Mommy Guilt!

WOW! I seriously might be the worst blogger ever. I haven't posted since last September... is that right? Anyway, I'm back now.

The traditional gender roles in our family don't exist. Over the last 6 months that's become even more apparent. I'm a C-suite executive for a non-profit organization and work about 60 hours a week. I get calls from staff with "emergencies" at all hours, when we're at ball games or picking the girls up from school, grocery shopping, it's part of being a leader in my field and at my organization. I love what I do, don't get me wrong, typically I don't mind when I get calls at 10pm or on a Saturday because to that employee at that moment they need me. My husband until late last year worked a blue collar job for a big company with great benefits. He got hurt at work and is awaiting surgery. Especially since having the girls he does most of the cooking and cleaning at home, which I'm doing now since he's hurt, and I make most of the money. We are very much a team and most of the time this team works great together.

Here's where the title comes in... I don't get to be "Mommy" and I have a tremendous amount of guilt over this. My husband gets the joy of being Mommy and Daddy. He takes the girls to school, regularly picks them up, he can attend events with them and now it's summer so he's taking them to day camp and movies and grabbing Chick-Fil-A for lunch. I even see our friends attending school plays and recitals and playdates, going to parks and on vacations and staycations and I'm working my ass off. Totally jealous of my husband, by the way. It wouldn't be as bad if he was at work too. Oh what that actually sounds far worse for my girls, neither parent being able to go to things. I digress! I really don't think he appreciates how good he has it. He's able to stay home all day with the loves of my life. Play babies, read books, watch Trolls, paint rocks, ride bikes in the neighborhood. Last week Ava desperately wanted to go for a bike ride with mommy, she is very patient and waited 3 hours for me to finish some reports so we could go bike riding together. She shouldn't have to wait for me, it teaches her patience but she shouldn't have to. She should have to patiently wait for the cookies to finish baking not for mommy to have time for her.

It's the constant battle over being a good mom (whatever that means) and providing for your family. Social media just seems to make this worse. I don't know if we (meaning moms and women in general) are just really hard on ourselves in that we are constantly trying to do everything but not doing any of it well. Being on a conference call while picking up the kids from school, not forgetting the lunchboxes. Picking up the house and making dinner while trying to listen to actually hear how your daughter's day was. Packing lunches for the next day, doing laundry, ohhh the laundry, answering the phone, replying to emails. "No I'm not on Facebook, I'm responding to an email". Getting the kids bathed, in jammies and to bed before you absolutely CRASH! It's too much! Life has become a sea of overwhelming, hyperactivity where people don't just expect but demand an immediate response to a question, inquiry, thought, picture. Where we're expected to be at the office doing a bang up job but also at the playdate, school drop off and pick up plus all the school events, involved in the community, oh and most days just forget about getting 30 minutes of exercise in.

If you're reading this in hopes I'll have some amazing answer to this dilemma and I'll change your world. I'm sorry I've wasted your time. I don't have the answers, I'm barely keeping it all together myself. On the brink of complete failure when one of my little humans says, "Mommy, can I give you a hug, you look like you need it". Puts things in perspective.

I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way?!?!

Hurricane Day Observation from a Working Mommy!

As a mommy who typically works away from our home with the twins in preschool 5 days a week I don’t regularly get to spend a day alone with them at home. Today we have the joys of a Hurricane Day, equivalent of a Florida Snow Day. We can’t really go out and have fun since its rainy, high winds, flooded streets, possibility of power outages, etc. So what do you do with 3 year olds all day? In our house we spend the day in our pajamas, watching movies, playing games and cooking. I thought I’d share some observations and questions that came to mind on this gloomy day. 

1. I think we have MESSY ELVES! I clean up a room only to find it destroyed the next time I enter. For instance, I go into the girl’s room, made beds, put away books, shoes, hair clips, etc. went into another room to throw out a broken barrette only to return to hair clips all over the floor. How does that even happen that quickly?

2.       How can a little person eat and drink so much. It’s not quite 1pm and Emma has already had a waffle, 3 cups of milk, grapes, gummies, bacon and she’s tiny, where does it all go? Which brings me to #3. 

3. TMI - My kids seem to poop a lot, do they go this much at school or just at home? If they only go this much at home are they holding it all day, that doesn’t sound healthy? With all the pooping this morning we’ve gone through an entire pack of big kid wipes (toilet paper was just not enough).

4.       At 3 my girls like to exercise a lot of independence but only when they really want to.

Ava with her big blue eyes, “Mommy will you get me some milk?”

Me, “Baby it right there on the table”

“But I can’t reach it,” her cup is just past her reach from the couch.

Of course I get it for her because I’m up anyway.

      5.       There is only so much Disney Junior a grown women should be subjected to. I like Disney movies and shows just as much as any other adult, but SERIOUSLY! 

      

      6.       I don’t know how stay at home mom’s do it. Lots of playdates and activities I suppose. I certainly couldn’t be at home every day without going nuts! Props to those mommas and daddy’s who can.

Anyone else being affected by the storm, stay safe.

Viva Las Vegas

I'm attending the National HR Conference this week in Las Vegas. I've actually never been to Vegas and was certainly looking forward to my time away which I knew I'd largely be spending alone, which is partly what I was looking forward to.

I started out my journey to Vegas on a nice Saturday evening, my mom agreed to watch the twins so my husband could take me to the airport and not just drop me at the curb but actually walk in with me and wait with me for a few minutes. I only travel by plane a few times a year generally on United, Frontier, Southwest, a big airline everyones heard of. This trip was planned with Spirit. Let me just say, I'm not one to generally complain about much or have a bad opinion about anything, I'm definately an optimist most of the time.

This is the WORST airline I've ever traveled with!

Not sure how it happens that you travel from say Tampa to Las Vegas with a stop (not chaging planes) in Atlanta in your bag is lost for 24 hours. How does that happen? Clearly they removed my bag from the plane by mistake but seriously that's what you do, handle travel and luggage. This seems like something really simple, the bag with the "THRU" tag continues on that same plane. This wasn't even where my sour experience started, let me back up a bit. My husband and I arrive at the airport ticket counter to find a line of at least 50 people waiting, not to print their boarding passes, because a flight was canceled, nothing like that. Just to drop off their checked bags. Boarding passes already printed, luckage already paid for and tagged and yet the line was really, really long. We waited and waited, about 40 minutes in this line to drop off my 1 bag that I paid $42 online, crazy expensive for checked bag by the way. Once I got my bad dropped off and continued on my husband went on his way home and left me to visit TSA and board the plane or so I thought.

I continued on taking the monarail over to airside A, on my way an employee of the airport asked which airline I was flying. I guess I looked lost or flustered. I mentioned I was flyer Sprit and she contined asking if I flew with them before and how I liked them. I told her I had not and she mentioned that the airport and TSA gets a lot of complants about them and how they treat customers. Great, just great, I'm flying a horibile airline, we shall see how this goes...

If you've never been to the Tampa airport, TSA is super easy maybe one of the smoothest processes in the country. I was through there in no time, grabbed a bottle of water from the newsstand and proceeded to the gate. By this point I still had about an hour until my flight but there were hundreds of people in the area of gate A16 just hanging out. Looking at the monitors I noticed nearly every Spirit flight was delayed including mine. It's going to be a long night, I'd better grab a coffee. So I hit Starbucks, found some floor space since all the chairs were taken and called my husband to give him an update. Apparently bad weather in Altanta was delaying a lot of air travel into Florida and my flight ended up leave 2 hours later than originally scheduled. During the crew instructions the flightcrew were cracking jokes but not the usually light humor you may expect more of in relation to everyone flying on Sprit being "CHEAP" and that they nickle and dime their customers. One flight attendant even said something to the effect of if the life vests are needed please insert your credit card into the side of your seat to pay and release your life vest. This just seemed in bad taste to me.

Like I mentioned there was a brief stop in Atlanta before my flight continued on to Las Vegas. The brief stop should have been about 30 minutes which turned into 90. For what reason, who knows. The gate in Atlanta, like Tampa, was very crowded with people waiting everyone for this flight to Vegas as well as a few others that were running late. When I finally arrived in Vegas at 1:30 am (was scheduled to arrive at 10pm) I was exausted and just wanted to grab my bag and head to the hotel. Little did I know my bag was not in Vegas with me. It arrived on the 10pm flight the next day... bring on a bit of shopping just to get by. I travel a bit from time to time and this was by far my worse travel experience ever and I will think twice before booking with Spirit Airlines.

Shout out to my new gym membership!

For about the last two years I've been going to Boot Camp madness off and on and attending a class here or there. I found the classes to be very beneficial, lots of strength training, tons of cardio and overall a great workout but they didn't always fit into my schedule. I realized in paying by the class I started going about twice a week and they really did fit into my schedule so recently after two years of doing this and paying $10 a class I actually joined and became an official paying member.

I figured nothing would change I'm still attending about the same number of classes maybe an extra here or there so I get my moneys worth. Well last week, after not running much because it's been so hot out lately, I ran 4 miles on Friday evening following strength training class. To my surprise it is probably my fastest 4 miles ever! The 1st mile I ran 7:05 which is remarkable for me as a 10 minute miler. My average for the entire 4 miles was 9:15, part of which I walked since I wasn't completely sure where I was going.

I really attribute my much improved time to my added cross training.

You get in a groove and you don't realize how much you need to do other things, more than just one exercise. You can't just run, you can't just swim, you can't just lift weights and not do cardio need to have a well-balanced routine I think that's what I was lacking. Having a well-balanced routine and incorporating cardio, strength training, core and stretching makes you an overall better athlete. The pieces that are your strength, for me running become better as a result of the added exercises.  Like a puzzle it all fits together!

If your routine doesn't include a variety of exercises I highly recommend adding something new. You might be surprised and find a new passion. Good to mix things up.

Florida Halfathon Challenge vs. Disney Race

For the past 2 months or so I've been thinking, what of my "bucket list" races do I want to do? I didn't really want to travel far, not that any of my current list races are far away but also some are just so expensive. I thought about just going for it and registering for Wine and Dine at Disney, was on their site when it went on sale but just couldn't do it. It's SO EXPENSIVE! Also, my husband made a good point, I'd really have to prepare my body for that one since I'm usually in bed about 10 and the race doesn't start until 10. With my time I wouldn't be done running until after mid-night, I might as well forget about the post race festivities.

Yesterday the Disney World Marathon registration opened and I thought about it, thought about it, thought about it but I couldn't push the button, $175 is a lot for a race. I'd also been thinking about doing the Florida Halloween Halfathon. It usually falls the Saturday prior to Halloween which is the same day as the Frankenfooter (I run in this and this year I'm the race director). This year the Halloween Halfathon falls on Halloween and Frankenfooter is the weekend prior. Perfect I can do both. Looking further into it, why not do the Florida Halfathon Challenge, it's on my "bucket list" too. Cost a little more than a Disney race but it's 4 races... So I pushed the button this morning and now I'm registered for the Halloween Halfathon, Holiday Halfathon, Clearwater Distance Classic and Florida Beaches Halfathon. That's in addition to Sarasota Half Marathon next March and Best Damn Race Safety Harbor in February.

The next 12 months looks to be filled with fun running events. Wish me luck on my training :)

Resolution update

Gluten-free March went well and I found a couple of great products that I will continue to use. Including anything from WOW, they make gluten-free cookies brownies and assorted yummy things. My favorite has to be there Keylime white chocolate chip cookies, delicious! 

For the month of April I've committed to cleaning out one room of our house each week. Now I realize the first to have started working on are not actually rooms they're closets but we never get to our closets, we never get to clean them out. They were in desperate need and you have to start somewhere!

Below is two pictures of my twins closet before the cleanout and reorganization. 

Clearly it was a mess. After a bit of organizing and going through things this is the end result:

They still have far too many clothes but I was able to clean out the dresser a bit and move the sweaters and outerwear that we will not need for a while.

I also decided to tackle the hall closet. The before and after of the hall closet is not as obvious as the girl's closet but now I can at least find things.

Before:

After:

Wish me luck, I think I'll work on the garage next just not today.

Not a patient person!

Clearly I have no patience for waiting around. I'm on day 2 of car issues. I love my Honda Civic, I've had it for about 7 years it has 180,000 miles and we've never had a bit of trouble. Yesterday I got up, got the twins ready for preschool and myself ready to go to the office, day was all planned out and my car wouldn't start. Seriously, I have way too much to do for my day to start like this. My husband was on his way to a business meeting so i called my dad, explained what was going on and he was sure it was the battery. My dad comes to my rescue with a new battery and I canceled appointments for the day. 

He installed the new battery and still the car wouldn't start. So we took a break, dropped the twins at school 2 hours late and went to the auto part store. By this time it's also raining outside and getting chilly. Of course my car is not in the garage but in the driveway which just makes matters worse.

After consulting with the auto part store and mechanic friend, tried 2 batteries and checking out a YouTube video on replacing the starter we decided to have it towed. At the dealership they've also determined (what I've already told them) I need a new starter. So now I wait on day 2 for my car to be ready. I'm really glad I don't have car issues very often, I'm not good at waiting!