On the Road Again

So this has been a crazy 6 days. On Thursday I was in Orlando for a presentation Friday. On Sunday I left for Charlotte for a presentation this morning. On Tuesday night I will take a train to Princeton, back on Wednesday. I NEVER travel like this for work. Really. I usually travel 3x a year. This has been a little crazy. Looking forward to Wednesday when all is back to normal. But I am getting a lot of reading time in!

A rose by any other name...

So the other day there was an article in Newsweek that commented on the fact that Barack Obama is always referred to as a "black man with a white mother" and never a "white man with a black father". It was just a sidebar in the article, and certainly one can argue that he is considered "black" because he has a darker skin tone then say, I do. But either way, it certainly made me think about how we label people.

I have always been annoyed with the term "working mother". I use it a lot (its even in my blog title) because it's part of our vernacular. But I don't like it. Even aside from the whole issue that it presumes moms who are at home aren't working, it actual bothers me more for another reason. Have you ever heard of a "working father"?!?! Nope. Nobody every says that. And why not? Shouldn't working fathers have the same anxiety, stress, angst, stigma, status, etc. of working moms? Why are men just men and women are categorized based on their status as a caregiver? My husband (who happens to be very involved in our children's care) is just a guy with a job. I am a "working mother". That is so annoying.

We make lots of excuses about why women are always assumed to be the primary caregiver of our children -- its traditional, its instinctual, etc. But I am starting to wonder if these are maybe just excuses. Excuses that stop men (not you, honey) from taking equal responsibility in the raising of their children. Who says men don't have the same instinctual nature to rear their young that women do? History and tradition aren't good enough. I think ALL women need to expect more from men. Expect them to want to partner in raising their kids. Expect them to take equal responsibility for taking care of them when they are sick, playing with them when they are happy, consoling them when they are sad, teaching them how to be good people, and disciplining them when they misbehave.

I think there are men who do this. We all need to expect the rest of them to want the same.

I will get off my soapbox now.

I Am So Important

No seriously. I would say that a good 70% of the time I am in my office, sitting at my desk. A few days ago I was out of the office at a meeting. When the meeting was over I checked my blackberry and there was a message from one of our assistants saying that "Mr. X" was waiting to see me. I was confused because I only know one Mr X and he wouldn't come by to see me - unless OH MY GOD - I had an appointment with him. I am now freaking out. I call the office and they confirm that it is indeed the Mr X I know, and thank GOD, he did not have an appointment, he just stopped by. Now I am really confused. This is a muckety muck. A big muckety muck. Think CEO of a HUGE company type muckety muck who, while I do know, and he does know my name, would NOT just drop in to see me. But, he has already left - not finding me there, so I head back to the office to see what is going on. I rush to our reception area and ask them if someone had been there to see me. They say, "yes, Mr. X was here" I ask if he thought he had an appointment, and they confirm, "no, he was at a meeting nearby and just stopped in". They hand me his card, assuring me it was indeed him. Just to check I describe him and they confirm. I am now baffled and kinda impressed with my star power. Let's just say I couldn't stop by this guys office and drop in to see him. At least I never would. That would be totally inappropriate. I sent him an email and apologized for missing him, and he said he was across the street at a meeting and thought he would pop in. Wow. At the very least it raised my status at work, and that can't be bad...

Gotta love being a mom

So DH has been working like a dog. He decides he is going to have dinner with us on Friday night, so we decide to make it fun for the girls. When I get them at daycare I tell them we are going on a "secret mission". They cannot tell daddy. We are going to get him to drive home the "wrong way" so we can get ice cream for dinner. They are totally psyched and can't wait to get started on the secret mission. When we meet DH in the hallway, they say that Mommy is going to drive us "home"..giggling all the way. DH plays along and says "what?! uh..ok" The girls are hysterical. Of course we get about two blocks away and oldest daughter tells DH that mommy has a "secret mission" way to get us home. Youngest daughter says "yeah..secret mission!" Then in stage whisper that could be heard several cars away say, "But mom, what about the ice cream?" OD says "shh..that's the secret mission"...YD says "I know its the secret mission..but what about the ice cream?" She repeats this about 5 times until DH and I are hysterical in the front seat. OD gets that Daddy is in on it, but doesn't get upset. It was too funny.

My son, Big Man, has been fighting an AWFUL diaper rash for almost 10 days. Two nights ago I decide to get serious. I spend about 10 minutes blow drying his butt. Yup. There I was, sitting on a step, holding the blow dryer on cool, pointed at my son's naked behind as he played with stuff on the edge of the bathtub. But know what? It worked. His butt looks much better this morning. I did it last night too.

I love being a mom.

I feel like I was stood up...

So I am feeling weirdly discouraged. I have been working for about a week to prepare for this big event at work. Lots of writing, researching, etc..to prepare one of our members for this big presentation. Felt completely organized, totally prepared, was psyched. The event was this morning. I meet with our speaker this morning at dawn (yes, I actually got up pre-dawn to jog this morning - 8 minutes 2x! yayy for me!) went through all the prep..expected q&a's, etc. We were good to go. Get to said event, event starts, and about 30 minutes in, gets cancelled. For weird reasons, that are sadly, legitimate. I feel like I got stood up by my prom date. Now I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go.

My Gazillion Minutes of Fame

So in my job, I occasionally speak with reporters, and am sometimes quoted. Just last week I spoke to a reporter in Milwaukee for about 10 minutes. Of the 4-5 sentences she quoted from me, she uses the one where I spoke the word "gazillion". I was saying that there were a lot of things happening on an issues and I said there had been a gazillion. And, is if that was embarrassing enough, I get a call from a reporter from San Diego today, who left me a message that he saw my quotes from the Milwaukee paper and wanted to use me as a source for his article. I pray it is on the issue in question, and not on the use of the word "gazillion". My colleagues think its hysterical.

Time with Kids Increasing, Along with Guilt?

Every working mom can relate. You never spend enough time with the kids. Well. A new study by the University of Maryland posits that mothers actually spend MORE time with their kids now than in the 60s. The study was cited in today's Washington Post.

The most interesting part to me was the distinction between primary time (time spent wholly focused on the child (reading, playing games, etc)), secondary time (time spent with the child, but while doing something else), and time spent available to the child but not engaged. It is the primary time that has increased, and I agree with the argument that since many of us have less overall time with our kids the time we have is "quality" time -- ie, time we really engage with our kids.

The article also talks about less time spent on housework. I think this is really true. As there are more two-parent working families, we have more money and less time. So things that aren't critical can be subcontracted out. We subcontract out our house cleaning and our laundry. This is a BIG help. Especially the laundry. We have someone who comes in every two weeks, washes up to 7 loads of laundry, folds it, and puts the kids away (ours she leaves on the bed). This is SUCH a help. The cleaning is key for the bathrooms and kitchen, but just so/so for everything else. We probably need it either more often, or perhaps we need a different cleaning service.

Anyway, interesting article, and I have to say I agree with much of it. I know I work hard to try and plan activities and things to do with my kids when I am home (either after work on or weekends). In fact, when my Dad visited recently for a day, he said he wondered what we did on the weekends. And says he now sees that weekends are "all about the kids". Thankfully, we work to keep it that way.

Finally giving in to the Crackberry gods...

So about a year ago my office decided to get everyone at my level a Blackberry. I resisted, I protested, and I just said no. They said, OK, if you don't want one, we won't make you. Pretty much everyone got one except me and one other person. Well..in the last 2 months work has been CRAZY and my life has been INSANE! And I realized. I am a working mom with three kids. My life is not likely to be "normal" (whatever that is) for at least 20 years. I might as well give it up. So I did.

I have been thinking I could use one since my little guy was in the hospital last month. Then I thought -- well, that was just an anomaly. But with three kids, as one friend said, my life is anomaly. Since the hospital stay there were definitely a number of times when I thought, "if I just had a blackberry". But I was still resisting, because I don't want to be accountable to work 24/7. This weekend sealed the deal for me. I had an issue going on where I had to decide about a whether or not to go on a business trip. I asked my direct boss and she suggested I email our big boss -- this was Saturday morning. I emailed him then..it was the long weekend. I didn't hear back until we were at work on Tuesday. I thought, OK, if he's a VP and he doesn't check his Blackberry all the time, then I certainly can't be expected to! So I ordered it. It is coming on Monday.

One of my colleagues said I will love it when I am on my way to a restaurant and want to make a quick Open Table reservation. She also said its a great way to find playgrounds when you are out and about. We'll see..