Before my first son was born I was working full time, we had no childcare costs, my husband was well-rewarded at his job, and our investment portfolio had yet to begin its terrifying toilet-bowl downward spiral. I only have to consider the stroller we got back then in order to truly visualize how things have changed. It’s not that we’re in trouble now, it’s just that with my 3-day-a-week salary, my husband’s exciting-but-scary startup, two kids in daycare, college savings plans, and a staggering monthly grocery bill (the children eat NOTHING, and yet I keep TRYING TO FEED THEM!), there’s no way in h-e-double-hockeysticks I’d buy such a spendy stroller today.

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I have often thought that caring for a baby in their first year of life is like watching the lights come on in a house, one by one. First they’re all unfocused and mewly, then they’re laughing and doing that funny stationary leg-marching business, and soon they’re entirely purposeful and able to reach right out and grab what they want. Click, click, click, one room after another gets lit up in their brains, and their worlds open wider and wider.

If that’s true, then the stage around 18 months is like having all the lights on at once, blazing away, while a mad scientist operates the giant electrical switch powering it all. “MOO HOO HA HA HAAAA!” shrieks the apparition in the white coat, hair standing on end and eyes pointing in two different directions. “HA HA HA—WAAAAHHHHHHHH!”

Young toddlers are insane, is what I’m saying. They’re physically capable of outrunning you, yet they have no sense of self-preservation. Their emotions are as wild and unpredictable as a storm on the high seas, and the smallest trespass will send them flinging their bodies to the floor in order to throw a tantrum loud enough to detonate an adult’s eardrums at fifty paces. They kick, they slap, they throw things, they scream, they eat things that aren’t meant to be eaten while hysterically refusing things that ARE meant to be eaten.

Thank god they’re still formed entirely of Pillsbury thigh-rolls with baby-soft faces and the occasional desire to cuddle, because in my limited experience this is the age which most strongly begs the question, Would It Be Wrong To FedEx My Child to Octo-Mom, Since She Apparently Can’t Get Enough of this Crap?

So! Let’s talk about ways to survive the 18-month zone, and by that I mostly mean “let’s open up comments because I sure don’t know what the hell I’m doing.”
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January can be a sad month:  the post-holiday letdown, the weather, the mid-school-year slump, the lower sunshine levels.  It can also be a BROKE month as the bills start to come in from December.  Here are some easy and inexpensive ways to decrease the sad without increasing the broke.

1.  Sunshine.  If it’s in short supply where you are, you may need to grab your moments.  We have one particular window that’s aimed to catch any midday sun there is, and on bad days you can find me with my face almost pressed against the glass.  I close my eyes and upturn my face and admire the pretty pink-orange color of the inside of my eyelids.  The light and warmth and vitamin D are like a shot of…wheatgrass, or something.  Without the gagging.
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As I write this I’m feeling something less than the perfect picture of health and fitness: I’m traveling for work, and nothing does in a diet quite like 24/7 access to room service. After a long day of standing around a tradeshow booth smiling vacantly at people, the notion of chocolate cake being delivered to my king-sized bed at 10 PM is just too tempting to resist.

As soon as I get home, though, I plan to get back in the swing of things diet-and-exercise-wise, and since January is traditionally the time of year when most of us re-visit our health goals, I thought I’d share my favorite workout DVDs with you guys. I prefer the accountability and challenge of an exercise class, but it can definitely be challenging to find the time to get out of the house and to a gym. Sometimes it’s all about jumping around the living room like a dork in order to work up a sweat, and for those times, here are my go-to videos:
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I am so tired of having to talk about balance, think about balance, read about balance, re-evaluate balance. It never settles into “Ah ha! THIS is the right balance for us!”—or if it does, it gets knocked out of there by the next change that comes along: The kids get a little older and make different kinds of demands on your time than you’re used to. The job that was so satisfying asks you to work more hours, or different hours, or it gets boring. The other adult in your household leaves, or gets a different job, or feels dissatisfied with some aspect of the household. Your parents get older and need more help from you.

You don’t have to be a “working mom” (sigh) to have trouble balancing, and you don’t have to be a mom. Did you notice I didn’t say “You don’t even have to be a woman”? I’ll bet men struggle for balance sometimes, too, but I don’t notice it as much with them. I don’t notice Paul, for example, wondering if he’s doing the right thing by going to work. I don’t notice him suffering because his in-laws think he should cook more often or keep a cleaner house and he secretly wonders if that’s true, or if his wife might agree.  I don’t notice him worrying that his clothes are out of style, or that his hairstyle is looking daddish, or that the living room could really stand to be painted if we’re ever going to have anyone over.
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For those of you who like tangible organization tools (as opposed to software), and you’re tired of the same old Day Runners, Day-Timers, Franklin Coveys, etc, this post’s for you. I’ve been looking at day planners recently, both because of a request to cover them here and the growing realization that the combination of two small children, a part-time office job, ongoing freelance assignments, and a swirling maelstrom of doctor’s appointments/errands/grocery lists/home and garden projects/ET-BLEEPING-CETERA is resulting in what you might call a need for improved personal productivity on my end.

Ahem. So, planners! Preferably interesting and/or unique ones! Let’s check them out:
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After my first son was born I remember reading a parenting book that was supposed to be a collection of tips and tricks from Real Parents Just Like You, except the advice it contained had a real pod-person feel to it and I questioned the legitimacy of contributors like “Anne, mother of 7″ who suggested that dry oatmeal was a fun sensory stimulator for young children. “Just fill a box or plastic tub, and let the good times roll!” Sure, maybe a mother of seven has nothing better to do than vacuum a metric crapload of oatmeal out of every crevice in her house, but somehow I doubt it.

I’d rather read a collection of suggestions that address real-world issues, and “My children do not have nearly enough Quaker products crammed in their bodily cavities” isn’t really a concern I’ve experienced. I still consider myself a mouth-breathing amateur at this motherhood business, but here are a few of the tips I’ve learned over the last couple years, should anyone be in the market for creating a new oatmeal-free book:

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I think the best investment I’ve made towards my work/life balance has to be the laptop I bought last year. Now instead of being tied to a desktop, I can quickly get some work done from wherever I need to be, whether that’s the living room sofa during naptime, the kitchen counter while I’m cooking dinner and jiggling a baby in the front carrier, or the local Starbucks (a lifesaver since being home on maternity leave; sometimes a person just needs to get the HELL out of Dodge, even if it’s just to get more work done).

Although I mostly use my MacBook around the house, for the times I do take my computer on the road I think I’d like a more travel-friendly bag that what I currently have. I’m pretty sure I’m going to upgrade to a current MacBook Pro this year, and I definitely want to make sure I keep it in good shape while still being able to comfortably tote it from Point A to Point B.

Laptop bags are sort of fun to shop for, like diaper bags they can run the spectrum from utilitarian to fancy purselike options. With my own personal criteria of wanting something at least somewhat rugged, comfortable, and sporty/funky in design, here’s a few I’ve been looking at lately:

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Housework, huh yeah! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again, y’all!

(This blog intro apologizes profusely to Edwin Starr, and promises not to describe some of the dance moves that accompanied the author’s off-key singing.)

I have a cleaning service come to my house every two weeks and it is the best investment on EARTH. They stay on top of the maintenance cleaning like toilets, tubs, floors, and dusting, which is an incredible help. Of course, with a husband, toddler, and constantly-shedding dog rampaging through the house every day, nothing stays clean for very long.

I like a non-filthy house, but the never-ending process of trying to keep it decent is about the most unsatisfying activity I engage in on a regular basis, even more so than wiping a poopy butt that isn’t even mine. Whatever you do, no matter how great it looks, it’s going to go to hell in a matter of hours and you’ll have to do it all over again. O Sisyphean Tragedy!

So let’s talk about cleaning-related products that make the entire process marginally less sucky, okay? I know, I know: cleaning products? Sorry, we’ll do something more fun next time, I promise.

My personal picks:

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On the days when my husband and I both work, our schedules go something like this:

1. Take Riley to daycare. Depart for our respective offices, re-convening at the house with child in tow around 5:30 PM.

2. Dinner: sometimes all of us together, sometimes Riley eats first then runs off to play while JB and I eat our own dinners.

3. Playtime with Riley, reading books, taking baths, etc, before his 7:30 bedtime.

4. 7:30 PM - 9:30 PM: JB watches the news, works in his shop, and catches up on work email. I write blog entries, work on freelance projects, and if it’s a good day, follow an exercise DVD.

5. 9:30 - 11 PM: FREE TIME.

Man oh man do I ever relish that free time, where I’ve got no obligations hanging over my head and I can just sit back and relax. Preferably with a giant bowl of ice cream.

While I’m sure we could be engaged with more worthy pursuits, such as playing chess or learning French or, ha ha haaaaaaa, cleaning the house, both JB and I like to veg out in front of the TV during our free time. This is when we watch our Netflix’d movies and recorded TV shows, and I think it’s just one of those homey domestic rituals that helps us stay marginally sane and balanced in the midst of working parenthood.

(I’ve informed our unborn child that upon his arrival he will need to immediately adopt the same sleeping schedule as his older brother. Hey, I can dream, right?)

Here’s what we’ve been watching lately:

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