Halloween Haze

I start out with the best intentions. I approach big moments in life as a reasonable, lovely person who hears stories of over the top behavior and says, “That will never be me.” But when push has comes to shove, I have melted down over wedding invitations that were the wrong shade of white. I have screamed obscenities at hospital staff while in contractions. I have worn maternity clothes at the end of my pregnancy that showed inches of my protruding belly.

This Halloween has been no different.

For Stella’s first Halloween, she wore a baby chick costume I scored for $6.99 on Babystyle final sale. I have repeatedly told the story of how many children of co-workers and friends have worn the Chick over the last few years. Last year, we had a hand me down Ladybug from another friend that Stella refused to wear but the day was saved by another friend who showed up with a Snow White outfit. Done and done. I started a recycled costume movement at work since there are so many moms with children the same age – pass them along!, I said.

And then this year, I lost my mind and spent a HUNDRED dollars on the Tinkerbell costume from Disney. A HUNDRED. (And that was online and it was all 40% off which is nutty.) Tiara, light up wings, wand, whatever, I clicked and bought the whole shootin’ match.

And I will tell you every time I look at this picture, I think “So damn worth it!”

I will blame all the years my overwhelmed mother, with four of us to dress, would pop a sheet with two holes over my head, call me a ghost and remind me of how lucky I was to go trick or treating at all. People will say it’s because I work and travel and I’m trying to make up for something. (And both are probably completely true.) But I will drink in the ghostly glory of a child in a great costume and for next year, I will pass this along to another lucky, little Tinker Fairy.

The Mommy Look

Last weekend, I went shopping all by myself. A treasured moment without work, child or chores. (Granted I was at Target but it was still pure freedom.) I had a great productive hour or so and found plenty of great looking fall duds. While I was in the dressing room and then again at the check out – both employees (who I really don’t think got a good look at me) immediately said, Shopping on your own today?

Which of course makes me think, How mommy do I look?

I have friends who are my age but do not have children – I asked them if they are asked this. No, they tell me. (Accompanied with a horrified look that makes me take this situation even more seriously.)

Now, I’m terribly proud to be a mom. Stella came to me after 2 ½ long years of being shoved through the wretched fertility machine. Sometimes I see her car seat and just swell with pride – I have a car seat in my car! I am really a mommy!

But looking like a mommy, hmmm, I don’t know. Have I let myself go?

For my 40^th birthday, my mother – who I will tell you is nearly 80 and not know for great presents – gave me a housecoat. An honest to God housecoat. A zip up the front, flower appliqué over the heart, pair of roomy, sewn on pockets, house coat. My husband’s mouth dropped open and even I was surprised at the sheer awfulness of this gift. Unintended awfulness, of course. She explained that it’s so nice to have something comfortable to move around the house in whereas I saw it as, Well, you’ve completely given up on yourself so here’s a little something to wear to the grocery store to advertise it to the world at large.

Chatting with my mommy friends, they have said my mommy badge was probably showing from the determined, I’m-on-a-tight-timeline look on my face. Or the Pull Up and snack bag hanging out of my purse/pseudo diaper bag. Could be. And does it even matter? At the end of the day, I spent one glorious hour and since I was at Target - only $300 on six dresses, a wrap sweater and a top that make me feel fabulous. Woman, wife, mommy, worker bee – I think I’m gonna look damn good this winter.

PS – Check out the Anna Sui collection at Target. Gorgeous stuff that fashionable and still comfortable. Also, the Merino sweater dresses are killer. Perfect for looking good during a day long meeting or coming off a plane and having to head straight to a meeting. J

No Shower Fridays

Working from home on Fridays (NSF-style) has been part of my effort to achieve balance for awhile now. Career-wise it’s working very well. My connection is so seamless my partners at work rarely even know I’m not sitting in my cube and since my agencies are on both coasts while I'm home in the middle, I’m still just a phone call away.

But I’ve noticed over the last few months, that I pop out of bed to pack lunch for Stella, get her off to school and eight action packed hours of back to back conference calls, constant emails, stacks of laundry and making lists of my lists later – I race to Stella’s school arriving frazzled and exhausted. It’s really caused me to wonder - wasn’t this day meant to pull me back to center? To have a day without traffic, without co-worker drop bys, without rushing Stella out the door (and needless to say without the beauty routine.). Instead, I find I’ve turned this opportunity to de-stress into a way to work in extra hours of work catch up and domestic list checking.

Way to go, superstar.

Well, I can’t keep raising the production levels and expect to find any balance, so something has got to give. Earlier today we were pondering over why only our crews of smokers take official breaks and I had a thought – what if I took a lunch break? A REAL lunch break. Not just eating a Lean Cuisine while the crackberry is on mute. An solid hour that’s just for me to spend on anything as long as it has nothing to do with work or home.

And to make this a promise versus an unproductive vent, I am sending it out into the cyber world here and nervously blocking my calendar for a RECURRING appointment at noon on Friday. Okay, really trying not be a pantywaist here but for someone who barely makes time to run to the bathroom this is a big deal. (And a big, honkin' sign of how much this is needed, right?)

Starting this Friday - breathe in, breathe out - Mommy will be Out To Lunch.

Case of The Mondays

Here it is.

The one really bad day that overrides all the flex hours, good salary, interesting co-workers and the visual reward of making commercials. The day that has me staring at the Stella shrine I have built on my desk and wondering my why I am whoring it up to sell liquid beverage refreshments to the masses instead of raising my own child.

Maybe it’s just a case of the Mondays. Or all my colleagues who believe hiring a celebrity can make up for not having a compelling message. Or all the people who are pelting me with the same question hoping I will provide a different, more agreeable, answer. Mostly, I think there is a direct correlation between the level of greatness of a weekend and matching suckiness of a Monday. Going from carefree mommy with fun, feisty child to dressed up and stressed out corporate worker bee is giving me an identity crisis this morning.

Is this the modern mom’s impossible question? Our new You Can’t Have It All? For the moment, it seems that you pick one path and you stick to the script. With the full time employee/ mommy - You enjoy the lifestyle the cash affords you, the stimulation to the mind and ego and you suck up the time you loose with your child and remind yourself that you (and they, probably) would go stir crazy very quickly if it would be just you and them all day every day. Or you stay at home and spend your days going on play dates, swimming lessons, lunches with the moms and hitting the gym that has daycare and you tell yourself that you are still relevant and vibrant because you have CNN on and Facebook up all time and pray that your kids never grow out of naptime.

No wrap up or answer to this one. I’ll remind myself that on most days I love what I do for a living because it’s fun and challenging, I think I’m good at it and really, it makes me feel smart. And every day I watch Stella run as fast as she can into school to go play with her friends. As my husband always reminds me when I call from a trip in tears of loneliness – you are crying for yourself, not for her.

No revelation provided today – just knowing that a rousing game of Come Get Me with my 2 year old and a tall, strong cocktail made my equally tall, strong husband is the only cure for this day.

Detox Update - Feel the Glow

If you have a hard time making out the words on the screen, it is possibly due to the glow coming off by detoxified skin.

A week of stinky tea, stuffing down loads of veggies and fruit and taking in more water than my lawn, has paid off. My skin is aglow and my general agitation over all things has abated. I am in full swing on the maintenance plan - you loose the stinky tea and add in whole grains and skim dairy - and by all signs I look to be able to stick with it. The most wondrous side effect of the detox is how it short circuits your cravings for processed and fatty foods. I have even survived a trip to LA where my only indulgence was half a butterscotch pot de creme with sea salt. (I mean, right? My taste buds are glowing, they are not dead.)

I was so caught up in my non-preservative glow I decided to take another leap forward and sign us up for a local organic co-op. We got our first shipment last weekend and the first sign we were in over our heads, was having to search by picture on the Internet to figure out just exactly what all we had. A few of the hybrid fruits we have yet to identify but we still ate them.

So far, it's been a success. The fresh picked blueberries were a revelation and we three made short work of them. I ate squash for the first time and lived to tell you lovely folks about it. (Not very impressive, I will report.) And we Iron Chef-ed the crap out of that kale and it remained tasting just as awful as it looked. Blah.

Still a bit daunting to open the fridge and see a small garden in there but I'm committed. Tonight I will attempt to tame the bale of spinach I was given. Wish me well.

Detoxification

I look odd.

I mean I’m still recognizable as myself I just look, well, odd. It’s a bit like seeing myself through a fuzzy filter and as much as I would like to attribute this to my tired eyes, I know I’ve let the upkeep slip. I know I’m aging. This is just not what I expected. I expected wrinkles and sagging but the fuzziness – dullness, dryness, general wumpyness – didn’t see that coming.

As I strive for balance I can’t ignore that being in my 40’s, jumping up every day to make the donuts and then rushing home to chase around a 2 year old isn’t adding to my erosion of youth. I put my hands on Stella’s perfect rosy skin and see my mother’s hand, crisscrossed in lines.

But put aside all the martyr-rific isn’t aging a bitch stuff for a moment. I can’t change how my multiple roles, work stress and the toll of pregnancy and delivery has affected me – but I also can’t turn a blind eye to what I’m doing to me.

To congratulate myself on striving for balance, I unconsciously decided that drinking half my body weight in caffeine and the other in beer is not only okay but a necessary part of the process. Not sure what the correlation is there but it’s a fact I’ve been ignoring. And really, since Stella was born, I have given myself a pass on exercise and grooming.

So. I can either mourn my youth with a Venti cinnamon dolce latte and one of those Starbucks muffins that I pretend has no calories, or I can get off my dimpled butt and attempt to shore up the good stuff I got left.

To start, I gotta rein in the rampant reward system and I think I know what will do the trick.

For the last decade, I have fallen in and out of the Living Beauty Detox Program by Ann Louise Gittleman. She first enlightened me about the hormones in the chickens and all the other bullet points we know so well now. It’s been a few years since I’ve taken on a seasonal detox, but it’s time to bring it back. After a week of a very restrained diet, and some seriously stinky tea, I will emerge with a genuine appreciation of every sip of alcohol, every taste of cheese and generally it wakes me up to be AWARE of everything I put in my body. (And hopefully a little lighter.)

And now, I'll just hope I don't kill anyone in a caffeine free rage.

The Stowaway

On Flight #729 out of LaGuardia, hell bent to made good on my balance treaty, it struck me why embracing the balance beast is so difficult. Because it’s in constant motion. I think I have been looking for ultimate fix. And that’s just not going to happen. So I decided to tackle the most pressing concern.

Balance Treaty need #1: BRING DOWN MY STRESS LEVEL.

When I’m at work, I worry about my family. So I cut work short to be with them and end up worrying about work. It’s a vicious cycle that's wearing me down. Though I’m working on ways to lighten my workload (more to come on that), my upcoming trips cannot be impacted.

Now, sitting in seat 9D, desperate to get home after a 3 hour delay, the idea of taking Stella with me on a business trip was genius. When the full realization hit me that I was hauling my 2.5 year old from Dallas to Los Angeles where we would spend 10 hours on a closed set filming iced tea being poured into a heavily spritzed glass, attend a long pre-production call in another studio and stay at a less than kid friendly hotel - the genius started to look a lot more like insanity.

Overall, it went really well. Now, I won’t lie. The days of packing and planning felt at odds with an act that was supposed to lower my stress and once underway, I did have more than a few flustered mommy moments. Like the 20 minutes it took to get the car seat into the rental car while the rental car staff looked on amused. (I was sweating so hard that when Stella actually got in the seat she claimed it had pee pee on it.) Or doing the desperate catch-a-chicken chase when Stella took a ferocious poop and wanted nothing to do with getting changed. Doesn’t really telegraph Strong Professional Woman to the non-kiddo crowd. (And who really wants a that biohazard in their trash?)

But getting through LAX airport was probably the worst of it.

First off, if you haven’t had the pleasure, it’s like landing in a third world country. People and bags and pets and languages all holding Starbucks and headed to and coming from every direction. Stella eased through the crowd with that 2 yr old security that everyone will simply get out of her way. I, however, was dragging all of our belongings like a sherpa heading up Mt Everest in high traffic. I was pre-panicking about the car seat installation and I needed her to Just Come On. We had a meeting to attend but Stella was taking her sweet time and no calling of her name, happy pleading, it sounds like sweet-talking but I’m really threatening you voice could make her pick up the pace.

So I went in for the bribe. I told her when we got to the hotel, we were going SWIMMING. She let out a happy yelp, opened up her “pack pack”(pink rolling suitcase with butterflies), yanked out her “schwimmin’ soup” (and everything else), peeled off her dress and plopped down naked in the middle of the airport and requested I slip it on her.

On TV, I guess the mom would have serenely smiled and had a laugh at the crazy comedy of life with a 2 year old. I am not a TV mom. I completely lost my cool. When I quickly bent over to grab Stella’s dress, my shoulder bag fell forward spilling the contents all over my naked child. When I spastically stuffed our belongings into whatever bag was open, Stella took off running, yelling “I neked!” and I stumbled after her screeching her name like a hyena. (Voted Mommy Most In Need of a Drink by all those who witnessed this mad scramble.)

And I will report, flustered mommy moments and bribery backfires included – it was all worth it.

She was great on set, running around discovering and charming the pants off of everyone. But best of all, toward the end of our work day, I felt at peace. I loved listening to Stella chattering away next to me, turning anything she touched into a toy, while I approved shot after shot with focused clarity. And at the days end, I wasn’t racing to catch a plane, stressing to get on the earliest flight and arriving home exhausted and having missed bedtime. This time, when the work was done, I packed up my child, went to the hotel and we swam until bedtime.

Ahhhhhhhhhh.

I made the effort and it paid off. And for the moment, the balance is swinging my way.

The Balance Treaty

There have been many signs, of course but only two that had that red flag quality. I woke up on a plane and couldn’t remember where it was headed. I almost choked on my own panic as I thrashed about looking for my boarding pass. I was headed to LaGuardia, but for what? The second was at dinner a few weeks later when my 2 year old asked me if I worked on an airplane. She asked it happily enough but hearing it put so succinctly ripped through the façade I had built, telling myself she was too young to realize my constant absence.

It’s time to face the truth and embrace this beast of work life balance.

Over the last few months, I have made many bargains with myself on how I would strike a better balance between mommy/wife/worker bee. I begin with all the energy in the world, making lists and promises and finger paint art (because aren’t great moms, crafty?) but ultimately get derailed and find myself overwhelmed and just racing makin' the donuts.

So I’m putting my goal out here in cyberspace in hopes of ending my yo-yo balancing. And all the whining and self-hate that goes with it. Every day I’m going to practice living my priorities; family, self, work. I know all the days won’t be winners but I can’t keep living in this running behind mode. It may mean small changes or big but it has to happen. So in the words of my Anderson Cooper – I’m keepin’ myself honest by committing to chronicling this adventure so I don’t let time, and my sweet daughter’s life, just slip past me while Get Life In Balance sits on my to do list.