She's Winning

I am 22 days and 7 hours from moving across the country (from Arizona to Illinois) with my hubby, three kids and our dog.  Our house is currently covered in boxes.  Our kids have so many questions.  I'm happy one minute...  stressed the next...  and sad 2 hours later!  It's really such a roller coaster of emotions. Change is nothing new to me, my husband or our kids for that matter.  We've moved and changed jobs or situations more than most.  In fact I'd say I actually thrive on change and get bored rather quickly.  At work, I focus on website optimization which means I'm constantly trying to improve the areas of the site I've been assigned.  We try new things.  We learn from them.  Repeat.  I think I've been happy in this type of role for so long because it really is a journey, not a destination.  There's no end point.  There are wins and losses along the way.  But no matter how much optimization we do ...

5 and 1/2 years ago I gave birth to the most handsome baby boy.  My life was forever changed.  He taught me how to be a mom as first babies do.  And with each new milestone he faces, we learn together.   I try to put on my confident, strong mommy face and pretend like I know what I'm doing though I'm usually freaking out on the inside.  That's what we do with our first kiddos, right?  Good or bad they will forever have an inexperienced mommy with each first. Today was one of those big new milestones for both of us - the first day of Kindergarten.  We've spent the summer working up to today.  My son has been full of excitement and questions.  We made a countdown chain as he could barely stand the wait these last few weeks leading up to this big day.  For me it has been all about reading and re-reading every document or email received from the school.  Checking and re-checking that we have all of the supplies and they are labele...

I was 27 years old when I got married 10 years ago.  My husband and I lived in the city of Chicago...  and then the suburbs.. and then back to the city... and then to Arizona... We were always on to a new adventure searching for fun and excitement.  We were still figuring out who we were and what our life together would look like.  We were both working very hard at corporate jobs trying to prove ourselves in hopes of getting the next promotion.  We loved meeting for happy hours after work, going out on weekend nights and sleeping in late every Sat and Sun.  We moved a lot.  We went on trips.  We made decisions on a whim.  We basically did whatever we wanted.  Our biggest responsibility was our pets.  The plan for our 10 year anniversary was always to go on an African Safari.  It would be the trip of a lifetime full of thrill and adventure.  It would be extraordinary .  And I think at that time in our life we wanted...

I set my alarm for 5am, the alarm I hadn't set in 2 years.  I have 3 kids and as a stay at home mom I could always count on one of them to make sure I was up.  But today I needed to make sure I was awake even before my kids.  I had so many things to do and such little time to get them all done because today was my big day - the day that I would re-enter the workforce... I looked at the checklist for the morning and got to work: clean the floor clean the bathrooms pick up the poop in the backyard shower/get ready cut up fruit for the kids to have with lunch get the kids fed and dressed for the day print out the instructions for the nanny (even though I had sent her the doc days in advance) bring I9 docs for orientation don't forget to eat breakfast don't forget to tell the nanny about how Rocky sometimes gets stuck in the baby room and wakes her up, how the boys can play with the hose in the yard but they forget to turn ...

Though I didn't get the best night of sleep last night, I am feeling quite energized today.  Perhaps it is from all of the coffee I drank.  Or could it be because it's International Women's Day and I've been reading uplifting quotes all morning!  For me, today is not going to be about going to any events or doing anything extravagant.  That's not really where I'm at in my life.  In all honestly, I'm still in my PJs and glasses sitting with my kiddos, my coffee and my laptop.  The view from here is pretty darn good though.  For me today will be about celebrating the women around me and taking a look in the mirror to determine what I can be doing better to demonstrate my own strength for the little girl watching me. This morning I've been thinking about my grandmothers, my mother, my mother-in-law, my sisters, my sister-in-laws, aunts, cousins and girlfriends.  I have truly been surrounded by amazing women that have set wonderfu...

Hard, it’s really really HARD. It’s pulling my hair up, drinking coffee & pushing through sleepless nights. It’s multitasking on steroids & never having enough hands. It’s worrying, worrying & worrying some more…  usually at 2am . It’s valuing my mommy friends & our play dates to keep me sane. It’s saying “no” when it would be so much easier to say “yes”. It’s sand in the carpet, dirt on the tile and dents in the furniture. It’s negotiating bites at meals and minutes left at the play place. It’s slowing down the pace so they can “do it by myself”. It’s getting pooped on, puked on and sneezed on. It’s kissing boo boo’s, scrubbing dirty knees & wiping poopy butts. It’s holding sticky little hands to cross the street. It’s finding time for me.   I’m still more than just Mommy. It’s forgiving myself every day for the many mistakes I make & things I could have done better. It’s reminding myself to be a good role model b...

  If I've learned anything about birth plans since becoming a mom it's that the best plan is to NOT have a plan.  With my first son, I walked into labor & delivery on the big day with a detailed written birth plan in hand that basically said I wished to have a completely natural birth.  15 hours later this suddenly seemed like a terrible plan that was not for me.  I asked for the epidural and proceeded to have a beautiful birth experience far different from the one I had planned.  I walked into labor & delivery for the second time 18 months later confident that I knew how it would go this time.  To my surprise after reaching 9cm dilated my cervix started to swell and close likely because of the positioning and size of my son's head.  A c-section became medically necessary and I'm so thankful for modern medicine to help me bring my son into the world.  Though that was far from the plan in my head, I was happy to have a healthy baby boy. ...

Because I think it's going to be easier?  <insert belly laugh> No, not at all! In some ways I feel like I've been experiencing a mid-life crisis at 35.  Or at least a point in my life where I felt it was time to stop, re-evaluate and re-invent myself. You can choose to let these moments pass and go about your normal routine or you can take the time to evaluate what the top priorities are in your life and make sure you are living accordingly.  After a lot of soul searching I'm re-defining what success means to me.  And here is how I made the decision to become a stay at home mom… I was a marketing chick long before I was a mom.  I say "marketing chick" because "professional" sounds too stuffy to me and I think my career has been pretty damn cool.  I'm not one of those people that hates their job.  I think marketing is the bomb-diggity and was definitely the right career choice for me. I always knew my husband and I w...