Just for the record, I have three!
Your Clothes
1st baby: You begin wearing maternity clothes as soon as your OB/GYN confirms your pregnancy.
2nd baby: You wear your regular clothes for as long as possible.
3rd baby: Your maternity clothes ARE your regular clothes.
Preparing for the Birth
1st baby: You practice your breathing religiously.
2nd baby: You don’t bother because you remember that last time, breathing didn’t do a thing.
3rd baby: You ask for an epidural in your eighth month.
The Layette
1st baby: You pre-wash newborn’s clothes, color-coordinate them, and fold them neatly in the baby’s little bureau.
2nd baby: You check to make sure that the clothes are clean and discard only the ones with the darkest stains.
3rd baby: Boys can wear pink, can’t they?
Worries
1st baby: At the first sign of distress—a whimper, a frown—you pick up the baby.
2nd baby: You pick the baby up when her wails threaten to wake your firstborn.
3rd baby: You teach your three-year-old how to rewind the mechanical swing.
Pacifier
1st baby: If the pacifier falls on the floor, you put it away until you can go home and wash and boil it.
2nd baby: When the pacifier falls on the floor, you squirt it off with some juice from the baby’s bottle.
3rd baby: You wipe it off on your shirt and pop it back in.
Diapering
1st baby: You change your baby’s diapers every hour, whether they need it or not.
2nd baby: You change their diaper every two to three hours, if needed.
3rd baby: You try to change their diaper before others start to complain about the smell or you see it sagging to their knees.
Activities
1st baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics, Baby Swing, and Baby Story Hour.
2nd baby: You take your infant to Baby Gymnastics.
3rd baby: You take your infant to the supermarket and the dry cleaner.
Going Out
1st baby: The first time you leave your baby with a sitter, you call home five times.
2nd baby: Just before you walk out the door, you remember to leave a number where you can be reached.
3rd baby: You leave instructions for the sitter to call only if she sees blood.
At Home
1st baby: You spend a good bit of every day just gazing at the baby.
2nd baby: You spend a bit of everyday watching to be sure your older child isn’t squeezing, poking, or hitting the baby.
3rd baby: You spend a little bit of every day hiding from the children.
Swallowing Coins (a favorite)
1st child: When first child swallows a coin, you rush the child to the hospital and demand x-rays.
2nd child: When second child swallows a coin, you carefully watch for the coin to pass.
3rd child: When third child swallows a coin you deduct it from his allowance!
Filed under: Career, Random | Tags: Commander in Chief, commentary, President, women and politics
I just happened to catch last night’s series premier of “Commander in Chief,” starring Geena Davis as Mackenzie Allen, the first woman to take the oath of office as President of the United States.
How she came to be placed in such a position starts the show off with a bit of a quandry. In a lucid moment between a massive stroke and his death, the elected republican president asks “Mack” to resign her position as vice president so that the pompous, self-serving speaker of the house can take over leadership of the country. The president’s other top aides are also calling for her resignation.
And not because she’s a woman. But because she’s an independent, and there is some concern that she won’t represent the ideals that got Mr. President elected in the first place. (Which is a great reminder that we’re not just voting for “President” at the ballot box).
What’s a girl to do? She can run a household, but can she run a country? And even more pressing: should she run a country?
You know how it ends. Mack loves United States and believes, despite opposition on all fronts, that she is up for the challenge.
I say…you go, girl!
I would personally love to see a woman in the oval office (and I can throw out all kinds of speculation here about the “timeliness” of this particular series paving the way for a Hillary Clinton presidential bid in 2008—not that she’s the woman I’d like to see behind the desk!). Aside from (as Mack says) the once-a-month will-she-or-won’t-she-press-the-red-button episode, I think a woman could make an outstanding leader of the free world.
Think about it. We negotiate sibling rivaly every day… bilateral nuclear talks can’t be all that different. We’re born to multitask. And even though women are referred to as “the weaker sex,” I don’t know too many men who could endure childbirth. We live longer, we use both sides of our brain at the same time (studies show that men only use one side at a time), and we are far more socially adept.
Weaker sex? Not in my lifetime.
I can’t wait to see how Mack handles the challenges of family and presidential duties. We caught a little glimpse of it in the premier when her young daughter accidentally spills her juice on her lovely suit just before she steps out on stage to address the country for the first time as president. She calmly wipes herself up, reassures her daughter that it’s ok, and borrows a scarf from another woman. Problem solved. (A man would have scolded his daughter, delayed his speech, and activated an entire secret service unit to bring him a new shirt, wasting thousands of tax payer dollars.)
And incidentally, Commander in Chief isn’t the only show giving air time to the challenges of being a working mom. Desperate Housewives (ok, I confess. I’m hooked on the great storylines!) has stay-home mother of four, Lynette, trading in the changing table for the conference table, leaving dad home to take care of the kids.
More power to working moms!
It finally feels like fall here (or, as some would say, it already feels like fall). It’s cool enough for a sweater, dark, rainy, windy, and the school buses are out in full force.
There’s something about moving into fall that I absolutely love. It’s like starting fresh. Everyone goes back to school, routines kick in, I start drinking coffee in the mornings again. More than any other change of season, fall is the one I look forward to most.
Fall is also the time that a lot of local charities—like the United Way—start ramping up their big fundraising efforts…and with so many disasters around the world begging for our attention, it’s easy to forget that there are people right here in our own community who need our help.
All kinds of studies show that men and women give differently when it comes to charities. Men give money. It’s practical. It’s easy. And you get a tax write-off. Women, on the other hand, would rather give their time or talents and make a personal investment in something they care about.
That’s why, as working moms, volunteering is often the thing that gets put on the back burner—so we can attend to more important fires, like the pile of laundry accumulating by the washing machine (which I affectionately refer to as Mount Washmore.). And if we do volunteer for something, chances are it’s because someone asked us to and we couldn’t bring ourselves to say NO (see previous post).
The key to working some volunteer time into your life is to not randomly accept assignments from any charity, church or organization you happen to come in contact with. Pick an effort that means something to you personally and is a good fit for your priorities. If being involved in your child’s education is a priority, then by all means, say “yes” to the PTO meetings and “no” to the church bake sale. If you have a passion for animals, then help out at the Humane Society instead of the soup kitchen.
Since horses are one of my passions (and priorities), I’m coordinating a barn-wide donation of horsey items to send to the groups in Louisianna who are rescuing the horses and ponies abandoned by Hurricane Katrina. And since writing is another one of my passions, I’m thinking about some involvement with a hospice association that is looking for people to spend time with dying patients to record their stories and memoirs for their families. When you combine your passions and your priorities into a volunteer effort, it quickly turns an “obligation” into something you can actually look forward to.
Happy Friday everyone! Get out there and lend a hand!
“The most important thing she’d learned over the years was that there was no way to be a perfect mother and a million ways to be a good one.”
— Jill Churchill
