Girl Genius

Clara can count to three!  Today Darlene asked her how many trucks she had and she said THREE!!

She was pretty proud of herself!

Happy Valentine's Day

I had a great day with the two best Valentines ever.  Here they are: 

You can't see it unless you're up close, but Clara's overalls have little hearts embroidered all over them.  Because we have child care during the day we had a date lunch and exchanged gifts and ate Papa Murphy's Take and Bake Pizza last night.  Clara got a sweet little toy.  We're getting a babysitter on Saturday night and going to see Taj Mahal downtown.  We're both really looking forward to it.

I hope your Valentine's Day was as great as ours : )

Color, Color, Color, Color!

Clara's favorite thing to do right now is color.  She wakes up in the morning, comes downstairs and asks to color, saying "Color, Color, Color, COLOR!"  We have a cute little Kidcraft table with little chairs, but she likes to climb up onto the counter stools and color at the counter.  When you look at the pictures below, it's easy to see the joy in her eyes.  I try to take a little piece of that joy in the simple things with me:

(Please excuse her hair.  It really has a mind of its own as it grows, and I had not yet wet it that morning!)

Life as a Corporate Attorney and a Mom

Today I am linking up with Kelly at Kelly's Korner Blog to talk about being a working mom.

I am a corporate attorney.  I do transactional work for early stage small to mid-sized companies.  "Transactional work" means any kind of contract, from an employment agreement to a debt refinancing.  It can be very interesting, it can be very dry.  I work with really great people and I'm getting really great training.

Why do I work?  Golden handcuffs, I guess.  I still have law school loans, and it doesn't make financial sense for me to quit.  I've never been a stay-at-home mom, and I'm not confident that it would be for me, but I'm not confident it wouldn't be.  What I know is that this is working for now, so we're going with it.  I don't find a lot of my identity in my work, although I would say that a lot of people that I know identify me primarily with my career.

I've been at this for 15 months and some parts of it have been better than others.  When I went back to work after Clara was born, I came back 4 days/week.  The economy was down and we were overstaffed so it was easy to negotiate.  Now we're going great guns and we've lost a bunch of people.  I have been back at work 5 days/week since January 1 so that my vacation, maternity leave and disability will not be pro-rated.  Plus, they just need me.  4 days is a different world than 5 for so many reasons.  After New Baby is born in April, I will come back 4 days/week. 

I think the most important thing that we do as moms and really as women, is support each other, no matter whether or not we work or stay home.  Largely, when you come right down to it, for most people the decision to stay home or work is at its core financial.  Because it's uncouth to talk about finances, we don't admit that to one another and we end up in a debate where we insinuate that the decision has something to do with love of our children.  I'm willing to bet that it almost never does! 

Over the past year plus I have come up with a few tips on how to make the working mom thing work.  Here they are, in no particular order:

1.  Don't worry about and try to figure out how you are going to get your child, who is presently crawling, to swim lessons when they are seven.  Just worry about the next six months.  Is your child care situation working?  Will it work for the next six months?  Let the rest go.
2.  Regularly ask yourself these questions:  Does your child like and trust your child care provider?  Do you like and trust your child care provider?  Are you listened to by your child care provider?  Are you listening to your child care provider?  If the answer to any of those questions is no, seek out a new arrangement.  Transitions are stressful for a little while, bad situations are stressful every day.
3.  Meal plan for four nights/week (see post from earlier this week).
4.  After the children are sleeping, go in and select clothes for the next day and set them on the changing table.  Make sure both shoes, socks, etc. are all ready to go.  You can also do this for the whole week on laundry day (I've moved to this).
5.  Hire a cleaning lady to come every other week (cheaper than a marriage counselor).
6.  If possible, play outside with your child before you leave for work each morning.
7.  Hang up the phone before you walk into daycare/into the house/go to get your child out of the car seat.  Your family needs you more than whomever is on the phone.
8.  Buy everything possible online and don't pay for shipping.  Buy a membership to Amazon Prime or Shop Runner.  I prefer Amazon Prime.  Look at the calendar on Wednesday and order anything you need for the weekend.  Cupcake papers, birthday presents, hostess gifts, whatever.  Cut out as many errands as possible and spend that time with your babies!
9.  Assess needs for daycare/the nanny on Friday afternoon.  Is it picture day on Wednesday?  Toddler curriculum night on Tuesday?  Get the outfit ready and a quick meal arranged over the weekend.
10.  Make your husband a priority too and ask for what you need.

It's definitely not easy,.but neither is being a stay-at-home mom!

What helps the most for us is a really great situation at Bright Horizons.  Here are some of the latest pictures, Clara cleaning up and learning to categorize:

Just Get Over It!

When you have a toddler who will only feed herself, you just have to get over the mess.  Example set forth below:

Band Practice

Clara got the Melissa & Doug Band in a Box from my brother and Jenny for Christmas this year.  Here are a couple of pictures of Quincy and Clara having band practice one night after work:

Menu Planning

I spent last weekend at the beach with my KD sorority sisters, it was a great time.  Among the 11 ladies that were able to attend, we have 11 babies and 2 on the way.  One friend was unable to attend last minute because her daughter came down with pneumonia, so make that 12 babies + 2.  By next year, I figure there will be at least 14 with a few more on the way.

Anyway, one of the topics that came up was menu planning . . . do you plan out your meals for the week?  The answer to this question in our house is a resounding YES.  We spend less money, eat healthier, save tons of time because we only have to make one grocery store trip per week and, the best part, with a good plan, Quincy can do the grocery shopping!  Our meal plans are not extensive.  Once we got over thinking that every meal had to be the best thing we ever ate, things got a lot easier.

Lots of people use fancy menu planners, keep notebooks, print recipes on Sundays, etc.  Making things more complicated is a recipe for me abandoning the tasks, so I keep things as simple as possible.

I mostly use this note pad, available here:  http://www.glowbaby.ca/product.php?productid=17520&cat=250&page=1

I got it as part of a set and put it into use.  I'm not sure I'll buy another one since it is pretty expensive, I'll just use the same concept on regular paper, which I do sometimes now, even though it's not yet used up.  The strategy is simple--dinners at the top, grocery list on the bottom.  I plan out meals for Sunday-Thursday using the ad from the store we choose to go to that week so that we are buying what is on special.  One of us does the grocery shopping on Sunday and the other stays home with Clara.  Inevitably something throws us off track like an invitation to eat out, a late night at work, etc., and one of the meals gets shifted, so we have food for the whole week.  Also, we do like to get out once in a while, so it's important not to plan out all of the days, or you just end up throwing food away.  Here's the meal plan for this week:

Sunday--Superbowl, we were at Eve's house, so we didn't plan a meal.
Monday--Pork roast, salad, rice (my mom picks up Clara on Monday, so she can throw the pre-prepared roast in the oven)
Tuesday--Pork fried rice using the leftovers from Monday (we love this)
Wednesday--Crock pot vegetable soup (I will bring this for lunch on Thursday & Friday)
Thursday--Garlic ginger salmon filets (we buy the frozen sockeye salmon filets from Costco), steamed broccoli, sauteed black beans w/ tomatoes and sweet onions

And that's that!  Nothing fancy, but there is no scrounging, no "what do you want to eat" or "why do I always have to pick," etc.  It's important to utilize the freezer for meat late in the week--we try to have frozen burgers (veggie, turkey, regular) and fish (usually salmon and shrimp) on hand.  The crock pot is also key.  Also, I organize the list in the order of the store, which makes it much more simple to shop.  It's the little things that make our crazy life more manageable!

Weekend with Jodie and the Klines

My college roommate and dear friend Ashley, her husband and 6 month old daughter flew down to Charlotte from Chicago over MLK weekend for a wedding.  My other dear friend and DC roommate Jodie relocated to Charlotte from Northern Virginia last June and we were long overdue for a visit.  So we all came together for the weekend! 

Jodes and the ladies, Clara and Eliot.

The scene from breakfast.

Clara saying "baby"!

Clara and me.

Ashley and Eliot.

Ashley, Eliot and Clara, top left, behind the couch (Clara nearly drove Jodie crazy that weekend).

The best one of the four of us.

 It was a great time!  We visited, hung out, held babies, ate, and just generally enjoyed one another.  I can't wait for the next time!  Special thanks to Jodie for letting us invade her home for the weekend.