growing up

I know it was bound to happen. 


Ada getting older. 


Wiser. 


More mature. 


And I know she has a long long way to go, but every so often I have these moments where I realize, really really realize, that she is blossoming into an amazing little girl - no longer a toddler and most certainly not a baby. 


And I LOVE it. 


Don't get me wrong - I loved Ada as a baby, and as a toddler. Even when she was puking all over me and throwing her biggest tantrum of all time - probably more so in those moments. 


But I love watching her watch the world, try it on for size, make judgments for herself about what she likes and what she doesn't. It is fascinating and wonderful all at the same time. 


This morning Ada's favorite cartoon (Dinosaur Train) was wrapping up and everyone's favorite paleontologist was encouraging the kids to 'get outside and explore' I asked Ada if she was going to do some exploring today. 


'No'


'Why not?'


'I don't want to be a a paleontologist' (hello - that's a big word for a 4 year old)


'Why not?'


'There aren't any dinosaur's anymore'


'Well you could study old dinosaur fossils and bones' 


'Yeah, I don't want to do that' 


And there you have it - Ada's first career development conversation. I'm not sure she knows what she wants to do when she grows up, but she is definitely forming ideas as she navigates through life. 

leave button

Elliot and Ada have a variety of games that they play, each game fits into a theme. There is a tag theme, a hide and seek theme, a story theme, a doll theme, and a button theme. The button theme is one of the more creative variations of games they play - basically one of them will call out "X" button while pushing an imaginary button and then the other person has to adapt the game to whatever button was called out. This is usually used when they are pretending to be fighting aliens and they need a quick escape.

Well tonight I came home before heading to class and ruined Ada's plans to force Elliot into hour upon hours of GAMES. She was momentarily excited that she got to see me, but then she wanted me gone. I was able to joke around with her a little bit, I tricked her into a game of tag (yeah - I made HER play tag - how do you like them apples Elliot), I told her that she had to catch me to get me to go... even with my bum leg I should be faster than a 4 year old running around in tights on hard wood floors.

What I didn't account for was Ada's desire to get me out of the house. As I made the second trip into our home gym area about to head around the stationary bike Ada LAUNCHED herself at me in an attempt to lay me out in an open field tackle. (note to self, Ada might have watched TOO much NFL this past season). Lucky for me I'm wily and was able to elude her tackle, unlucky for Ada this meant she landed face first on the hard wood floor. Realizing what had just happened I picked up Ada and started giving her healing kisses to which Ada replied 'Kiss button'!!

This went on for a few seconds and then Ada started trying once again to convince me to leave a little early for class. When her best appeals fell on deaf ears she went into game mode, stuck out her little pointer finger and said 'Leave Button!!'

Ouch.

That was harsh.

But pretty darn clear. Ada loves her Daddy and really really enjoys their play time together. I am glad that Ada does not hold my class nights against me but I think we need to teach her a little bit of tact.

:)

looking out for the future

March 8th was International Women's Day. I'd never heard of it before the actual day and as an alumni of an elite women's college I was a little surprised about my ignorance. But boy was I inundated with notes and info about the day, it is apparently a big big deal overseas and I credit Facebook with my new awareness since most of the info I got was through my Facebook feed. I'm apparently friends with a lot of people who fight for women's rights and equality. Given that whole women's college thing not a huge surprise.

Well as a result of this new 'holiday' there have been a few articles about how women are doing in various industries, and I recently read this article talking about how women are stacking up in the business world.

**Warning, here is where I veer off of the 'how cute is Ada' track and jump on my soap box, I won't blame you if you stop reading now...**

A lot of the material was a repeat of stuff I've read over and over again. The focus of the article was around how women in the business world require flexibility to perform. I agree with this to some extent but I would argue that the flexibility can exist in your family life if it can't exist in the business world. Don't get me wrong, I think a flex schedule at work can work, but I've also seen it go horribly wrong at no fault of the woman wanting the flex schedule.

As I read the article I started to think about Ada and what a different world she knows from the one I knew, and WOW how totally different is her world from my mother's or my grandmother's. It also drove home that while my mother and grandmother's generations laid down the ground work for the opportunities I have in front of me, the work is not done. I think the challenges for my generation are not so much equality of opportunity or pay (although there is a bit of that left over) but it is about creating a new understanding of what a working woman/mother looks like in the business world. For so long it seems women have been trying to be like men. Makes sense, it was a familiar comparison point and the closer we could get to men the better we could be understood and evaluated. But here is the thing, we aren't men. We look at the business world differently, we interpret information differently, not better or worse, just different. I believe this difference is an important part of business today. It adds a dimension and an understanding to strategy that is very powerful. But it is only powerful if we respect it, don't try to shove it down and don't try to deny that it is there.

So that is my challenge to my generation of working women/moms - be proud of who you are and what you bring to the table, fight for balance in your life whether it is flexibility in the office or flexibility at home (or both), and visibly show how proud you are of both the work you do and the time you dedicate to your family.

I know I don't do all of these things all of the time. It is sometimes so much less stressful to take the easy route and ensure your boss that work comes first, or promise your partner that you are going to carve out time to focus on family. But the catch is, you can't be true to either of those promises unless you are 100% honest to all partners in your life. If you promise your boss that your work comes first you better have passed that by your spouse/partner otherwise you will feel stressed and guilty and will do a worse job because of it, and same with the promise to your family.

I never took women's issues so strongly when I was single, it is much easier to paint yourself in the image of the familiar masculine business person when you only have yourself to report to. But now, now that I have a little girl looking up to me and imitating everything I do, and a man that I have committed to sharing all of life's joys and burdens with I feel a lot more compelled to speak up. So in honor of International Women's Day (about a week late) - I'm jumping up on my soap box and calling out my generation.

Let's do this!

...all 6 of us reading this blog :)

exercise

As Elliot posted about a month ago, Ada has been forcing him to play tag most nights after she gets home from school. I've been spared this request because 1) I'm not there all the time, and 2) I'm hurt and as Ada says 'You can't run because you are hurt'.

Well last night was the first night of daylight savings time and in celebration Elliot took Ada to a park near our house. They took her big girl bike (without training wheels) and Ada sort of rode there and back, and she ran around the park a bit and played with some neighborhood kids when she got back home. All in all a nice evening in the lingering sunshine.

Elliot figured it was a nice break from the normal immediate onslaught of tag, but just a break, not a reprieve.

Ada saw it differently. It was in this moment that Ada's motivation for the game of tag came to light.

As they entered the house Ada declared 'I don't need to play tag tonight because I've already exercised!'

Wow.

Yes.

That's right, our little baby has already drilled into her mind that she should exercise every night. I know that my drive for exercise comes from a very similar place. I learned to love the feeling of working out at a young age (although not as young as Ada), and it is the memory of this feeling that drives me to stay in shape and get back into shape when I've lagged for a bit (or been pregnant or injured). I can't tell you how amazed (and happy) I am that Ada has made this connection to exercise.

I'm sure there is a percentage of you that think I'm crazy for being so happy that Ada already has this affinity for exercise, but in a society dominated by childhood obesity and other unhealthy habits, I'm pretty darn happy that simply through example Ada already has a grasp on living healthy.

Now, if I could get her to stop asking for Mac-n-Cheese every night I might be on to something.

stats

I recently discovered that I can see stats about the number of people viewing this blog and very general information about where they are viewing from (basically what country they hail from). And boy oh boy - what a surprise! I had always assumed that most of my readers are family and friends and, yes, most are from the good old USA and Canada.

Not so expected - we also have readers from Japan, China, Brazil (or as Ada says, 'Baby Canada'), the UK, and a variety of other European countries with a few views from India and Iran thrown in to boot!

For those of you out there from other locales - welcome! I would have said it earlier if I'd known you were there.

And for my family and friends that read consistently - thanks for your years (!) of loyalty and patience - even through my bouts of writer's block and absence when life just gets too busy.

Feel free to sound off in the comments - I do read them and they help motivate me to write more frequently.

enforcer

One of the features of our new house is that Ada can hear the garage door opening from her bedroom. This means she knows exactly when I come home from class. I have also convinced her that she better be in bed when I get home or ?? Who really knows.

A few weeks ago I knew Elliot was having a long week and Ada had been testing her boundaries with him a bit while I was at class. That morning I told Ada she better behave for her daddy that night because he was tired (something she would understand) and that she better be in bed before I got home. That one little heart to heart was apparently written in blood and sealed with a kiss because it is now the LAW in our house.

Fast forward to a few nights ago. Elliot is doing his best to get our little lolligager to put her clothes in the laundry room and head up to bed. Ada was pulling her - "I'm to scared to walk down the hall routine" and had already gone a few rounds with Elliot when the grumble of the garage door started to rumble the back side of our house.

As fast as she could Ada sprinted to the laundry room, violently threw her clothes in the existing pile, turned on a dime and shot herself into her room and up her ladder into her bed. Record time, no fussing, and no additional cajoling from Elliot was needed.

By the time I had gathered my bags from the car and headed into the house, Elliot was down in the kitchen waiting for me and Ada was cuddled up in her bed pretending to sleep.

Elliot is now going to start carrying a spare garage door opener in his pocket for 'special' occasions.

shopaholic

I'm a busy busy mom. I work full time. I go to school. I try to exercise when I can. And on top of it all, deep down I am a woman. I like shopping. I don't really like the trying on of stuff, but I do enjoy a nice session of window shopping. Since I don't really have any leisure time to wander around malls or through shopping districts I have turned to the web to do my window shopping. Let's face it, the web is sort of a mecca for window shoppers. If only someone could invent a way to feel texture through the web and provide the essence of relaxing, the experience would be just about perfect.

This little habit is pretty safe when shopping for stuff for me. See, women's clothing, shoes, jewelry, and accessories are pretty expensive, or at least they are usually priced over my strike price.

Enter a discount site for designer labels, a unique collection of little girl dresses priced like little girl dresses should be, and mini-fashionista at home that wears nothing but dresses and I'll admit it - I've occasionally crossed that line into purchasing. Now, I'm smart, I know Ada's preferences in dresses, I buy dresses two sizes too big so she can wear them as ankle length dresses, mid calf dresses, and cute - just above the knee dresses. And when all is said and done, we get a good 2 years out of these articles of clothing. But apparently Ada has had enough. For now.

She informed me this weekend that I was, under no circumstances, to order her any more dresses. (To the 16 year old version of Ada who is just dying because I won't buy her that $200 dress for prom and is reading this on my directive - I told you so!)

I'm still not 100% convinced she doesn't want any more dresses. I'm thinking she decided that this might be a good way to break her disdain for my fashion sense to me gently.