Irish Daisy

Sometimes dramatically changing your life changes who you are. Sometimes you get to the point where you hardly recognize yourself on the other side. I’d always imagined myself from a young age as a career woman who would set the corporate world on fire and accomplish remarkable things. I always planned for children, but I was going to stop at two, and make both halves of my life function in tandem – working and momming with equal fervor. The thought of deviating from this plan – having more kids, jumping off the career track, staying at home – was entirely alien. Dare I say, inconceivable. And I did it for a long time. I started work in corporate America right out of school. Climbing my way up, steadily advancing my career – not as rapidly as planned due to the constraints of marrying and procreating with someone who’s chosen vocation created rigid, inconvenient schedules – and generally making it work just like I’d mapped out decades ago. For 12 years, I was as passionate ...

Life is tricky – I mean, we’re all trying to get it right, and even figure out what right is. And obviously, that’s something different for each of us. And then it changes as we go along. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I have no idea what I’m even doing here. At various times in my life I felt sure about where I was going, and what I was doing. Now, I really have no idea whatsoever – I’m making this shit up as I go along. At the same time, I totally have to tell myself #firstworldproblems. Seriously, there is no part of me that doesn’t recognize how lucky and privileged I am. Not that I haven’t worked hard for what I have, including the time and space to try and figure out what the hell I want to do. Yeah, I’ve worked hard, but it helps when you start out in a good place. Meanwhile, here I am. Trying to figure out where I go from here. This blog has been a loose collection of stories from my perspective as a working mother – which is a stressful, hectic gig. And, that...

In July I lost my job. Layoff – a " it’s not you, it’s that the new management has no idea what you even do ,” kind of thing. And now, here I am, at home. The first time I’ve been unemployed since I was 18 years old…so, it’s been a while. Being me, I immediately set up a structure to work on what I’m going to do next – a schedule for updating the resume, polishing LinkedIn, getting my stuff out there on CareerBuilder and Indeed, networking and interviewing. The girls had a few weeks of summer left, so I pulled them out of summer camp and worked bike rides, parks and pool trips into my daily routine.  Great, I can do this! Rapid Fire School was scheduled to start at the end of August. Yay, I’ll be able to get more done without needing to shoo squabbling children out of the room. No one interrupting me to tattle on a mean sister, no one asking if they can just watch TV "N oooowwww???" , no one demanding to know what they can eat for the 20 th time in 30...

Well, it finally happened. It took 10 years and three kids, and since the youngest is four and a half, I was hoping it never would, but it did, and it broke my heart just a little. We were getting ready to start our day Monday morning. Everyone was getting dressed, brushing hair, slathering sunblock – the usual morning stuff. In a calm and cheery voice I reminded my half-naked youngest daughter, “Hey cutie, we need to put pants on so we can go have breakfast.” She could see me in the reflection of the floor-length mirrored closet door from where she lay in the middle of the bathroom. Instantly, her mouth curved into a grumpy badger frown, “no.” “Yep, we need pants for school. No nekkie kids allowed!” And then she did it – she leapt to her feet, scooped up the pants, gathered her righteous preschooler anger and stabbed me in the heart.  “I hate you, you’re stupid!” punctuated with throwing her pants at me and fleeing the room. Hating the morning I knew s...

I have decided, definitively, is that there is nothing in life that makes being a grown up feel more stupid than the winter holidays.  No. Thing. It starts with Halloween and keeps rolling right through November, with Thanksgiving, reaches the apex with Christmas and then slobbers all over you for New Years.  Then January comes, everyone has a holiday hangover and you’re a wreck because you've just spent the last two months frantically trying to make the holidays special and magical for your family to the point that you realize you’re not actually sure you even like the family you've just spent two months killing yourself for. After a highly unscientific, casual survey, I've determined this is largely a female (bonus complications for working mother) problem.  Sorry guys, but most of you seem to have been trained that making holidays special, or even making them happen at all, is not your job – I do know a few exceptions to this, but there’s a reason for the ster...

I pulled my back, I mean really pulled it, while helping clean my grandmother’s house last Friday. We were working hard to get things sorted and get it cleaned before the memorial on Saturday, and somewhere in frenzy of weeding, tossing, dusting, wiping and hauling, I wrenched my back the wrong way. Then, on Saturday I did a lot of sitting – in cars, on floors, plastic chairs, lumpy ottomans, more cars. And on Sunday I could not get up. Literally, back was not working, so neither were the legs. Laughing really hurts when you have a knot the size of a softball in the long muscles of your back. I mean really hurts – stabbing pain from my mid back down to my right ankle. But it was so ridiculous, my husband trying to haul my petrified, mummy self off the bed, I couldn't stop laughing between gasps, curses, and yelps. He finally had to leave so that I could gradually roll my groaning self to the edge of the bed and off the side. Luckily our bed is high, so I landed more o...

I haven’t been writing much lately because I've been busy killing myself instead.  No, not really, but the 5.5 hours of sleep a night I've been clocking lately will surely do me in sooner or later. Fortunately, coffee! The massive sleep deprivation is the result of trying to fit the work of 2.5 people into a single life. How does one do this you may ask? By not sleeping, for one thing. For another, you do it by rushing from one thing to the next, doing – or pretending to do – several things at once, and by never, ever sitting down for more than 20 minutes.  Unless you're at the office, then you never get up until you're pretty sure you've developed a blood clot in your leg. Why might one do this? Well, I'm a full-time, management-level employee for a Fortune 1000 company – which takes some time if you want to do your job well, and I do. And I'm a mom of three kids – which takes some time if you want to do it well, and I really, really do. And then w...

I used to love three-day weekends until kids. Blissful days partying with friends, extra nights to hang out without having to get up early, the short work week that follows – three-day weekends were all around great with no downside at all. Now…I still love three-day weekends, but with a toddler in the house I really, really hate the Tuesday morning that follows – one where our entire toddler schedule of predictable events breaks down and her little world is crushed by variation (cue ominous music and weeping). Yesterday morning it resulted in wailing, hiding in my robe (while I was wearing it), three outfit changes, two sock changes, more wailing, grumpy cat impressions, refusals to let go of my leg, my arm, my hand…it was a trial for all of us. And we had to grit our teeth and stay really calm and patient lest we incite the Honey Badger into all-out rebellion – which they’re prone to anyway. Grumpy Badger Ah, Tuesday morning after a three-day weekend, there’s no day like it...

Not just any broken shoe - my favorite brown heels. I've had them for five years and I love them. They are unique and I've never seen another pair I like half as much. And so it began...the broken strap on my favorite pair of shoes was the irritating harbinger of one-of-those days. I was yelling at Athena, always a slow mover in the morning, to get up and get dressed, and at the other two to move it, get downstairs and eat breakfast. I plopped down to throw on my shoes and the damn strap is broken. I gave myself 30 seconds to feel bad about the sad demise of my favorite shoes, then tossed them next to the trash can and ran for the closet to get a different pair. But the other pair of shoes didn't work with the shirt I was wearing, so I had to find a new top too. Few extra minutes, no big deal, right? This was just the beginning, just the first tiny bump in a row of irritating stumbles that made me want to raise a white flag before noon even arrived, and surrender to the...