Mommies Need Play Dates, Too

Last week, Mommy Friend Brenda suggested we take our kids for a picnic at New Pond Farm after preschool. Our sons are out at 11:45 am on Wednesdays and Daughter was happy to tag along. The temperature was pushing 60 degrees and while the rolling hills of grass were a murky shade of brown rather than green, the sun was shining brightly and the sky a sapphire blue.

We visited the cows, sheep and chickens then ran down to the pond for a picnic on the bench. Brenda’s son skirted the geese poo dotting the ground, Daughter stretched herself across the little bridge and watched the river flow its spring rush, while Son gathered pine branches to bring home. As for Brenda and I, well, we hashed out the usual mommy list of madness: daily schedules, summer planning, sleep woes, and the other bits of minutia from our long days at home. Our commiseration of the day: The early evening hours make for a long period of isolation while Husband works late and we manage dinner and bedtime routines when kids and mom are at their crankiest.

The truth is, mommies need play dates as much as our kids. We need to commiserate, compare notes, and come up with ideas to help each other out. My network of mommies is my “office” for the mommy job. Playgroups are the water cooler.

New Book
This is the subject of the story I wrote for the new book, Chicken Soup for the Soul: Power Moms. When Editor Wendy Walker was looking for submissions, I thought back to those difficult days when I was first home with Son transitioning from career to mommyhood.

As I wrote in the book:

That January, a year after Charlie was born, I faced five days a week at home for the first time. Snow piled up in our yard as I did load after load of laundry. One morning I stood at the kitchen sink, weeping over the prospect of another daily routine of diaper changing, housecleaning, and quiet. Absent was the hustle and bustle of my office routine, the challenge of managing a team, and the rewards of launching a product. Charlie blessed me with his giggles and grins but he didn’t say,” Hey, Mom, thanks for the clean diaper. Thanks for giving me some tummy time!”

I go on to tell how I eventually met other moms and got as comfortable discussing nursing habits and sleep schedules as product strategy and marketing plans.

The book is officially published this week but I received my ten copies a few weeks ago. When I opened a copy, I was excited to read all the funny, challenging and inspirational stories by other power moms. Wendy Walker talks about writing her first novel in the back of her minivan, Liz Lange writes about raising her children while building a maternity clothing business, and Jodi Picoult talks about her struggle to write while raising three kids.

What’s a Power Mom?
I can’t say I would walk around introducing myself as a power mom to anyone. But the term is growing on me. There’s something in it that implies mastery, purposeful activity and accomplishment. When I was growing up, the term du jour was super mom. And that always seemed to imply awe or the destiny to fail at such an unrealistic label.

Power Mom, on the other hand, sums up the ferocity of our daily schedules – balancing multiple roles as parent, household executive, activity organizer, chef, diplomat, volunteer and friend - all in a hyper connected world (it’s amazing how many mommy friends I find on Facebook at 9 pm!). It says to me, the mommy job is a serious one and I’m (somehow) succeeding at it.

So, if you have a sec, check out the new book. Give it to a mommy friend to keep for a little light reading to remind her that she’s not alone. We’re all figuring out this mommy thing together. And we need each other’s stories to help validate our own.

Setting New Year's Goals

Each year around New Year's I write down my goals for the year. Not resolutions, goals. The term "resolution" means failure to me. I can't help it. Growing up, I nearly always set a weight loss resolution and kind of knew in the back of my mind that I wasn't really going to keep it.

Early in my career, I switched to setting goals. Goals are just more concrete. You hold yourself to them. Especially if you write them down. This is the critical element. You must put pen to paper to achieve success (see my notes on the famous Yale Study about this at the end of this post.) When I started setting specific goals and writing them down about fifteen years ago, my goals were mostly career oriented. And I discovered that when I wrote them down, I met them! Seriously. In fact, I often exceeded them. Especially salary goals. If I set a salary I hoped to achieve in 1, 2 or 5 years, I earned it earlier than my goal.

Setting Mommy Goals
Since most Mommies have children after their careers, why not use techniques that helped in your career for motherhood? As a mother, I've found it critical to make specific goals, especially for myself, if I don't want to be totally consumed by my family and household's ever demanding needs. When it comes to goal setting, the more specific the goal, the more likely I'm successful. And while there's a balance to what's possible and unachievable, I always keep in mind that in most instances, "Some is Better than None!"

Here are some sample areas and goals to consider for your Mommy Goals:

Personal time and space
How much time do you need for yourself each day? Each week?

Example: I will take fifteen minutes of peaceful solace each day.
This may mean that after your husband comes home, you sit in the bathroom with a magazine or staring into space to get a little quite, alone time. But you find a way to take time for yourself each day. Otherwise, it probably won’t happen.

Exercise
How often do you want to exercise? If you hope for five times a week but three times is achievable, make it happen.

Hobby, study, vocation
Do you want to maintain a hobby or learn a new craft?
Example: I will take a pottery/math/writing class this Spring.

Nutrition
How can you maintain your health while balancing a child’s schedule and foods?

My goal one year was to add one additional piece of fruit each day. I had read that the additional fiber would aid weight loss over time. It was pretty easy to focus on choosing an apple over crackers in the afternoon when I had this goal in the back of my mind.

Behavior
Do you want to focus on certain aspects of your behavior? Taming a temper? Being silly with your kids? Affectionate with your husband?

Marriage
Spousal relationships can take a quick backseat when children come along. What time/activities do you want to protect and encourage with your husband?

Some people have a regular Saturday babysitter. If this is too much, how about a goal of one night out per month with your hubby? It will focus you to get a babysitter for at least one night each month and you'll truly look forward to it.

Environmental
Do you want to commit to green living with your children? Sample goals include packing lunches and snacks in reusable containers versus plastic bags, putting fluorescent lights in the playroom, and keeping the lights off and the heat down in rooms you’re not in.

This is just a sampling of goal areas, but hopefully it can help center you in some areas for the New Year. Good luck!

Goal Setting Sources
(Two sources inspired me to write down my goals. The first was a Yale Study my brother told me about when he was in business school. According to the study, in 1953, researchers surveyed Yale's graduating seniors to determine how many of them had specific, written goals for their future. The answer: 3%. Twenty years later, researchers polled the surviving members of the Class of 1953 -- and found that the 3% who had written down their goals had accumulated more personal financial wealth than the other 97% of the class combined. When looking for a source link to reference in this post, I discovered that Fast Company magazine debunked this legendary story and it isn't true. Oh, well. It works anyway.

The second source was a great book by Martha Beck called Finding Your Own North Star. She helps make your goal setting specific by prompting you to chunk up your goal into minute steps and put each on a Post It note. As she describes it, you put where you are now on a Post It on the left side of a wall. You put your goal on the other side of the wall and every tiny step on Post Its in between. It's a great way to focus your efforts to reach a goal.)

Laws of the Mommy Universe

As I try and try to understand my children - or me as a Mommy to my children, it dawns on me that kids are really just an exaggerated microcosm of our human nature. For example:

They always Want what they can't have (me, toys, more time to fool around before going anywhere). Remember dating and the nice guy who called consistently. Things were going well and you took for granted that he was interested in you. Then one night he didn't call. Or didn't end the date with, "When will I see you again?" All of a sudden, he's the greatest guy on the planet! You gotta have him!!! Kind of like what happens for my kids the minute I pick up the phone, start to prepare dinner, walk into the other room...

They are amazing Creatures of Habit. I wrote about this while ago, saying What you allow one night or two, quickly becomes habit and hard to undo. We all like our routines and kids can pounce on any chance behavior, turning it into their personal mission to repeat.

They'll Stretch out any task to fill the time allotted. I was recently working on a book project and a colleague was worried about the deadline - eight months from now. We discussed adding another six months (and missing a publishing cycle) but knew we'd just stretch the same amount of work into a longer period. My kids will take as long as I give them to get dressed, brush their teeth, or do whatever's necessary to get their butts out the door in time for school or any other place we need to get to by a certain time. Isn't it amazing that it can take 2 or 20 minutes to put on a pair of shoes?

(My rule: Add 15 mystery minutes to every deadline for getting out the door on time. This allows for the coat trauma, the carseat drama, and my need to pee once everybody's finally buckled in.)

And of course, they Procrastinate. Ask them to do anything and they'll put it off. Unless, the reward (or threat) entices them enough. Same for us. We all procrastinate, especially on the stuff we don't want to do (which for our kids is anything we ask them to do).

In the end, all I can do is try to have some empathy when witnessing my worst, or simply human, traits in my kids.

Mom in Chief

In a rally shortly before the election, Michelle Obama noted that her primary job is that of Mom in Chief. Don't you love that title? And, it's more relevant to motherhood than ever. As her husband, Barack, selects his cabinet and focus for the administration during difficult times for our country, many mommies are also strategizing during difficult times for their families. The one difference: We play Mom in Chief and the entire Cabinet, too.

Here's what I'm trying to tackle right now:

As Secretary of the Household Treasury: I went through the family budget spreadsheet and made some drastic cuts to weekly spending. Away went went the housecleaner. Should I buy Son's winter coat at Walmart instead of Patagonia this year?

As Secretary of the State of preschool relations and playdates: Can I negotiate a weekly playdate exchange to replace one afternoon of childcare? Should I end direct discussions with mothers who never return the invitation?

As Chief of Family Staff: I'm insisting that Husband start scooping the litter and help more with the weekly cleaning. I'm mandating less sugar and salty kid foods in the shopping cart and more family music making.

And, as Attorney General Mom: I'm only threatening Time Outs when I will actually follow up and use them and commiting to cease my endless threats... "Put that down right now or I'll take it away!"

Too bad they can't vote me out in four years!

Mommy, Inc.

The first day of April brought a nice warm evening and I sat on our front porch with a cup of tea. Contentment. The kids fell asleep early (there is a God) and I felt a certain peace. With this moment to reflect I realized that in the four years since my first child was born, I've gotten the hang of this new job, Motherhood. It's been so crazy learning the ropes, I'm just now feeling my groove.

Learning on the job of motherhood is overwhelming for all of us. One moment you're a busy career woman, juggling multiple business priorities, and suddenly you find yourself an inexperienced mother juggling the minute tasks of caring for a new life. It's the biggest career transition women experience and yet we get no training. None. Not one class, entry level position or tutored-for test prepared me for the most important role of my life. I was a newbie yet expected to succeed and thrive as a mother. The hurtling fall from experienced executive to floundering, deer-in-the-headlights mother caught me by shocking surprise. Within a heartbeat (literally) the identity and skills I had so carefully cultivated for myself over the years, were useless. Or were they?

Welcome to Mommy, Inc.

I've come to think of motherhood as the career change that thrust me into my new role at Mommy, Inc. In the first days and months of motherhood, I was lost. The baby books I poured over focused solely on my little one – not solutions for my overwhelming feelings of inadequacy and isolation. Yet, as I slowly developed a schedule for my days, a network of mothers, and a new identity; I realized that I was rebuilding systems and processes I had developed for my job. For example, I needed a specific time management system to keep track of play dates, activities, household operations, shopping, calls and tasks. I learned to proactively network to make friends for myself and my children. I wanted a philosophy and guidelines for managing childcare, housecleaning and other service personnel - in other words, outsourcing.

As the family has grown in size, so has my job managing household operations and infrastructure. As my children have grown in age, I've used the fine arts of negotiating and diplomacy to spare us as many battles as we've suffered. And, of course, I've drawn on every ounce of marketing and sales experience to pitch just about everything they need in their lives. (Would you like to try this yummy apple bread? Not, Try this healthy zucchini oatmeal bread made with applesauce.)

My growing proficiency at Mommy, Inc. gives me a feeling of mastery. It's taken four years to figure out how to maneuver my new role and this new company. That's about what it would take in a new job. But most other jobs don't include a sweet hug and I love you at the end of the day.

Mommy Time Management

It’s January and time to start planning for 2008. And before resolutions can be made or kept it helps to have a solid time management system to organize your time. Mothers, especially, are faced with organizing:

• Kids’ schedules, meals, shopping, birthdays, activities and school
• Our own appointments, calls/emails to make, to do’s, shopping and errands
• Household to do’s, repairs, chores, décor
• Family finances, activities, entertainment and meals
• Business schedule and tasks, if working another job
  
  My “desktop” used to be Microsoft Outlook and a notepad of to do’s. My life oriented around these two items, which organized my hourly, daily and weekly life quite well. I was grounded by this system, whether I viewed it on my handheld or at a desk. I always knew where to go to learn where I needed to go or what to do. Then, suddenly I’m on maternity leave. I can’t even begin to wrap my hands or head around the new items I should probably be organizing. And my old system doesn’t apply. Even back at work three months later, I can’t seem to combine household and baby-oriented tasks with work ones. My system fails. Eventually, I leave the job and return home to be with baby, rudderless. I need a new system. A mommy system.
  
  Well, four years and another baby later, I think I’ve got it. Through trial and error I’ve developed my time management, sampling a few mommy organizers as I went. I still use Microsoft Outlook for my business organization and keep my laptop and this system locked away in my home office for when I work. (In my experience, trying to touch one key on a computer in the presence of two toddlers is asking for little hammering fingers and begging exuberance to damage any hopes of using this system in the home.)
  
  So, paper it is and here are the two organizers I’ll praise:
  
  Last year, I used Mom Agenda and raved about it to all my friends. This attractive vinyl calendar provides a weekly view with rows for multiple kids. If your kids are school age and up, this is especially helpful to keep track of all family members’ schedules in one place. (Since my children are younger, I tried to use each row for separate areas of my life but eventually they just became general to do’s.) What I also loved were handy colored pages in the back for listing favorite books, wines, movies and restaurants; recording gifts, organizing parties and vacations. It was great to have one place to record all these areas of my life. And what’s really neat, is the address book in the rear that is self-bound and can be removed for easy access in following years. The address book featured separate pages for recording family medical information and listing babysitters and household service provides. All in all, for $40 I felt pretty well organized throughout the year.
  
  My one gripe, is that there wasn’t enough space for general to do’s: emails, phone calls, tasks, errands, and other items I need to do but not necessarily on a specific day. For example, when I listed them under Monday, I didn’t revisit that list later in the week and missed specific tasks left undone.
  
  Which led me to revisit my calendar system for the start of 2008. Knowing I’d need a new Mom Agenda by January, I began looking this Fall. I seriously inventoried my organizing needs and sought a diary with more space for weekly to do’s. But, I thought, if I can’t find one that competes with the Mom Agenda overall, I may not change. I spent considerable time in the organizer aisle at Staples, flipping through weekly agendas including their new homegrown organizer for Moms. At $26 or so, it’s cheaper than others but had too little space for (in my sloppy handwriting) a To Do list.
  
  And that’s where a Google search sent me to Truly Mom. Very attractive and on the expensive side (they start at $90) these organizers take a different approach than the Mom Agenda’s standard day organizer format. They are catchy looking foldout portfolios that organize:
• A monthly calendar
• A daily, well-organized To Do page
• Three notepads for shopping list, misc notes and other lists
• An Address book
  
  Each insert is replaceable so while the initial price is steep, you don’t have to purchase an entire diary each year. Just the calendar insert.
  
  This was it! Here’s why:
  The My Day notepad is organized into Things to Do, Calls/Emails to make, Gifts to purchase, Don’t Forget, What’s for dinner, Kids’ activities and Just for Me. I don’t use one per day but start a new one when most items have been completed. And it turns out, I am very productive when I can separate my types of tasks to accomplish. After all, sometimes I don’t feel like reaching out and making calls so it’s nice to simply look down my list of To Do’s and organize my time or accomplish them immediately. I was worried that the monthly calendar wouldn’t provide enough space for me to jot down appointments, but my life is filled more with tasks than engagements so this has worked well so far. Plus I have a nice monthly window onto our family schedule. Finally, I love having three shopping lists or note areas all in the same location. I’m constantly thinking of grocery items we need and previously scoured the kitchen for my list even though my organizer was right at hand. Now, it’s easy to jot down items and create separate lists for grocery, pharmacy or superstore strips. Need to give my number or email to someone? A post it note is right there. Need to leave a note for hubby? Same thing. So, six weeks into my sharp pink “desktop” with the green stripe, I’m feeling the most organized yet.
  
  Oh, by the way, both these organizers start mid-year in September so once I found Truly Mom, I started my new system in December.
  
  Only you can determine how best to organize your family life and mommy schedule. Hopefully one of these organizers will help you do it or at least give you some ideas for how to get things done.