Leading Mama

Swoops and Poops

You’ve seen them at the park. They gather near the parking lot. They sit on the benches, preening. They walk in aimless circles while the kids play on the jungle gym. They’re not really watching the kids, but they’re poised to take flight if someone gets in their space. And they’ll swoop in fast if someone drops something edible.

 

Photo from slack12 at flickr.com

All is calm on the playground until the kid in the too-short sweatpants rips a green plastic shovel from the hands of the toddler in the glittery cupcake t-shirt. The little girl cries out. ‘Mooooom! Dat mine!’

 

Coffee and smart phone forgotten, she’s off the bench, wheeling and swooping toward the children. Screaming and chastising.  Gesturing wildly. Seagull mom flies into the sandbox, makes a lot of noise about the hostile takeover of the green shovel, steals it back from too-short-sweatpants, and returns it to her little cupcake.

 

She tells cupcake to stop crying. It’s over. She got back the shovel. She screams at too-short-sweatpants about playing with his own toys and shoos him away.

 

Then she turns and flies back to her bench, where she’ll pass time waiting for another opportunity to swoop into action.

 

She’s no helicopter parent. She's more like a seagull.

She leaves the kids to their own devices.

She’s in her own world.

Until something happens.

Then she flies in,

makes a lot of noise,

dumps on everyone,

and flies away.

 

 

 

Photo from Dave Harkin at Melbourne LightPainters

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Seagull parenting is an adaptation of Ken Blanchard’s seagull management concept. Learn more about it in his leadership best-seller, The One Minute Manager .

Sunday Standpoint: Honesty is the Best Policy

 

Little Man lies. Constantly.

 

In fact, this week he told Leading Man that a secret is "when you don't want Mommy to know something."

Nice, huh?

 

He hides candy in the drawers of his playroom. When I find it, he explains dodges "I was saving it for you, Mom."

 

When he waited a bit too long to run to the bathroom and -- as a result -- made a pee puddle on the tile, he didn't clean up. He didn't fess up. He closed the door and acted like nothing happened.

 

I found the "surprise" some time later and called him to the scene. He denied that he had an accident. He told me "a ghost did it."

 

In this family, I'm the cook, maid, cheauffeur, and personal shopper.  

I'm the reader of bedtime stories and brusher of teeth.

 

I'm also the bad cop.

 

I put limits on TV time and sugar consumption.

 

I've yet to utter my own mother's refrain "The whiter the bread, the sooner you're dead." But it won't be long. Little Man gets white bread at school and recently told me he doesn't like brown bread so much. Great.

 

Leading Man would plop the kids in front of a screen with a bag of chips and a bowl of candy if it wasn't for me. He wants them to be happy. Always.

 

He's a "yes" man.

 

I am the voice of "No."

 

"You can't watch another episode of Dinosaur Train."

"You can't eat candy for breakfast."

"You need to clean up the puzzle before building a train track."

 

And I tell the unflinching truth. I say "We're not going to McDonald's for dinner because Mom and Dad want a nice dinner."

 

Leading Man -- a.k.a. coward of the county -- says "McDonald's is closed on Saturdays." When we drive by McDonald's, he says "Look, what's that out your window?" so Little Man won't see the golden arches.  Dodge and weave. Deny and distract.

 

My Sunday Standpoint: Honesty is the best policy. Even if it gets you in trouble. Even if it means the kids will whine and moan and grumble all the way to the nice dinner Mommy wants.

 

What do you think? Is honesty always the best policy? Take a stand and link up below. 

 

 

Comedic Genius: Orange You Glad I Didn't Say Banana?

As I recently reported, Little Man thinks I'm a “mee-on.” Comedian, that is.

I may be funny, but I’m a one-joke pony, really. I can tell the “knock knock” joke about the banana and the orange, but not much more. Unfortunately, Little Man just can’t wait for the punch line.

Here’s a recent dialog:

 

Leading Mama: Knock, knock.

Little Man: Who’s there?

Leading Mama: Banana

Little Man: Banana who?  

Leading Mama: Knock, knock

Little Man (expectantly): Who’s there?

Leading Mama: Banana

Little Man (exasperated): Mom! You not do it right!

 

Leading Mama: Ok, *you* tell *me* a joke.

 

Little Man: Knock, knock

Leading Mama: Who’s there?

Little Man: Banana

Leading Mama: Banana who?

Little Man: Banana with an orange inside! (laughs)

 

Little Man: You try again, Mom.

 

Leading Mama: Knock, knock.

Little Man: Who’s there?

Leading Mama: Football

Little Man: Football who?

Leading Mama: Football with a baseball inside.

 

Roaring laughter from Little Man ensues. It is infectious. My cheeks hurt I laughed so hard.

 

Leading Mama: Did I do it right that time?

Little Man: Yeah. You really funny, Mom. Like a mee-on.

 

LESSON LEARNED?

Good communication isn’t all about content.

You’ve got to play to your audience.  

 

This post inspired by a prompt from

Sleep It Off, Sister

 

 

 

 

 

Inspired to participate in Post-It Note Tuesday by my sweet, restless baby, who's shenanigans ensured I would function on 3% brainpower today. Nice.

 

Balance is Relative

Time management gurus would freak out if they saw how I operate. I don't collect empty pizza boxes or tchochkes, but I'm surrounded by so many to-dos and wanna-learns I could star in a special episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. I'd call it "the overachiever edition." Maybe I should pitch this idea to Oprah.

 

Here's my dirty little secret to getting it all done.

 

I let creative impulses, have-to's, want-to's  and deadlines determine what I do and when I do it.

 

Leading Man calls it "just-in-time excellence."

 

If the ideas are swimming in my head, I capture them on paper. I save files and add details as they come to me. When article is due, I write it. If Little Man is out of socks (again!), I do laundry. If the baby has a hacking cough -- right now she sounds like a 2-pack-a-day smoker -- I take her to the clinic. If I feel like Thai Chicken with Basil for dinner, I get busy in the kitchen. If I don't want to cook, I defrost and reheat.

 

When someone offers snuggle time, I drop everything and I "nuggle." I *do* have priorities, you know.

 

The old schedule that housewives perfected over a hundred years and embroidered on millions of flour-sack dish towels just wouldn't fly around here.  

  

Monday: Wash Day
Tuesday: Ironing Day
Wednesday: Sewing Day
Thursday: Market Day
Friday: Cleaning Day
Saturday: Baking Day
Sunday: Day of Rest

 

Spreading tasks over time would certainly make my life more manageable. But it doesn't fit with my personality. I love the pressure of a deadline. The thrill of keeping too many balls in the air is something I miss if my to-do list grows shorter than my arm. I get itchy to take on new tasks.

 

But -- even if it looks like I am in way over my head most days -- I manage to maintain a sense of balance in the longer term.

 

Right now I am working hard. I am overcommitted. I am struggling to stop myself from taking on more. And I am loving every minute of it.

 

I'm also anticipating a delicious change of pace when we go on a two-week vacation this spring. (Where? Turks and Caicos, thank you very much for asking. Super scuba, gorgeous lush tropical happiness, sandcastle making and shell-collecting. Mmmm. I can almost feel the sun on my face.)

 

For Leading Mama, balance is relative.

I know I can have it all, just not all at the same time.

 

This post inspired by a prompt from

 

 

 

 

 

Military Wife Life: MilSpouse Friday Fill-In #30

Generally, my milspouse life is not front-and-center on this blog. I'm married to Leading Man, not to his career. But being a military spouse is the backdrop for my life, and so, so relevant to what I've learned about life, love, and family.

In the interest of sharing a bit more of my military wife life with you all, I'm doing this week's mispouse Friday fill-in. Without other wordiness, here are my answers!

 
What is your favorite MilSpouse blog? submitted by Our Crazy Life

Love, love, love the photos and layout at Household6Diva. Ann Marie's blog is scrumptious. After working on my own -- admittedly text-heavy -- blog, I like that I can "feel" my way through her blog visually. Gorgeous stuff. 

What are your favorite perks about your spouse being deployed (we all know there are perks)? submitted by Ramblings of a Marine Wife

Hmm. I wrote an article on this for the December 2009 issue of Military Spouse Magazine. (I am a regular contributor.)  There's also a discussion on the milspouse.com forums about the "up side to deployments" right now.

Personally, I would say the silver lining is being able to spend lots of time with my extended family. The Air Force has a policy that lets families move anywhere CONUS while a spouse is deployed if the deployment is 1 year or longer. Because of this policy, I had both my babies in my hometown. I was able to share them with their great-grandparents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins for 19 months. That's something military families miss out on most of the time, and it's something I will always treasure.

(I know my milspouse friends in other branches don't get the same benefit, and I wish you all did. The AF has been planning to repeal this, too. I am not sure of the current status of the policy.)

How long did you date your husband before getting engaged? Married? submitted by Utterly Chaotic

About 2 1/2 years before we got married. There was no engagement, unless you consider planning the courthouse wedding via email during a deployment as an "engagement period." (wink, wink)

 

What do you think your husband would do if he wasn’t in the military? submitted by Adventures of M-Squared

That's a really good -- and relevant -- question. Something busy and demanding. And hopefully something where he can make an impact.

Leading Man is an Air Force Academy grad with 24 years of service, so he has been "in" for 28 years! We're thinking about what he'll do after retirement now. It will be difficult for him to find a job that feels as meaningful as helping the Afghans rebuild their communities. My husband has done 3 deployments to Afghanistan in the last 6 years and his heart is still in Panjshir.

If you could talk to the Secretary of the Air Force what is one suggestion you would like to bring to their attention in order to improve the lives of military families?  submitted by My Life as His (Air Force) Wife

Military families struggle mightily with reintegration after deployment, but few seek help with the transition. I wish the services would normalize this experience for people so they don't feel so alone. Many people (civilian and miliary included) think welcoming a service member home should be happy, easy, fun. Like coming back from a vacation.

The reality is that lots of things change in the course of a year and re-making a family over and over and over takes a toll on everyone. The Air Force is fond of saying "flexibility is the key to airpower." In Leading Mama's opinion, a little stability never hurt, either.

Community-Sourcing: Leadership isn't DIY

I frequently get thanked for things I didn’t do. That’s because I take on projects that are way too big for one little mama to do all by herself. Like collecting, packaging and distributing cookies to more than 2,000 service members at holiday time. Don’t get me wrong, I love, love, love to bake. But 12,000 cookies? 10 days from now? Forget about it.

Photo by Tim Lewis shared via WikimediaCommons

 

I’m something of a yes-mama. I simply can’t say “no” when I’m asked to take on an enormous project. I’m a project junkie. But I know I can’t be a do-it-myself project junkie.  That would be ludicrous. And it isn't necessary!

 

People love to help with meaningful projects, so reaching out gives others the opportunity to do good. They'll also bring skills, talents and resources that Leading Mama just doesn’t have. Sometimes more is more. So I say “bring it.”

 

Crowd-sourcing is a relatively new concept in business. It amounts to getting people to build products without payment for their labor, and it flies in the face of years of pay-for-performance management. Community leaders have been doing something similar for hundreds or thousands of years. Think barnraising technology for the modern world.

 

I call it community-sourcing: harnessing the energies of community networks and everyday people to accomplish a shared pro-social goal.

 

Community-sourcing could help you collect coats for inner city kids or items for the school’s silent auction. It could be used to build affordable housing or clean up and refurbish a dilapidated baseball field. You could community-source a website or blog and get rich content from hundreds of contributors in the virtual community. If you're a ScaryMommy fan, you know what I mean. She has an eight-week waiting list for guest contributors to the Scary Mommy Society and the content is outstanding.

 

Done right, community-sourcing not only gets the job done. It gets the job done faster, smarter, and better. It builds community. And – if you have a tendency to take projects way too big for one person – it just might save you from yourself.

 

How could community-sourcing help you with an upcoming project? And what's stopping you from using it?

Scary Business

In this week’s Prosperous Writer E-zine, Christina Katz relates her experiences at the recent Associated Writers and Writing Programs Conference in Washington, DC. She asked the participants in a social networking session whether they see themselves or their writing as a business. The result? Only 20% of the attendees raised their hands. She was shocked.

 

I am a freelance writer. Writing is my business. And if I had been in Christina’s audience, I would have raised my hand. But I understand why so few people did.

Claiming an identity as a business person is scary.

Doing it in public is even scarier.

Here’s why:

1) Claiming an identity is a commitment. It demands action.

You cannot say you are a writer if you don’t write. And no matter how good a writer – or cook, coach, crafter, singer, stylist, designer, or widget-maker – you are, you cannot say you are in business unless you market and (hopefully) sell your work.

 

2) Selling your work feels a lot like selling yourself. Especially for artists, and especially for women.

Putting a price on your work makes a statement about the value of your ideas, your time, and your creations. And negotiating the value of your work can be off-putting, not to mention downright frightening. Why? We don’t want to confront our own assessment of our value and we don’t want to open ourselves up to scrutiny. As long as your work is a hobby, you don’t have to find out what it, and, by extension, you, are worth. Safety first, right?

 

3) Business has a certain connotation. It is cold and detached. Impersonal. It can be ruthless. Business is dirty and corrupt.

I know these are stereotypes, but these qualities spring to mind without warning when we think about business, and there’s the rub. Claiming we are in business means getting past all that emotional baggage. We want to believe we are thoughtful, creative, and socially aware. These traits are hard to reconcile with our knee-jerk beliefs about business.

 

4) Businesses pay workers for performance, and motivate increases in production by offering larger and larger incentives. Daniel Pink, author of Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us calls this Motivation 2.0

Unfortunately, lots of studies in psychology show that paying people to do tasks they find inherently meaningful and intrinsically motivating is apt to backfire. Athletes paid top dollar for their performance fall out of love with the game. Kids paid to color pictures stop coloring because coloring isn’t fun anymore. Writers worry that being paid to write will mean they no longer find it gratifying, energizing, and expressive. We don’t want money to mess with our mojo. We – incorrectly, I think – equate selling our work with selling out.

 

5) Being in business ups the ante. As long as we don’t claim we’re worth too much, no one will call us out. We can dabble, bumble, and fail at a hobby. The stakes are low. Giving ourselves permission to dabble, bumble and (possibly) fail at our work takes a lot more courage. But risk-taking is vital to any enterprise, including writing.

 

I am proud to say I am a freelance writer. I recognize my work has value and ask others to recognize it, too. That doesn’t make what I do less gratifying, less energizing, or less noble.

 

I am an enterprising mama. As Merriam-Webster defines it, that means I am marked by an independent energetic spirit and a readiness to act. My enterprise is writing. It is difficult, complicated, and risky. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

How about you? What's your enterprise? Be bold and claim it. I double-dog dare you.

Talk is Cheap but Priceless: Wordy Valentine’s Day Gifts

Valentine’s Day is Monday, and – if you are like me – it’s time to start thinking panic about what to give your sweeties! When I asked Little Man what we give our friends on Valentine’s Day, he said we give them "words." I know he means cards, but his answer got me thinking (I know, I know. What *doesn’t* get me thinking, right?!)

Words are a really cool gift. All that other Valentiney hooplah is supposed to "say" I love you. So this year I am taking a stand: no flowers, candy or edible underwear for Leading Mama.  I'm gonna get wordy instead.

 If you a) can’t afford flowers, b) can’t take the risk that you’d eat a 3-lb. box of chocolates before next Monday in a stress- or hormone-induced minute-to-win-it kind of binge, and c) can’t fathom wearing edibles, even if it is for a good cause, get your word on instead.

Just in time for your Valentine gift-giving frenzy, I offer you four fun ways with words:

1.       Make a wordle. Type a list of all the things you love about your sweetie. (Note: If you want phrases to stay intact, you-have-to-hyphenate-them-like-this) Turn your words into art at www.wordle.com and customize colors and font to your sweetie’s style. It’s easier than poetry and more thoughtful than a store-bought card. Oooh, and it’s free! Here’s one I made for my little man.

2.       Take digital pics of letter-shaped objects and arrange them into a word or phrase for your sweetie. (Pst, you can cheat by using actual letter-shaped toys from the playroom if you're making this for the kiddos!) Not so crafty? Order letter photo art online and print a preview to give your sweetie until the real deal arrives in the mail.

3.       Create custom mad-lib love poems online at links2love.  Here’s one I created for Leading Man. If we weren’t already married, this probably wouldn’t woo him. But I laughed so hard when I read it that my cheeks hurt. A tears-to-your-eyes belly laugh does a marriage good. Even if they turn out to be tears of cheese dip. Dang, I love mad libs.

Leading Man,

Your skin glows like the apple, blossoms sexy as the lily in the purest hope of spring.
My heart follows your piano voice and leaps like a dog at the whisper of your name.
The evening floats in on a great hawk wing.
I am comforted by your socks that I carry into the twilight and hold next to my eyes.
I am filled with hope that I may dry your tears of cheese dip.
As my chest falls from my shirt, it reminds me of your pillow.
In the quiet, I listen for the last laughter of the day.
My heated hand leaps to my pants. I wait in the moonlight for your secret TV so that we may chase as one, hand to hand, in search of the magnificent and mystical chocolate of love.

4.       Make your own fortune cookies with customized messages inside. Write your favorite movie quotes, most romantic things you did this year, affectionate love names like pookie bear or sugar lips, or some naughty sexy phrases on strips of pink paper with ballpoint pen (printer ink can smudge!). Bake up a batch of treats using this easy fortune cookie recipe.  If you want to go all out, dip half of each fortune cookie in melted chocolate and sprinkle with valentiney jimmies. Sweet!

However you say I love you, don't forget to say it out loud. In words. Nothing you can buy or do takes the place of heartfelt words of affection and appreciation. Leaders know that.

Breastfeeding Is Automatic (and Other Rookie-Mom Beliefs)

this post was inspired by a prompt from

 

The mystique of motherhood is powerful.

During pregnancy, I envisioned a sweet, milky-smelling baby with buttery-soft skin. I welcomed the cozy nighttime feedings that would allow me dream of the baby’s future while he drifted off to sleep in my arms. I wanted to be soft, warm, and comforting: the archetypal mother figure.

I’d educated myself about breastfeeding benefits and mechanics, and I (naively) believed it would all come naturally. Perhaps it was the propaganda educational video I saw in lactation class that made me think so. You know the one. The video with the genius baby who crawls up his mother’s bare bosom to nurse only minutes after birth, latches on snugly, and eats like there is no tomorrow.

In case you haven’t been appropriately brainwashed educated, you can watch it on YouTube. Lactation experts call this the breast crawl. Leading Mama takes issue with that.

I say the term “breast crawl” should be reserved for the thirsty breastfeeding mom who has barely enough energy to drag herself into the bathroom for a drink of water after the 3 a.m. feeding.

Let’s debunk the propaganda, shall we? My baby didn’t crawl to the breast and nurse. He bobbled at my side as I tried to figure out the best way to support his tiny body and wiggly head with one hand while supporting the weight of my too-ample bosom in the other. No perfect pillow made this easy-breezy. (sorry, Boppy, I wanted to love you!) And even when I figured out how to get his head at the right angle and his mouth in the right place, he didn’t latch on like a pro.

They took him to the nursery because he was breathing a bit too fast. I spent my nights cuddled up with a hospital-grade breast pump. Pumping didn’t lead me to dream about the baby’s future at all. Instead, I worried he’d fall in love with formula and reject my nurturing altogether. Worrying is, after all, the hallmark of motherhood.

Breastfeeding – in Leading Mama’s experience – is anything but automatic. I can recall going to the park with a friend about 3 weeks after my son was born. My friend – a seasoned mother of three – watched me nursing my son on a park bench and said (with audible pity) “Oh. You still have to use two hands .”

That’s how I knew I was a rookie mom.

Today I will tell you I believe breastfeeding is beautiful and healthy. I nursed my son until after his second birthday. I am nursing my daughter now.

Well, not right *NOW*. But I could.   

You see, after years of practice, I can nurse a baby while I blog or cook dinner or pay bills or paint my toenails. Well, maybe that last one is a stretch, but you get my point. 

Breastfeeding no longer requires me to use both hands and all my mental and emotional energy. It has become automatic. It feels natural. And that’s how I know I’m not a rookie anymore.