Caturday, the Talented Mom Edition

I certainly have plenty of cat photos to fill a year of Saturday Caturdays, but this week, I thought I'd do something a little bit different. This week I'm bragging on my mom.

 

In case you're wondering, this is not a photo of a cat. It's a photo of a painting of a cat, and I think it's totally amazing. It's a painting my mother did as a gift for my sister in law, and I have to reiterate, I really love it. I'm commissioning her to do one of Rick James (the dog, not the man), so stay tuned for that. Meanwhile, if you'd like to see more of her work, you can visit her website.

Happy Caturday!  

Doesn't Anybody Stay in one Place Anymore?

It's my brother's birthday, and I have to say, I'm very proud to be his sister. He's an amazing person, a great friend to an enormous number of people, and a successful entrepreneur. He's married to his business partner and best friend, and they've made a fabulous life for themselves. Admirable, and wonderful.

And so, so very far away. I love that technology allows for far-flung families to stay close to each other, but I hate that my family is so far flung. I visited my brother last spring, and had to break the drive into two days. I suppose I could've done it in one, but it seemed unwise to spend thirteen or more hours in a car with Small One. We had a great visit, we always have a great visit, but it always seems like we've barely scratched the surface when it's time to leave.

I guess this goes along with yesterday's post, and maybe I'm just getting sentimental as I get older, but I sure do wish it was easier to see the people I love on a regular basis. My mother and sister are four hours away, my brothers are six and thirteen hours away, it takes ten hours to get to my dad. The world is bigger and smaller, we all know, but I'm finding myself dissatisfied with the digital connection to people I once saw every day.

In any case, happy birthday to one of the greatest men I know. I always knew you would be, and I was crazy about you from the first moment I saw you. I love you immeasurably, my dear brother, and I hope this year brings us together more times than once.

Throwback Thursday- How does time pass so quickly?

It's the blink of an eye, really, that takes you from this:

 

to this:

 

and it's not until you reach a certain age that you really understand it. 

When I started this blog, my life was naturally overflowing, because I had two teenagers and all their rowdy friends, and I was a member of the homeschooling community, which is an active place to be, I was extremely active in my church, and I had a toddler, who required a lot of time. I lived in town, and there was always something going on, and always somewhere I had to be. Now I live in the burbs, I have one grade school child, I no longer homeschool and, while I'm still a committed member of the church, I'm no longer as "hands on" as I once was. I live further away now, and I have no one in the youth group, and no one at the preschool. 

I guess my point is that you never know how much life changes until you've lived it, and you don't really notice the changes while they're happening. A few years back my new year's resolution was to live life purposefully, and I really try to do that, being mindful of my choices. I sometimes fall flat. Right now, it's a reflective period for me, while I try to reassess my priorities and see where I'm missing the mark, but the one thing that keeps hitting me is how fast these people:

 

become these people:

 

and even how fast this:

 

becomes this:

 

I know this is only the beginning, but in this moment I'm feeling a little sentimental, wishing I could make time stand still. 

 

 

 

 

Mom Classification

I have a complicated life. Although we only have one child at home now, I'm working pretty much full time- from home. This is something that can be difficult, and it's also something that most people don't understand.

Last week, I worked upwards of fifty hours, writing things for which I am earning a paycheck. At the same time, I supervised homework, planned a mini-vacation, handled extracurricular activities, cooked dinners, did laundry and housework, and so on. In my particular phase of life, working from home is basically working a full time job while trying to be a stay at home mom. I'm not in the mommy wars, I am the mommy wars.

I tried to explain this to someone the other day, not taking into account that she had, for a time, been a work-outside-the-home mom to her stepdaughter, during the preteen and teen years. She raised an eyebrow at me and said, rather dismissively, I thought, "What do you think a stay at home mom does that a working mom doesn't?"

I was taken aback by this question. I've been both types of mom, and there's plenty a stay at home mom does that a working mom doesn't. I mean no disrespect to working moms when I say this- it's obvious that they do many things that stay at home moms don't, and those things add up to a paying job. But I was rather shocked that anyone would be incredulous that stay at home moms have any extra tasks.

For one thing, I don't know any moms who work outside the  home and don't eat restaurant food on a fairly regular basis. Maybe there are some out there who cook almost every night, but I don't know any. I'm not faulting them for extravagance, I totally get not wanting to cook when you've been working all day. But if you're a stay at home mom, you're much less likely to eat out.

If you're a working mom, your kids probably go to afterschool care. I worked in childcare, and I know that there are tons of working moms who drop their kids off early in the morning, and pick them up at 6pm. Again, I'm not faulting them, I understand hectic work schedules, and I've had to leave my kids all day, too. But the reality of that lifestyle is this: there's no one at the house making a mess, and someone else is helping the kids with homework. If the kids have extracurricular activities during working hours, someone else is taking them. By the time they get home, it's tremendously hectic, because they've got to get the kids fed and into bed.

Stay at home moms are much more "in the thick of it" with their kids. They're helping with homework, they're cleaning up messes, they're listening to endless stories about who said what to whom at school, and what happened on the bus. They're playing chauffeur, trying not to curse in traffic while they ferry kids to their chosen after school activities.

I realize I'm generalizing, and I don't mean to offend, but this is my experience, having been on both sides of this fence. I realize that moms fall somewhere on the spectrum, and it's not all black and white. But what I'm experiencing now, and what I'm trying to manage, is this odd amalgam, wherein I feel like I have to wear twenty hats at the same time, and play multiple roles.

For one thing, I work for more than one company. This gets stressful sometimes, because I'm not the most organized human, and sometimes it seems like too many balls in the air. In addition, my child is a first grader, which means she requires a lot of interaction, as opposed to a teenager, who would be content to hang out in her own room if I was under the crunch of a deadline. She's also a very active kid, with piano lessons, choir, and dance lessons. I end up doing quite a bit of work while I'm waiting for one of these activities to end.

Today is a perfect example. I was writing all day, then was supposed to have a conference call in the afternoon, while the Man took Small to the audition for her school talent show. (He wouldn't normally be home in the afternoon, he typically works until almost her bedtime, but he's part of her act, so he was supposed to be there.) As it happened, he was not actually able to get out of work- because he does not work from home. So because I'm the work at home parent, I had to shuffle things around and reschedule the conference call. I'm grateful they obliged me, and I know I'm utterly blessed to have abundant work with wonderful people. The conference call got moved...to the same time as Small's choir. That meant no choir tonight, which by extension meant no church supper, and since I hadn't been to the grocery store, I had to improvise dinner. I'll admit, I ordered in. While I was on the conference call, with a particularly difficult client, Small was quiet, since I'd asked her to be. She did not, however, stop dancing around me, pantomiming requests and, at one point, holding up a sign that said "Food? Check yes or no."

Work-outside-the-home moms do not have to check yes or no on a seven year old's food request in the middle of a meeting. That's pretty much the summation of my entire post.

This was a long one, I know, but I can't help but wonder. Is there anyone else out there struggling with the work from home thing? Do you have any tips or tricks you can send my way? I'm open to suggestion.

Jiggety Jig

Not much to say today, it was a travelling day. I mean, I could post gratuitous Disney photos.

Or I could talk about what was strange about the Disney visit, which is that Small has become so caught up in being a "big" kid that she's lost a little bit of the wonder she had last time we visited. It's funny, on the one hand she has no interest in talking to the princesses, who were her primary focus on our last trip, and she didn't want anyone to treat her like a baby, but on the other hand, we had an exchange about Mickey Mouse that showed me how little she still is.

Small said "How does he get that squeaky voice? I know this is just a man in a mouse suit."

I said, "I don't know, it looks like Mickey Mouse to me. And if it's just a man, how does he get that squeaky voice?"

(touché)

She said, "Mom. If it's really the real Mickey Mouse, why does his face look like it's made of wood or something?"

I said, "Because he's a cartoon."

And that was a satisfactory answer! It made perfect sense to her- if a cartoon comes to life, obviously it'll still have fake looking features. Case closed, mystery solved.

I grew up near Disney World, so on our way home I persuaded the Man to drive through my old neighborhood. Two things struck me: 1) there's been a lot of growth and 2) it still seems like a charming place. It was really a good place to grow up. I said as much to small, and she said, "But you don't like it when you are a grown up?"

What?

"You're saying it was a good place to grow up, but once you're a grown up, it's not such a good place? You don't like it as much?"

I told her that no, it didn't stop being a good place, and yes, I still liked it just as much. Hard to explain the twists and turns of life to someone who is seven years old. Even if she is a big kid.

They Wanted Us at Disney

When I was a child, sometimes we’d go somewhere- say, a new church, or a restaurant- and parking would be scarce. My mom would say “Obviously, they don’t want us here!” and we’d move on. Alternately, sometimes we’d get a spot by the door and she’d say, “See, they want us here!” Today, the Man and I took Small to Disney World, and I have to say, I think they wanted us there.

We managed to keep the visit a complete secret from Small until we were literally pulling up to the park, and she freaked out in a very satisfying manner when she understood what was happening.  We parked so close that we didn’t need to take the tram to get to the station. We never had to wait in line longer than 30 minutes. The weather was sunny and mild. All in all, it was the perfect day to be there.

Of course, any family outing has its hiccups. Small was very excited to be tall enough to ride the roller coasters for the first time, so of course we took her on Space Mountain. She’d been on roller coasters before, at Six Flags, but Space Mountain was too much for her. Almost from the beginning of the ride, she was yelling, “I don’t like this! I don’t want to do this! DADDY!!!! I wish I hadn’t agreed to this!”

My seven year old often says things like "I wish I hadn't agreed to this." It's part of what charms people about her, because her adult speech, combined with her smaller-than-the-average-7-year-old size makes her a really funny little creature. She does not, however, like it when people exclaim over how cute she is, and God forbid someone laugh. She's not a baby, she's a big girl.

On this trip, she was all about being a big girl, and bragging about how tough she’s gotten. She used to be afraid of Snow White, can you imagine? (Sidebar: that Snow White ride was scary!) Well, she’s seven now, and there’s no way she’s going to be afraid of any silly ride.

Yeah. All that bragging was about how she was going to ride Haunted Mansion, because she IS old enough, and she KNOWS that all that stuff at Disney isn’t real.

Anyone want to guess how the Haunted Mansion went? She got into the first room, started frantically backing out, yelling “I want to quit this! I want to quit this!”  We had to beat a hasty retreat through the back door. Of course, the day was all about her, so we didn’t care. We just laughed and ducked out. Interestingly, she was too consumed with panic to notice that we were laughing.

One really interesting thing we did today is to play one of the new interactive games they have now at the Magic Kingdom. This game was one in which you have to try to defeat a bunch of evil sorcerers, through a series of quests, and it was really fun! I’m impressed with how they’re integrating new technology into the various attractions at the park.

Tomorrow we head home. It was a really good trip, and not quite over yet, as we have one more lunch date to go. I have to say, though, I’m glad to be heading back- there’s no place like home.

Slow Moving Sunday

Despite having to work this weekend, I have to say it's been pretty perfect. Beautiful weather, fun with my brother and sister in law, a walk on the beach with my sweet aunt, and now a day with plenty of down time. And of course, tomorrow- Disney! Tonight, I'm trying to wrap up some work and head to bed, but of course I couldn't without stopping here first.

The most surprising part of my weekend, I have to say, is how idyllic the time has been at my in-law's house. I've only been here four times over the course of my seventeen year relationship with their son. Even stranger, two of those four times were more than a decade ago, and the other two have occurred in the past two months. I've never been at the top of my in-laws' list of favorite people, but maybe they're warming to me? Or maybe they've figured out that I'm a permanent fixture. More likely, they've noticed that Small One is a pretty fun kid to have around.

Today has been exactly the type of day a little girl should have with her grandparents. Last night they gave her a new book, which she devoured over the course of the evening and this morning. Today was full of games and conversation, and the Man and his father took Small out and taught her to ride a bike without training wheels, while her grandmother and I looked on and applauded. Then I ran an errand, and the men took the little girl to the yacht club to look at boats, and after dinner she read stories with her grandmother until bedtime.

I know this sounds boring, and to be honest, she's had this kind of visit with my mother a million times, but it's something new for the other side of the family. So I'm sharing it, I guess, to say "Hooray!", but also to say to anyone else whose mother in law didn't come to your wedding reception... where there's life, there's hope.

Caturday

 Because I just really never get tired of gratuitous cat photos, especially when the subjects are these handsome men...

Is a No-Pressure Weekend Possible?

This week, I've spent most of my waking moments working, often on three different projects at once. I've gotten very little sleep, I ran very late today, and I spent my morning feeling extremely frazzled and anxious. Of course, the work is totally worth it, because I also made some serious (for me) cash this week, but I am utterly delighted to say that we've taken a long weekend to visit family, have some fun, and relax in sunnier weather. I'm delighted, but with a caveat.

See, the thing about being a mom is that it never feels like you get to be "off". In preparation for this weekend away, I spent time and energy on the planning part, deciding on the schedule, budgeting for the trip, working it out with Small's teacher, the relatives, the pet sitter, and so on. Then it was time for the preparation phase, wherein I washed all of our clothes, cleaned the house, packed for myself and Small One, took care of veterinary needs, packed the snacks, and everything else that goes into getting a family into the car and onto the road. Now we're at our destination, and I'm still working to coordinate with people's schedules and tend to Small One, but I also have work to do for my job, because in order to take off Friday and Monday I have to do some work over the weekend.So while I could not be happier to have this vacation, it still strikes me that it's not so much a vacation as a work relocation with more breaks.

All of this should not make me resentful of The Man, but if I'm being honest I'll admit that it sort of does. This morning, I whirled around the house like a tornado, making things happen, getting things done, while he sat on the couch, taking his time with what he was doing, not noticing anything that needed to be done until I specifically asked him to do it. I don't think I'm alone in this. I know that studies have been done that showed a disproportion in household responsibilities- when both partners work, the wife often still does the lion's share of the housework and childcare. The problem for me is that I don't know what to do about it. The Man is a very nice person, with very good intentions, but he simply is not programmed to notice that a counter needs to be wiped off, or laundry needs to be done, or the carpets need to be vacuumed. He doesn't comprehend the need for strategy in running a house or planning a vacation. He means well, but he just doesn't get it, and I know that I'm partially to blame, because for our entire marriage, I've made all the pieces fit together, and he's been free to just go to work, come home, do what I specifically ask him to do, and take care of himself.

This brings me back to my own central question, which is the theme of my life recently. Now that I'm working pretty much full time again, how do I balance my responsibilities and alleviate pressure? I need to work as much as I can, because we need the money. However, in the years that I worked part time, when Small was preschool aged, we fell into certain patterns that are now difficult to rework. Complicating matters is the fact that I work from home, which makes me seem like a stay at home mom, when in fact I am not.I am a working mom who has to take time out of her day to do the things I would be doing if I were a stay at home mom; it's like two jobs in one. Then, too, since I don't work out of an office, there are more hours of "at home" time, which means more messes to clean, more meals prepared at home and more working while interacting with an elementary aged child.

I know it is my responsibility to strike a balance in my own life. But it strikes me as... I don't know if ironic is quite the right word...what I'm looking at is that I have to be responsible for fixing the problem of too much responsibility. I have to add a responsibility to my already full plate, and that responsibility is the task of convincing someone else to take some of my responsibilities. Even that sentence makes me tired.

So I guess I just wonder- does anyone else feel this inability to strike the right balance? Am I alone in wondering how I'll get it all done and still manage to sleep? And is it possible for a mother to ever have a no-pressure weekend?

If anyone has this all figured out already, I'm open to suggestions. Right now though, I'm going to sleep. And when I wake up, I'm going to walk with my Small One, and some greatly loved extended family members, on a beach. Responsibility will have to take a hike, at least for a little while.

Throwback Thursday- Disney Reminiscing

I've been to the Magic Kingdom roughly 6739 times in my life, having grown up in Central Florida. Funny thing about it, though, it never fails to thrill me, planning a trip. We never do the big stay-at-the-park-for days thing, we just go for a day, and I'm happy. We're planning a pop in on Monday, and we're not telling Small until we get there, and I'm beyond excited. My difficulty in keeping this secret is making me laugh at myself...picture this Kristen Wiig character from Saturday Night Live and you'll have a pretty good idea of what I'm going through.

Anyway, planning this trip got me misty, thinking about the first time we took Small. It was the summer before she turned 3, and she was madly in love with Cinderella.

Of course, MC was with us on that trip, too, because she was not quite 15.

It was truly idyllic family time, really the perfect day, which Disney always should be, but often isn't. 

We've been back once since then, but this is the trip that sticks in my mind as the best, the most magical and truly one of the most pleasant days we've ever spent. It was the kind of day where everyone did exactly everything they wanted to do, no one got too tired or cranky, and we closed out the night with fireworks in front of the castle. 

This time is going to be strange, because it will be the first time in 19 years that I've been without MC. It's going to be different, for sure, because it will be very 7 year old oriented. Whatever the day brings, I can't wait.