thought is of course 6 hours too late to do anyone any good.

Aah, Saturday. Off we head to the beginning of HOLIDAY WONDER!

2pm: Arrive in W’burg. It’s PRETTY cold so we wander around a bit and then head back to hotel for what the children view as the only reason they have come: the pool. The pool deserves a special mention–it has shooting fountains and lights blinking purple, blue, red, green. Oldest girl says “it disturbs me” and refuses to swim. In truth, the only thing the pool is missing is Denny Terrio as a lifeguard.

Grandpa lets twins in the hot tub. As they are operating on 1 hour of sleep and virtually no food I let them do whatever they want to avoid breakdown. Can’t wait for the Christmas fun to begin the next day.

Sunday: It’s the big day. Head out to Wburg at 9am to be sure to get on carriage ride. Realize as we walk outside that it is the coldest day Wburg has seen perhaps EVER. Dad’s eyes begin to water until he looks like he’s weeping uncontrollably. He very well may be. Baby, in seventeen layers including sherpa-lined teddy-bear like snowsuit, can’t even cry because she can’t believe anyone would BRING a baby out in cold like this. But we’re here for CHRISTMAS FUN so we will not be stopped.

10am: Carriage ride. 1 mph pace behind horse allows the wind to really hit us full blast so we’re colder than any human has ever been. We look around for Christmas evidence but it’s lacking aside from a few wreaths. Oh, and one billion people setting up camp chairs next to marked-off-in-police-tape areas. Festive.

10:10 am: Carriage ride that we raced down for is over. We begin visiting historical buildings in an effort to stay warm. 99% of historical facts go completely over children’s heads. NO mention is made of anything Christmas-y. My mother ties a scarf around her head like a babushka, looking weird, but not ANY weirder than the 8 zillion people sitting in their camp chairs. By police tape.

11 am: Need to feed the baby. Ask where I can do so and I’m directed to a porta-john. Nice. Remember that Williamsburg was sued for being not-handicapped-friendly, a fact reinforced each time I have to carry stroller up and down steps, and consider nursing baby in the middle of the street, only to realize that would be freezing and give new meaning to colder than a witch’s…

This will all be worth it when Christmas fun begins. Later. Surprised there’s not more now, but it will surely begin soon.

Noon: We visit art museum and happen upon a “coloring area”. Children begin coloring (once their ice cube fingers become bendable) and we think perhaps we’ll settle in there for 4 or so hours till the fun scheduled that night starts. Smell terrible smell. Realize it’s baby. Go to change diapers and realize…don’t have any in the GIANT diaper bag filled with 40 pounds of “big girl stuff” that I’ve been lugging around all day. Decide to nurse baby in the corner of the children’s room with a blanket covering me, having rejected porta-john, and a tour comes through. Stop feeding baby and get everyone in car to drive home to disco-pool-hotel for lunch. Realize as we give up our parking spot we might never get another. Because of the DROVES of people coming in for the CHRISTMAS FUN, all of whom are sitting in camp chairs and staring at police tape.

2pm: Adults have eaten lunch. Children, at this point subsisting on crust of bread because they refuse to eat anything else, are touch and go. We head back to the Burg. At any given point one is yelling that they can’t walk and are freezing (later we see twins legs, completely chaffed, and feel a little bad that we ignored complaining). Continue to see historical things, including George Washington on his horse, later reported to their father as “We saw George Harrison”. They are really into the Beatles. Have yet to see anything Christmas-y.

4pm: At this point we’re on our third visit to the blacksmith, only because he has a fire. Baby, who has tried to sleep through this entire thing and just keeps getting pulled in an out of her stroller that I’ve manhandled up and down steps, smells like smoked jerky because we’ve been in the blacksmith so long. Children can basically forge their own horseshoes due to knowledge gained. Upside: we’re slightly warmer.

5pm: Sneak into Williamsburg Inn. My father at this point has lost 10 pounds in liquid body weight from the amount of tears pouring down his face because of the frozen tundra. Mother has layered every item in her suitcase on. We sit in the glorious and beautiful lobby of the Williamsburg Inn hoping not to be thrown out as homeless bums. I did find a place to nurse the baby complete with novels to read and I consider locking myself in and never coming out. Another couple comes in and sits down and I don’t even care. They do; they realize I’m nursing and move on. Oh well.

5:30pm: Head off to dinner. Christmas-y item spotted: choir. Children sit to listen and we are shocked that any acknowledgment of the holiday is being made. There are at this point 4.2 million people sitting in camp chairs sitting and staring at police tape around the areas where the fireworks may or may not happen. They have ignored the laws of physics that point out that fireworks will be visible IN THE SKY and are crowding each other to be as close to crime tape as possible.

6pm: Sit in restaurant and ask for 7 bottles of wine to immediately be brought for personal use. Baby is out of her teddy bear gear but doesn’t want to wake up–likely reasoning that if she just keeps sleeping, she’ll hopefully wake up much later in a place where it’s not 40 below, people dress her like a teddy bear and expect her to learn history, and it will all be over. Dinner arrives, needing two hands, baby wakes up. Children, again, refuse to eat anything. Drink wine. Fireworks are heard–the SUM TOTAL of the Christmas magic. We see one over the dumpster of the restaurant. Drink wine. Run children outside to see if there are more fireworks and see one more. Go back inside and drink more wine.

Sunday: Let children swim one more time and begin trek home at 10:30.

10:31: Children begin asking for McDonalds for lunch.

12 noon: Give in finally to 90 minutes worth of McDonald’s asking and baby wakes up. Starts to yell. Stop for one hour pit stop at aunt and uncle’s to let off steam and feed baby in a place OTHER than a rest stop or porta-john, how glamorous. Spoiled baby.

3pm: Having pit-stopped for 3 hours we get back on the road fearing the worst. The worst delivers. The baby yells as long as NJ. Not in the sense of “a heart as big as Texas”-type euphemism, but THE ENTIRE LENGTH OF NJ. We attempt to tune her out with Christmas carols but not even the cast of Glee can belt them out that loud.

7:30 pm: Arrive home. Need wine. Baby is a ball of sweat from incessant yelling. Children asked how trip was?

“We saw fireworks”.

As are many of you I’m in the mode of taking stock of my life (crazy) and work and figuring out next steps, especially with new baby/Princess Number Four. But to be completely honest I’m tired of thinking about it and tired of blogging about it! I’m going to take it as it comes and deal with more immediate issues.

One of them being, the things that are changing around here with the arrival of the new baby. There’s some new baby toys about, though very few. Poor New Baby (NB) mostly has to take care of her farm, by sitting in a chair that has a swinging pig and cow, and…well, that’s it. And her big sisters, when told “Play with the Baby!” just look at her and say “Take care of your farm!”

I felt like I was saving all this kid-crap upstairs or downstairs but through floods, plagues, and such, I guess it all got thrown away because the only thing I could unearth is the farm chair, a moldy carseat (I think mold especially loves carseats because of all the spit up that is involved and impossible to wipe up) and ridiculous amounts of pink baby clothes (because this is princess number four).

I swore off all garage sales because the last one was such a giant pain–we hauled all the crap great bargains out to the driveway for our 8 am start (of course there were about 10 prior-to-8-am’ers haunting my garage, looking for early bird specials) and then had like 4 people come total. We unloaded some Dora crap finery and my neighbor’s 400 year old curtains. Nothing else sold and we almost started slapping Dora stickers onto things like toasters and vases just to raise the level of interest. I put as much as I could into my car and dumped it at the Thrift Store (in a stealthy after-they-were-closed so they couldn’t deny it run) and said NO MORE GARAGE SALES. And then promptly began storing everything I didn’t want or that was broken away again for an upcoming garage sale.

So I’m now saving lots of pink clothes and especially “gender neutral”, since I never find out, clothes with frogs and ducks for that garage sale, and we’re full up on bins of clothes, and thus, no room for toys. We do have one swing that NB likes and it has her favorite thing, a mobile. Which one of the twins broke (“Stop twisting that mobile around it will break Stop twisting that mobile around it will break Stop twisting that mobile around it will break”…”Mommy the mobile broke”) so the poor NB stares at static fish and thinks to herself, likely, what a boring toy-free house. And meanwhile I can’t move without tripping over mid-sized kid toys such as naked Disney princesses.

But that isn’t even what I started writing about. The biggest change since the new baby came is me and most specifically since I’m nursing her my CHEST! Now I try to keep this blog somewhat on the up-and-up and fairly professional as it is tied to our professional conferences. Furthermore I have taken an active and vocal stand against nursing being the only topic a new mom can talk about. In this case though it’s not about nursing, it’s about my boobs and how nothing fits. And since a, the Breast Cancer folks are out there with “Save Our Boobies” shirts and since b, not one not two but THREE men at the last conference I was managing asked me when asking about my baby “Are you still nursing her?”…I guess this is quasi-appropriate. Which is to say, I was pretty sure that question was NOT really appropriate but it makes discussion of boobs on the blog ok.

I spend most of my days in long-sleeved tees so it is what it is. But I had to go to a wedding two weeks ago and it was black tie. I put off, put off, put off finding something to wear–in that I knew nothing would fit over my boobs, so didn’t even want to plan ahead.

My husband pulled out his wedding tux and tried it on–the waist didn’t fit (not shocking to some of us who have watched the treadmill get dustier in favor of the XBox) but even weirder the pants were like 94 sizes too big IN THE KNEES. It was like they were cut for MC Hammer. I did NOT get married in the 80′s and did NOT have “Can’t Touch This” as my wedding song so this was unexplainable–but rectifiable by the fine folks at Coleman’s Tuxedos.

So wedding day approaches and the first thing I did was get my makeup done, because the place near me was doing makeovers–so I went off alone (obviously by alone I mean with the NB as I can’t leave home without her, at least according to my husband, the Hammer) and I bought a whole bunch of makeup I didn’t need as would any new mom who hasn’t bought makeup since a Revlon eye-shadow pack, bought pre-pregnancy, and still considered “my new colors”. Also they were purple so maybe there were some pregnancy bad-decision hormones involved.

Came home and confronted the closet, me and my boobs. First I tried on 3-4 black tie wedding appropriate outfits and let’s leave it at they were NOT appropriate. They looked absurd.

Then I pulled out a bridesmaid’s dress, a BRIDESMAID’S dress–absurd. And it didn’t fit. And I looked like I was going to Senior Prom. Can’t Touch This.

Ok so let’s fast forward to the outfit: silk pants (mildly appropriate) and a SWEATER. Not appropriate–but totally fit. So what did I do? I pulled out 54 tons of jewelry, that matched and that didn’t match, and layered it all on. Hoping that the general bling would draw people’s eyes to my neck and away from the sweater. My husband just shook his head and said “A SWEATER?” and we got in the car. Oh, also, did I mention NB was coming to the wedding? So she was dressed to the nines and I figured that if people were NOT distracted by the jewelry I would just hold her in front of me.

**Interestingly enough this is not the first time a new baby has been used as a fashion accessory at a wedding in our family; my husband forgot a belt for my brother’s wedding for his non-MC-Hammer pants, looked stupid, so reacted by wearing a twin in the baby bjorn all day, AS A BELT.

I got to the wedding and hoped I wouldn’t be drummed out for black-tie-noncompliance since this was the best social event I’d been offered in some time–even knowing precisely no one but the NB and the Hammer. And who did I find was my seating partner? Why, a fellow new mom, who had her four month old with her (this was a pretty loosey goosey black tie wedding). And why, what was she wearing?

Fifteen tons of jewelry wrapped around her neck.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

At our recent Northern Virginia conference, Brigid Schulte, of the Washington Post, led a discussion about our copious amounts of leisure time (said tongue in cheek) and how we are all squandering it–at least, according to a renowned sociologist. Brigid wrote about this and is actually in the process of continuing to look at the trends, triggers, and facts involved with how we as moms, or even as women in general, feel we have no “down time”.

I’ve been trying to improve my own ratio by practicing a new strategy of saying NO. This goes against my grain–I’m always the one who volunteers to do the heavy lifting, the baking, the work behind the scenes, the leading of the project–blah blah blah. But of late, I’ve made a point of NOT doing it and it is so supremely freeing. I do have a ready made excuse: the baby. The baby, now, is held in front of me like a talisman–in fact, she spends enough time in the baby bjorn that she’s akin to Flava Flav’s clock necklace, as the talisman–and her message to all is “No”.

As in, I cannot lead the school book fair. Darn, I’d love to–but the baby. I cannot be a Daisy leader. The baby…Can’t be a PTA volunteer. The baby. Sure, it is a cheap out–but it’s an out nonetheless and I’m learning to be OK with it. Because here is the thing. I don’t WANT to be a Daisy leader. I could, but I don’t WANT to. And I have the voice in my head of my father, scolding my mother (another can’t-say-no’er) “Just because you can do it, doesn’t mean you have to”.

It goes back to the highest and best use of time, in some ways–if I have so very little time, shouldn’t it be spent doing what I want? If others WANT to be Daisy leaders, let ‘em! But for me, the hugest step now is in not feeling guilty that someone else is leading my child in daisy-ness. And maybe the baby gives me that excuse–or maybe I’m finally just there in my head. In our discussion with Brigid, I mentioned that the last time I truly did nothing was not a vacation (as we all compared notes–vacation means checking on your kids, making sure everyone’s fed, or sunscreen covered, or occupied) but my hospital visit (for the baby).  And Brigid pointed out that was because I gave myself permission to “shut down”. In fact, I pointed out, it was more than giving myself permission–I was ORDERED to shut down. And maybe that triggered the guilt-free saying no.

So I keep using the baby to my advantage (even the other day as a klaxon-like siren as she yelled from her stroller, as I ran through the airport to catch a flight–they sure knew we were coming!) BUT! Are people catching on, or is there truly no “No” in being a mom? Because the Daisies now roped me in to being a cookie mom. I’m not sure what’s involved but I think it might involve the baby and I counting and delivering some huge and unwieldy amount of cookies around town. My oldest’s CCD class roped me into being a hall monitor for one day, so Deputy Baby and I have to patrol the halls–at least I know she’s got her personal siren down pat. To date, I’ve avoided the PTA–but I think my days are numbered.

How does anyone actually say no and get away with it? The only success story I have is my friend’s husband–who volunteered to coach the soccer team. He then realized he didn’t have enough time. So he said no by…just not having practice. He didn’t check his email, ever, so wasn’t harassed by emails from other parents, wondering when practice was.

Of course, his wife is now wearing a whistle and giving it the old college try–but at least he said no.

By anyone, I of course refer to my husband.

And children, but I know the answer there – no.

The other day, I was talking to him about a mutual friend who has a job that lets her work 100% of the time from home. In fact her group is in Phoenix and she’s on the East Coast so she usually wakes up with her baby early, gets in an hour or two of uninterrupted work, and then hits the gym or whatever before they even get to work. And then, she gets the rest done. She maintains it’s not the most exciting job ever, but it fits her needs right now. She’s around for her little one, she is being paid (a key need these days!), no commute. Of course she pointed out that her fashion and hygiene standards have changed to every-other-day showers and comfy clothes. “Perhaps I should make an effort for my husband’s sake”, she said. I was like “Huh?” as I looked down at my own self…shirt from Target stained with baby spit up that I was too lazy to switch out of, socks that I am pretty sure didn’t match…

Anyway, I was telling husband about this and he was like “Yes. If you think about it, more companies would do better if they realized that. Most jobs, after all, become fairly boring within about 6 months–but if companies worked with employees to give them flexibility or whatever, it would make it easier and better for everyone.”.

Gosh, I have thought about that! In fact, I FOUNDED a COMPANY and CONFERENCE around this very concept–has he actually been completely tuning me out for 5 solid years, I wonder?

Anyway, he’s old school and works for old-school-type companies, so he rarely works from home. Nor does he really want to (see prior posts about the four girls that live here full-time). But the point is even he got it. Of course there’s more money out there, always, for employees looking for it. But the flexibility piece, or at a more base level, the working for what employees need, if it works for the employer, is what should become more and more important these days–especially as salaries decrease. I think there are other people that get it. Employflex.com is a great resource of some companies, in fact…

I’d love to hear your story of how your company made it work.