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On Friday I was in New York, presenting Work It, Mom! to a panel of investors. (It was so much fun I can’t even find the words to describe it. Yes, I am kidding. Having a room full of people question every bit of your business strategy, ideas, direction and your own judgment pierces through even the toughest of egos and I don’t have one of those.) This was an event organized for women technology entrepreneurs so there were only women in the waiting area (they called it the Green Room and I called it the stress room).
I was talking to a fellow woman entrepreneur, telling her about Work It, Mom!, and in the spirit of we’re both working moms we know how crazy it is, asked her: “You have kids, right?” Read the rest of this entry »
When I saw an article in the New York Times titled 6 Food Mistakes Parents Make I got a little giddy. I was having an annoying day and needed some shallow feel-good material, so I figured, great, I am going to read this article and feel good about myself for not making the mistakes other parents make when they try to get kids to eat.
Well, turns out I’ve made them all. Yep, all six. Read the rest of this entry »
I don’t eat pasta.
There, now you know. In case you were wondering.
More generally, I try not to eat white rice, white bread, pasta, and all the other horrible-no-good-very-bad-white carbs. (Unless I am in Paris, when all bets are off. Baguette with butter? What sane person can say no! Good thing I am not in Paris that often.) It’s taken me a while to find a way to eat healthy without obsessing about it and cutting out most white carbs is one of those things that just works for me. Not that I wouldn’t LOVE a big bowl of pasta with cheese, but you know, it’s just something I am fine without.
Which didn’t present any issues until recently, when my daughter, who loves pasta and eats it often, started asking me why I don’t eat it with her. Read the rest of this entry »
I know envy is bad, I do. But it’s kind of like butter — I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t help but indulge at times.
So here are some things I envy in other moms:
Easy-goingness. I know it’s not a word, but you know what I mean. Moms who have this great ability to just roll with the punches and not get completely and utterly stressed out by all the work-life juggle insanity. Like your kid spilling milk on your new pants when you’re ten minutes late for an important meeting and the sitter calls in sick. (Not like that’s happened to me or anything…) Read the rest of this entry »
Many times when I mention to someone my guilt about not spending enough time with my daughter they say to focus on the quality of time I spend with her vs. quantity. I always nod not just to be polite but because I believe that quality does matter and kids don’t sit there with clocks keeping track of how many hours a day we spend with them.
I also think back to my childhood, when my mom worked nights and we’d see each other for just a few minutes at night during the work week. What I remember is my excitement of jumping around and recounting my day to her (as she tried to grab something to eat and take off her heels), the way her face was glowing when she listened to me, the sweetness of her kiss when she and my dad tucked me in. I also remember the weekends which the three of us would usually spend together and I cringe with guilt thinking back to becoming a teenager and telling my parents that I don’t want to hang out with them so much any more. My mom worked and worked a lot, but I never felt a lack of closeness between us from that. Read the rest of this entry »
Today’s guest post is by Ashley O’Neill, who is an editor for The Savvy Source for Parents, an early childhood education website, and blogs there as “Coffee Queen.”
Yesterday, I took my daughter to the museum. She fancies herself quite the artist and asked if we could go. Being an art buff myself, I was thrilled to oblige. I’m always happy when she wants to do something that doesn’t involve buying new toys, and she actually is a pretty good artist. Who knows whether she’ll become the next Georgia O’Keeffe or Cindy Sherman, but it’s nice to see her find “her thing” in this world. Some kids love to dance, some love to play sports — she loves to draw. It’s her passion. Not only does she love to do it, but she’s proud of her abilities. Finding something that she’s good at has done wonders for her confidence and it makes her feel special.
As the summer approaches, like many parents, we’re faced with the question of how to spend our time — a question made even more significant by my working at home and needing to keep up with my work during those months when school is out. Should we spend our money on a really great vacation? Should we spend our money on a membership to a pool? Those are both things that all of us would enjoy (and enjoy a lot!), but they don’t help me with my work. Maybe we should spend our budget on summer camps for the kids? My daughter thinks those a lot of fun — and they will give me time at home alone to work — but my son is painfully shy and has terrible separation anxiety. I don’t see him enjoying going to bunch of new places. Maybe we should focus our summer on nurturing our daughter’s love for art? She would be thrilled to spend the summer in art classes and camps. But that begs the question: At what point do we, as parents, know when to focus on something like my daughter’s love for drawing?
Yesterday we had another in the series of oh-there-is-rarely-so-much-snow storms. When my daughter saw the snow falling outside she could hardy contain herself from running out in her pajamas. I convinced her that getting dressed first was a good idea and went looking for her snow pants.
They weren’t there.
They were hanging in her cubby back at preschool, from where I forgot to bring them home on Friday. Even though there was a chance of snow for the weekend. Even thought we always bring the 27 different things in her cubby home at the end of the week to sort through. I forgot them because while I was gathering up her stuff, talking to her teacher and listening to one of her friends tell me about his new Spiderman backpack I was also trying to find a number on my cell phone. (The reason I need the number was because I’d mis-scheduled a call and needed to cancel it. Another in the series of working mom missteps.) Read the rest of this entry »