This weekend one of my best friends loaded her luggage in my Jeep and we took a road trip to the beach for the first time in awhile. Sara and I were off to celebrate another long-time bestie, Colleen. After a string of jerks  Colleen found Thomas. I knew when I met him that he was one. I was very fortunate to be able to go to the party since my aunt and uncle live a mile off the island. I was five minutes away from Henry if he needed me. It was the first night I spent away from my little 5-month-old.

Kissing the bride.

Of the girls in our grade in the sorority, I was one of the first to get married. Let me assure you, I didn’t plan for it to be that way. Before I met Greyson I was convinced I wouldn’t get married until my 30’s. Love changes the best laid plans. It’s hard to believe it will be nine years this month. Colleen is one of the last to get married. We laugh about the differences between planning a wedding at 23 (me) and at 32 (her). For example, Colleen bought her own awesome Jimmy Choos to wear down the aisle because she makes her own money and she can. I didn’t ask my parents for Jimmy Choos since I was only two years out of college, poor and counting on them to pay for everything. I wouldn’t change anything, but don’t tell my parents or my husband that I do envy the maturity of Colleen’s wedding.

This is the only photographic evidence of my bachelorette party that I will share. It is edited to protect your fragile eyes. Yes, it is a blinking penis necklace.

My party consisted of dinner, then a game of “Pin The Penis On The Hunk” and so many shots. So. Many. As each friend walked down the aisle, there was some ridiculous celebration or another. One girl wore a “Suck for a Buck” t-shirt covered in Lifesavers. For another friend we hid paper hearts with guys in bars and the bride had to go up to them and ask if they “had a heart on.” Some cowboy beefcake stripper boarded the party bus for my sister. The stories go on and on. All of these were during my twenties.

This weekend we had the privilege of staying at a family friend’s beautiful island mansion. We strolled on the dock, went out to a nice dinner and stopped at one bar. It wasn’t crowded. We danced for a bit, had a few drinks and were back at the house by 11:45. There was only one penis thing. A penis cake. This one had fondant and was baked by an actual chef. We laughed, remembering ten years ago when we bought some Betty Crocker mix and baked penis cakes for another friend.

I looked at Colleen’s happy face and realized this is so much better. We were silly college girls, then funny twenty-somethings and now we’re experienced. We’re wives, divorcees, mothers, professionals and still friends.

I looked at the cake and thought about that stupid blinking necklace and said, “You know, my relationship with the penis has changed now that I wipe a tiny one all the time.” The passage of time, penis by penis.

The number one question I get lately is, “How’s it going being at home with the kids now?” The short answer? Awesome. Yes, we’re in transition, but overall it’s been a really good move for our family. I’ve been home two months after returning briefly to work following maternity leave with Baby #2. Honestly, I was nervous. Change is hard. I was terrified that we would be bored and that I would get lazy. Bored? Ha! No. We’ve had plenty to do but, that’s not by mistake. I knew we needed to have a plan. These are the things we did to ease the transition from working mom to stay-at-home mom.

1. Buffer Time- My last day of work was January 31. Our daughter’s daycare had a policy where they needed a 30 day notice of you leaving. We got our original deposit back from when I registered Charlotte at the school three years ago as an infant. I could apply that to my last month, so it was half the price. That was nice. So Charlotte was at daycare until the end of February.

It was one more month with Henry to get our act together. He was only 2.5-3 months old. It was kind of an extended maternity leave. He was really not sleeping much at night then, so this was key for us. Charlotte had a month of us telling her that “mommy was staying home and she would be going to a new school.” This information sunk in and it was not a shock to her. Word got out among the teachers and parents at daycare. My husband and I showed excitement about staying home with mommy and going to a new school, so Charlotte was excited.

The buffer month helped us figure out things financially as well. Even though I’m not the main breadwinner in our house, my income did contribute substantially. We had to make adjustments.

2. Mom Support- Since I was a bit apprehensive of the change, I contacted Erin who’s older son used to go to my daughter’s school. She started staying home after her daughter was born.  She is the same age as Charlotte. Immediately Erin let me know there was a spot available at her part-time two-day a week preschool. Boom! I’ll take it. Erin was my angel, ya’ll! She scheduled a play date with us and another family who has a son in Charlotte’s new class. She knew two kids going into her new school. Erin had been where I was, so she was able to give an honest answer to “Was it a good decision to leave work?” (The answer was “yes.”) She could tell me about transitioning from full-time to part-time care. She gave me the heads-up on the kids playing together after school. She introduced me to other moms. I liked the parents in Charlotte’s daycare class, so I really wanted to get to know these moms too.

3. Scheduled Activities- Yes, I’m staying home now so that I can spend more time with my children. Yes, we all appreciate the more enjoyable pace and not having the extreme stress of getting the entire family out the door in the morning before work. But, I knew my kid who had spent 8 to 10 hours a day in full-time daycare since she was 3 months old would need something to do.

The first day Charlotte was home, we started gymnastics class. Her two-day a week preschool started the next day. On the non-school days I tried to plan something fun like going to the library for story time. Her preschool is not as academically rigorous as her daycare was. That’s not a huge deal. I think they all catch up with each other by elementary school but, I’m not kidding you when I tell you that her 3-year-old class at daycare was learning things I learned in first grade. I try to do little things each day to continue Spanish, counting and letters.

Even our best laid plans fell through with recent snow days or someone getting sick. Like being a working mom, you just gotta go with it and hope for the best some times.

4. Ties To The Working World- I am fortunate to be able to do some contract work with my company. I was terrified of a resume gap. I was out of the house and in the office two days this month. I did other prep work from home. I’ve popped into the office with Henry in tow a couple times for a little bit. It’s been great to work some. I loved the two days, but was glad to get home to my little ones.

5. Exercise- I signed up for one of the stroller work-out classes I marveled at when I was working. What were these classes? What did they do in them? I mentioned before that I would be out at a client lunch, or eating with coworkers and I would see these moms with their strollers, exercising with their babies and my heart would ache. So, I had to give Stroller Strides a shot.

I can only do it when Charlotte is at preschool because I don’t have a double jogging stroller and I don’t have $600 burning a hole in my diaper bag. I took her to one of the indoor classes and she sat quietly and played on the floor of the gym. She was very good, but apparently this was a huge faux pas. It’s a liability to have them out of the stroller, even if it’s inside. Oops.

It’s awesome, though. It’s kicking me into shape. It’s forcing me not to rest on my nursing laurels, assuming that the breastfeeding calorie burn will take care of the baby weight. It won’t. I have to jog and do sprints and these things called burpees. Ugh! I’d rather eat ice cream and take a nap, but I really feel so much better working out.

Overall- So this has been good. I spoke with another mother who will be leaving her job soon and she said she’s not planning anything. They are just relaxing for awhile. I totally get that too. I feel like I got that time off during maternity leave, so I was ready for some in-home structure.

I don’t think this is really advice, it’s just what worked for us. So, no matter your hashtag, #WorkingMom or #SAHM, I’m interested to hear from you. What works? What doesn’t?

In the early hours of the morning, when parents of little ones have been forced out of bed, MTV 2 airs old “Saved By The Bell” episodes. It’s like they know that’s when 30-somethings will tune in to MTV 2. It’s sad the amount of SBTB knowledge my husband and I have between the two of us. He has a problem. Seriously. It’s weird.

This was us as Zack and Kelly, Halloween 2008. It was a night of pre-kids frivolity at some local bars.

Charlotte loves catching an episode with us. She calls it the “big kids show.” I explained to her that Mommy and Daddy liked this show a lot when they were young. This led to her asking about other things I liked as a kid. I started telling her how “Mama liked Sesame Street and Strawberry Shortcake too!” She replied, “No Mama! What did you like when you were a big girl?”

Oh Lord. Where do I begin to explain the awesomeness of ’80’s and ’90’s pop culture? Later in the day I saw something about the 20th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death coming up soon. Naturally, this led to me singing Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” around the house. She asked, “What are you singing, Mama?” I explained it was a popular song when I was young. True story: My brother-in-law stayed home from school the day Kurt Cobain died. I mean, yes it was sad, but come on, Kevin. 

So I showed her “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” You’ll see her reaction. Well, whatever. Nevermind.

Many weekends of the last several months we have attended third birthday parties. We help our daughter keep up with the active social life of her 3-year-old peers. At each of these parties, parents have similar conversations that usually include a phrase like, “I don’t know what is wrong with Junior, lately! He/she has been awful! I thought the ‘Terrible Two’s’ were over!”

Oh, they ARE over. In my experience, the tantrums of the Terrible Two’s have nothing on the meltdowns of “Threenagers.”

My mom has always said of my sister and me that ages 3 and 15 were the worst. I remember the hormonal ups and downs and adolescent insecurity that led to all the dumb shit I did as a 15-year-old, but age 3? Yikes. I have very little recollection.

To my mother’s delight, my daughter’s behavior has brought back memories of my reign as a threenaged tyrant. Here’s evidence of a few of Charlotte’s latest mood swings:

She said to me the other day, “You’re ruining my life!” I had a friend tell me her 3-year-old son recently shouted, “You don’t understand me!”

Threenagers. ::sigh::

Don’t get me wrong. She’s not a bad kid. Actually, she can be incredibly delightful. In fact, she only has two moods since she turned three, wonderful or awful. There is no in-between. When she is happy, she bubbles over with infectious, sweet energy. As a 3-year-old she is able to express her happiness and gratitude better than when she was younger. But, the flip side of that?! Well, see the above photos. She pushes her limits and tests her independence. Sometimes she just melts down and can’t get it together.

Hmm. I guess that’s not unlike when I went off with my friend and got my cartilage pierced at the mall without telling my mom. But, I was named to the National Honor Society the same year. There was no in-between wonderful and awful at age 15. My parents managed my teenage awful with “grounding” or some other suitable punishment. We’re handling our threenager with time-out or taking away toys. It works okay, but sometimes I think teenagers and threenagers need an ass-whooping.

Disclaimer: I don’t really spank my kid. Calm down, haters. 

Tina Fey has been my idol for some time now. Then Sheryl Sandberg came along and I’m all like, “Gah! You are amazing! Thank you for all you do!” So, I was pretty psyched this morning when I read about the start of the Ban Bossy campaign.

I hate the word “bossy.” Hate it. Maybe it was because I was the target of “bossy” a lot as a child. I’m the oldest child and grandchild. I’m a natural extrovert with enthusiastic tendencies. My ideas for games and activities, coupled with my excitement, meant I often rallied the troops on the playground or in the neighborhood for some fun adventure or another. Sometimes this rubbed other kids the wrong way and I was called “bossy.” The worst was other neighborhood kids’ mothers calling me a “hot shot” or telling their kids not to put up with me being bossy. I don’t remember the same of the boys in the neighborhood. The boys were never criticized for being bossy. They were praised for being leaders. I was “pushy.” They were “persuasive.” It was crap.

 Me at age 9 or 10, likely hoping not to be called “bossy” for being myself.

The scourge of puberty and and my bossy label meant I occasionally shied away from my natural leadership tendencies as a young adolescent for fear of not being liked. I think for a lot of girls it is more important to be well-liked than respected. This follows many of us into womanhood, myself included. As it was pointed out in numerous articles today, “bossy” leads to “the other b-word.”

Someone implied that my three-year-old daughter might follow my footsteps and become “bossy” like her mother. This implication made my blood boil. This quote from Sandberg is the best. “I want every little girl who’s told she’s bossy to be told she has leadership skills.”

image: Wikipedia

So, I’m all about the #banbossy campaign and I salute Sandberg’s Lean In and the Girl Scouts for starting it, but I think it needs to go even further. This quote from Sarah Silverman really struck a chord with me. “Stop telling girls they can be anything they want to be when they grow up. I think it’s a mistake. Not because they can’t, but because it never would have occurred to them they couldn’t.” 

image: upr.org

Someone with the best intentions pointed out to my daughter the other day that “Girls can do anything boys can!” Blerg! Shhh! Of course they can! Why wouldn’t they?! Don’t point it out to her. She probably never would have thought of it if someone hadn’t brought it up. Stop talking about how “girls can play sports too!” Blah! Blah! Blah! Just sign them up for sports, let them run for office in their classes and if the issue of sexism comes up, address it then, but don’t make it an issue before it is.

My daughter just finished learning all about the presidents in preschool. She even wrote a letter to President Obama. I did not point out to her that none of the presidents were women. I refuse to make a big deal about Hillary Clinton running for office in 2016. When she wins and becomes the first woman president, I refuse to make a big deal about her being a woman to my kids.

For daughter AND my son, I want the idea of a woman president to be an obvious part of life. I want the idea of a female boss to be typical, and the idea that she was bossy to get there, bogus.