Who's The Boss?

My Testimony

I've had my fair share of one night stands.  Not enough to write a juicy memoir, but enough to get tested for STDs in my early twenties.  I've never made a sex tape, but I did expose my boobs at a Squid Row in Cabo San Lucas during a raucous Spring Break week.  By today's standards, what I've written is hardly scandalous news.  My shady past is now considered normal.  At the time, I was a rebel. 

I never told my family of my transgressions.  I just knew that I'd be met with judgment.  My parents had expectations about how I lived my life and I certainly never did anything to make sure that their expectations were re-set to match my reality.  Well, except for when I came from college one summer and my mom found a pack of cigarettes.  Scandal!

So imagine their surprise when I told them I was knocked up with Neville's baby when I was 25.  I was an adult, and yet, I felt like a 16 year old child who got caught sneaking in past curfew. 

After

 

11 inches and four hours later... Not to mention about 300 bucks

I'm still getting used to it.  I keep seeing myself in the mirror and thinking "Who's that girl?"

Darius loves it.  Neville hates it.  As for me? I can't stop staring at my old hair.

 

This pony is nearly three inches wide.  I hope that whomever gets my hair will love it as much as I have.

Before

Guess what I'm doing today?  Here's a clue... it involves 12 inches and small fortune.

I'm donating my hair to Locks of Love today.  About 12 inches will be cut from my auburn locks.  You have to give a minimum of 10 inches, but considering the amount of split ends I have, I figured I should throw in a couple more inches for good measure.

I'm going to a fancy salon and paying through the nose to have my hair cut and getting a few highlights.

This will be my first haircut in over 15 months.  

I wasn't planning on growing my hair this long.  It's only about two inches from my butt crack.  I thought of taking a picture of that, but (pun intended) thought I would spare my darling readers of that scene.   Some things are better left to the imagination, don't you think? 

I can't wait to cut off my long locks.  Although, I am TERRIFIED of having short hair.  My hair has always been a defining feature for me.  I'm known for my great hair. 

I'm hoping that the cut will hit the top of my shoulders.  I'll share photos tonite when I'm back from the salon. 

Wish me luck.

Sorry for the grainy photo, but you should try taking a photo of yourself from the back and see how well you do. 

My sentiments exactly

"Kiddo, it's time to get dressed and brush your teeth."

"Is it a school day?"

"Yes."

"Already?! I only had two stay home days!"

"Yup.  The weekend is only two days."

[frowns] "But I only had two"

"Hey, if it makes you feel better, I only had two stay home days too.  I have to work today when you go to school."

"Only two stay home days is unfair.  We should have a hundred stay home days a week."

My Mom is... Nice

Those were the words written on my Mother's Day card, an art project from my son's preschool class.  "My mom is" was written by the teacher and my son had filled in the word "nice."

The card has sat on my desk ever since the Mother's Day Breakfast his school hosted for it's moms.  Every time I look at it, I think "Really?  This is what he thinks of me? That I'm nice?"

Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled that my kid didn't say something embarrassing like the one mom who had to walk around with a "Mom is a... cougar" card.  We'll never know if her son was referring to her fierceness or her preference in men. 

But Nice?  I'm nice? 

For one, I yell.  Like all the time.  Part of it is my naturally loud voice that can often sound like I'm yelling when I've  just raised my voice.  Part of it is from growing up in a household where holding a conversation in two separate rooms is common - and requires everyone to shout.  Part of it is because I'm a yeller.  There, I said it.  I'm not shouting curse words or saying mean things to my kid.  But it is certainly easy for me to shout "GO GO GO" to get him in the car for school in the morning.

Plus, I'm not one of those totally rationale, always calm moms that I seem to see everywhere.  Patience is my weakness; or rather, my lack of patience is a weakness.  It's not uncommon for me to lose it.  Not "somebody call CPS this mom is a lunatic" lose it, but "never talk to mom before she's had her morning cup of coffee" lose it.  

But there I look at the card where my son has described me, above all else, as nice.  I chuckled when I saw the card the first time and I still chuckle every time I see it.  This morning, I asked my son what he meant by "My mom is... nice."  He got quiet for a minute and then said

"You help me make my bed.  And when I'm sick you stay home with me.  And you smell good."

So there you go, I guess I am nice after all.

Original post for the Silicon Valley Mom's Blog

I love business travel

Confession: I love business travel.  Now, I'm lucky that my travel for business is more rare (once or twice a quarter) and that nowadays it only requires a three hour drive.  But even when I traveled to lame places or had three hour layovers, I loved it.  And I didn’t feel guilty about it at all.

When I am traveling on company business, I'm not a mommy.  I am Robyn.  I am a highly-respected colleague.  I am a contributor to a team.  I am a problem-solver, a solution provider. I feel like I'm Super-Woman instead of Super-Mom.  

The "Mom" in me is put on the shelf for a few days.  I don't have to juggle. I don't have to worry about what's for dinner. I don't have to wipe any butts.  Business travel is a luxurious break from my day-to-day reality.

Continue reading at Full Time, All the Time

WOHM vs WAHM... The New Mommy War

I am a WAHM.  Work At Home Mom.  I used to be a WOHM. Work Outside (of the) Home Mom.  Same company.  Same job. Same demands.  Same paycheck.

With my new home office, I also get a new title in the blogging world.  And, apparently, a new bulls-eye.

I work in good ole Corporate America.  I work at a company that has somewhere near 90,000 employees.  Our revenues are in the billions of dollars a year.  And I do an important job of streamlining our back-office operations to make sure that the revenue we report to the "street" is accurate and true. 

Sure, I have a little blog and a freelance writing job or two on the side that pays enough to cover my Costco bill every month.  So the way I define being a WAHM mom is a little different than the new WAHM (aka bloggers now freelance writers) versus WOHM (aka all other working moms) firestorm that is blowing through the internets over this last week. 

WAHM, WOHM, SAHM... can we come up with another four-letter acronym for motherhood?  I've been them all and I'll tell you with sincere honesty:

Birthday gift

My birthday was on Sunday.  No big deal, really.  When Darius was born five days before my 26th birthday, I was relieved that all of the focus of birthdays would shift to my darlingly dear son.  Besides, once you have a baby as a birthday gift nothing else really compares. 

Neville and I never put a lot of focus on celebrating each other's brithdays.  When we met, we were poor college students.  I was practically putting myself through school.  My parents helped as much as they could, but it wasn't enough.  I was an RA in the on-campus dormitories and worked part-time in the Housing Office.  Most of my money went to school; whatever was left over was spent on my rather pathetic social life.  Neville was trying to finish college in as little time as possible.  Going to a tier 2 university and paying over $30K in a year in tuition, he was motivated to take extra classes every semester to try to graduate early and reduce his college loans as much as he possibly could. 

Birthdays and Christmas and anniversaries and any and all other holidays were deemed to be gift-free.  That's how I liked it, that's how I wanted to keep it.  That's how it's been for the last nine years.

Until yesterday.

Little fish

WARNING: This post is filled with shameless bragging about my son. 

Darius is a little fish.  I'd like to take some credit for it.  For one, I was a little fish when I was a kid.  Second, I've been dunking the kid in water the moment his umbilical cord fell off.  I couldn't think of anything worse than a kid who was afraid of water.  I wasn't gonna be the mother of the child who screamed bloody murder whenever a drop of water splashed on his face. 

I took Darius into the pool when he was 8 weeks old and never turned back.  He's had swim lessons since he was a year old.  At three and half he could already swim half the distance of a 25yd pool.  So this year, I decided to put him into swim team.  We are lucky to live in a neighborhood with a cabana club.  That club had a swim team of roughly 130 kids.  Darius is the youngest kid on the team.  So far, in the competitions we've had with other teams, I think he may be the youngest kid in the league.

Be careful what you wish for

There's a cautionary tale in my family about gifts.  When my Aunt Sue was a little girl, she told everyone that she wanted feety pajamas.  It was the only suggestion that she gave whenever anyone asked her what she wanted for Christmas.  Imagine her shock and disappointment when she opened gift and gift of... feety pajamas.  I mean, how many feety pajamas does one girl need?

Be careful what you wish for because you might just get it all.

I feel like I'm reliving the feety pajamas with Darius.  Only this time, instead of too many PJs, he received a ton of Legos.  He got Star Wars legos, race car legos, and two giant tubs of lego pieces.

Unlike Aunt Sue when she received her multiple pairs of feety pajamas, Darius is thrilled that he has so many legos to play with.  I, on the other hand, am getting mighty sick and tired of "reading" the universal instructions (aka no words, just diagrams) of how to build Darth Vader's  ship.  Or God forbid something breaks off, and something always breaks off, then I have to go and try to figure out where the damn piece came from and how to make it look like the pretty picture on the front of the instruction manual.

Next year, I might just tell my family that all he wants his feety pajamas.  At least those don't come in a thousand pieces.

Happy Birthday

 

Darius had his birthday party on Sunday.  I wasn't planning on having a party this year.  After all, I spent a small fortune going to Disneyland with our extended family.  And we did have a great birthday party at Big Thunder Ranchthat included special appearances with Woody, Jessie, and Bulls-eye from Toy Story 2.  At the time, there was no convincing me that we would have a party with 20 kids less than month later.

Is part-time equal to career suicide?

I recently had the conversation with my boss about potentially going part-time.  With my son starting kindergarten in August, I've felt the overwhelming need to be at home.  It surely isn't a desire to be a SAHM; I love and I need to work.  But there's been this all-consuming feeling that I need to be home at least part-time.

There are two people on our team that work part-time, so I know that my boss is open to the idea.  In fact, she herself has worked part-time in the past.  After the birth of her first daughter, she came back from maternity leave working three days a week and slowly moved back up to full-time.  She understands the need to work less hours.  But she also offered a very strong opinion on what it would do to my career.

Essentially, if I went part-time I would be giving up any and all opportunities to advance.

Continue reading at Full Time, All the Time

What the hell?

"What the..."

"Don't say anything else, young man. I don't like that language."

"What?  I just said 'what the'...?"

"I know what you are going to say and it isn't appropriate." 

"I wasn't going to say 'what the hell' like Ya-Ya.  I was going to say 'what the heck' like Julia at school."

[holding back a laugh] "I see.  Well, either way I don't think it's a very nice thing to say to your mother."

"Okay.  From now on, I'll just say 'whaaat.' Is that better?"