Toluu

Work It, Mom! Blog

Thoughts and commentary on the daily juggle betweek work and family

Sleeping in on weekends: Do you or don’t you?Today

It’s 8am on Saturday morning. My daughter is with my parents, who were kind enough to take her to breakfast and to a museum (”I want to go to the playground!” “Sweetie, it’s 15 degrees out because someone forgot to tell the weather that it’s only NOVEMBER so grandma and grandpa probably won’t like to stand outside in freezing cold.”) My husband is working on something in the basement (let’s just say it’s a project which has been almost done for about a year.)

And yet, here I am, up and awake, and definitely not sleeping in.

It’s definitely not because I don’t need more sleep; by all measures I sleep less than I am supposed to and I am often tired. It’s also not because I have something burning to do. Yes, I have some work to catch up on and some cooking to get done for our friends coming over tonight, but I can definitely do that later. So why in the world am I not sleeping!?

It’s your guess as much as mine, at this point. Getting up at 7am at the latest for the last four and a half years since my daughter was born has definitely done something to my internal clock, making it difficult to actually stay

Hillary Clinton and power couple issuesNovember 20

Photo from LA Times

The latest political buzz is hard to escape — apparently President-elect Obama has offered Hillary Clinton the job of Secretary of State. Yes, unofficially, unconfirmed, rumored, but seemingly true if you trust the many news outlets reporting this.

What I’ve found really fascinating in all the discussions is how much her husband is playing into the picture. Of course, her husband isn’t just some high-profile guy. It’s THE high-profile guy, Bill Clinton. The concrete issues surrounding him are the various contributions and payments he has received and continues to receive from international organizations as speaking fees and to fund his philanthropic activities. According to the NY Times lawyers from the Obama team are now looking into Mr. Clinton’s finances and activities to ensure that there will be no conflict of interest if his wife were to take on the Secretary of State job.

But it doesn’t stop there. Many political analysts wonder what Obama is thinking in potentially bringing Hillary onto his team because of the strong influence that Bill Clinton would then have in the administration. I remember hearing after Obama wont the Democratic primary,

What money can’t buy: Lowering my money stressNovember 18

I find myself stressing about the economy/money/business a lot these days and I know I am not alone, not by a long shot. And while I am not that good at it, I keep trying different things to relieve my stress because there’s absolutely nothing healthy or productive about it. Quite the opposite, according to my voodoo doctor. (In case you’re curious, my voodoo doctor is the first person in the medical profession I’ve ever seen who has done something to limit my migraines from coming back and debilitating my life. I am not cheesy enough to call him my miracle doctor, so voodoo is the next best thing.)

In the absence of growing a money tree in our back yard or winning the lottery, both of which I am fairly certain would reduce some of my money-related stress, here’s what I’ve tried:

Looking for the upside of a bad economy. One example? In attempting to spend less money on coffee I’ve learned to make my very own rockin’ latte.

Blogging my stress, like, well, I am doing right now or have done before, right here on the Work It, Mom! Blog.

Being grateful for what we have, like a house over our heads (and one we happen to lov

Sex after babyNovember 17

No, I am not actually going to write about my sex life here.

But we are talking about it with Heather from Dooce, Rebecca from Girls Gone Child, and Mindy from The Mommy Blog on the latest Momversation video (posted below).

The producers must not like me very much because my parts got cut down to a few seconds in which it sounds like my husband and I didn’t have sex for years after our daughter was born (honey, it might have seemed that long, I know.) But the topic is interesting, however, and I don’t think it gets any less interesting when we talk about finding time (and energy) to have sex while juggling work, family, and endless chores.

So check out the video and sound off in the comments with your thoughts on sex after baby: Did your sex life get better, worse or stayed the same? Is it something you prioritize now or is it a casualty of your work-life juggle?

The overparenting crisisNovember 16

I just finished reading an article in The New Yorker about the rise of overparenting and my head is spinning. If anyone has an over-sized chill pill, I’d like one. NOW. please.

The article reviews several recent books that explore the subject of helicopter parenting in more detail than I’d seen before. To save you the suspense, the verdict is uniformly negative: Overparenting is bad for our kids.

Overparenting means different things to different people, but the article’s author defines it through several elements:

-Spoiling kids with attention, stuff, and latitude through lax rules.

-Achievement pressure — i.e. I need to make sure my kids gets into Harvard so I am hiring him a tutor when he is 5.

-Anxiety about everything from sanitizing kids’ hands to worrying about how they are getting on with their classmates.

As I was reading through these I was checking them off in my mind, as they relate to the kind of parents I think my husband