What do you know?

When you are a stay at home mom, many times you feel out of touch with the world. You feel like you lose a lot of knowledge because most of your days are spent talking to children and watching cartoons. You sometimes miss the whole routine of getting up and getting ready for work. You miss that morning bagel from the guy on the corner of Park and 47th. You miss talking to adults and making decisions besides whether or not to make grilled cheese or chicken nuggets or whether you should sign up for the mommy and me music class or the mommy and me yoga class. You miss retaining information. You miss the idea that one stroke of the pen from you could change the lives of someone or lots of someones. You miss actually using all of the education, skills and talent that are locked away along with your business suits and heels. Let me tell you why it doesn't matter. You don't need any knowledge because your children have all of it. They know everything. They don't need you to tell them a thing. So all of that learning you did, all of those years that you went to school, mean absolutely nothing. Nothing! Tell your parents they wasted tens of thousands of dollars. Call Sallie Mae and let them know you don't need to pay off your loan because the degree it paid for is worthless in the eyes of your child. Oh, and not just your child - ALL children. Yes, it's true... ALL children think you are wrong. They all know the answer to everything. They were born omnipotent. Isn't it wonderful? And they don't waste a second letting you know what they know. In my day (wow, I sound like my father!) we called that backtalk and backtalk is a no-no, isn't it? I think it is. I guess I should ask my kids. They'll probably know the answer.l

Put together

Do you judge a person by how they look and what they wear? Man, I hope not, because I would be judged so poorly. Here's my thing. I'm clean. I brush my hair and teeth. I wear matching socks and pants that don't have holes in them. Sometimes I even brush some mascara on my eyelashes and try to spice that up a bit. But I'm not a "put together" kind of person. I'm not an "outfit" kind of gal. I know people who are like this. They have outfits that match. The have scarves and accessories and wear jewelry that matches what they're wearing. They even change their purse or their coat to match their shoes. I had one purse. It was black. It was huge. I used it all the time not matter what color my shoes were. I figured I'd kick it up a notch and bought a new purse - a brown one. Whoa, crazy, right? I'm such a fashionista now I don't know what to do with myself! I try not to brag about it too much. I brought the purse to work but one of the ladies there is a put-together sort. She has a new purse for every season at least. And then the wallet and checkbook cover and makeup bag inside all match too. A makeup bag? You carry one of those in your purse? Why? You're supposed to put on makeup more than once a day? Yikes. I have a makeup bag in my purse and the only thing inside it are crayons. So, like I said, I'm not an outfit kind of gal and I wonder if I'm doing my kids a disservice in this respect. Because now they're not outfit kind of gals either. My kids wear shirts and pants. They don't care too much if the pants match the shirt. They don't care if the outfit is super pretty or anything. Actually, it probably won't be since they won't wear anything with buttons or snaps or zippers or rouching or too many seams. I see other kids with the cutest get-ups. They wear cute little leggings and cute little dresses and cute little boots and hats. My kids could care less about cute. It was easy for me as a kid - Catholic school uniforms make it really simple to not worry about what you have to wear to school. And pretty much all my life I've had jobs where I didn't have to worry too much about dressing up. I'm a big fan of the casual part of business casual. I guess I shouldn't worry about my girls. It'll probably save me a lot of time and money in the long run. I don't have to worry too much about buying all the accessories and different colors of everything. And we won't have to get up to early in the morning to plan our outfits!

Something better?

Here's the scenario: you say yes to an offer that sounds pretty nice. Then you get a better offer - something that sounds more fun and enticing. What do you do? Let's be honest. You may call the first person and come up with some excuse and back out of the first offer, right? It happens, I'm sure. But, I'm also sure the reason you give them isn't that something better came along. Hopefully, you'd be the kind of person that honors their commitment and follows through on the first offer, no matter how enticing the second offer might be. It's a tough spot to be in. I'm sure we've all been there. I'm sure we've all promised to go to a gathering and then get that last-minute phone call for the awesome get-together at the super-fun family's house and we'd rather go there. But, remember what it's like to be in the first person's shoes. Remember what it's like to be the kid whose party is pretty light on guests because Patty Perfectparty down the street is having five bouncy castles at her shin dig. Cancelling on someone at the last minute or not even bothering to respond to an invitation is not just bad manners, it's kind of mean. I understand that life is short and you might think that it's more important to have fun and do more of the things you want to do than the things you have to do. But, doing the right thing is usually harder than doing the wrong one. But doing the right thing is right, right?