Easter ArmagEGGeddon

Easter, westside Los Angeles-style, isn’t for the casual “fly-by-your-fuzzy-bunny-tail” planner.  Hardcore Holiday-ers need only apply.

By 5 pm last night, CVS was sold out of pastel M&Ms, the grocery stores (two of them!) had only local BROWN eggs left and no one (not two pharmacies, not two over-priced coffee shops and not one gas station) could spare $2 worth of quarters, dimes or nickels.   And although inflation is real, I’m not in the business of stuffing plastic eggs with ATM $20s (I made that mistake when my daughter lost her first tooth and all the fairy had her wallet was a $20 bill).

“YOU’RE FIRED!””

You see, for the first time in my long & industrious career as CEO of Family-Traditions, Memory-Making & Holiday-Preparedness, I dropped the ball.  I forgot to plan for Easter.  And on the westside of Los Angeles, that’s akin to being locked in the bathroom stall while the lifejackets are handed out on the top-deck of the Titanic.

Somewhere between our Spring Break vacation, the endless To Do lists for Totefish (my start-up), some grandparent health concerns and my general responsibilities of running a household & supporting the career of a busy husband, the third holiday of the season arrived without notice.  Sure, Easter is always around my Birthday so you’d think I’d remember it.  But a woman gets tired, you know?  Keeping up with the barage of post-Christmas holidays and their specific card-making, cookie-decorating, small-trinket-buying, special Brunch reservation-making, and taking-time-to-reflect-on-the-real-meaning-of-the-day is enough to make a woman pour herself a glass of wine and eat the heads off a whole double-box of green peeps.  Vinter’s note:  A crisp Sauvignon Blanc works best.

A GREEN EASTER

I didn’t dye eggs this year.  I bought the dye kit (I found a discarded box in the Children’s Cold Remedies & Tylenol aisle) but I couldn’t find the eggs.  Oh, these picture, you ask?  They’re Easter, circa 2011.  I’m going to reuse them in our 2012 Family Photo Album, for sure.  The eggs always turn out the same and nobody eats them anyway.  How hard can it be to convince the kids that they dyed them this year?   They think Spring Break has lasted “for, like a month.”  Time perspective isn’t their strong suit.

As for the annual crack-of-dawn egg hunt?  Luckily, I set the Easter Rules early in the game.  Our Easter Bunny long ago requested that we set out  a grocery bag full of empty plastic eggs (the same ones from last year) on the back porch so he can easily fill them with coins and candy and hide them around the garden.   The kids’ baskets sit outside the their bedroom door and the Easter Bunny quietly hops into the house and fills them with books & markers & leftover toys that didn’t fit in the Christmas stockings.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED (with a little bit of stealing)

I scoured the candy closet and found an unopened pack of jelly beans from last year & a handful of mini Halloween snickers with a bit of “give” in their hardened shells.  Candy: check!  I searched under both my and my husband’s car seats and found a fair amount of change (although not so much between the cushions of the sofa) and “bought” $10 worth of change from the kids’ piggy-banks (I’ll return it in morning, I swear).  Coins: check!   I ransacked the “Gift Closet” and pieced together two collections of “regifted” and Christmas surplus presents.  Tchotckies: check!  

Not bad for a lady who forgot to show up at the Bunny Office on time, eh?

Yes, I know what you’re thinking.  And you’re right.  There’s alot of “I” in this Easter tale.  My husband, while supportive of the efforts, is truly subordinate in these events.  Maybe it’s a westside LA thing.  Last night, the stores were filled with women — not men — politely grabbing the last remants of Easter gear.  My husband did help me hide the 106 eggs in the backyard although dumping the eggs in a small pile on the grass ”because it’s fun when the kids can scoop them up quickly” isn’t my idea top-tier execution.  I spent twenty minutes or so hiding his unhidden eggs so that the hunt would take long enough for me to pour myself a cup of coffee and remember that I should be video-taping the whole event.  Yes, I am that crazy.  And I have no idea why.

I finished the job and went to sleep.   I just wanted the holiday to be over.

DAWN OF A NEW DAY

The kids woke at 5:50 am and tore into their baskets.

“Look Mom!   A Star Wars Book!”

“A Whoopie Cushion!”

“New markers!”

“Hey, the Easter Bunny left the same chocolates as Santa!”

We made them wait until the sky was light before heading out to the hunt.  I gave the orders, horizontally, from my bed.  At 7:15, my husband could hold them off no longer.  They had finished their negotiations on the split (50/50 since there was only two of them and neither of them wanted to the loser) and wanted to apply the principle.  As I slipped on my robe, I mumbled bitterly about the state of holidays and our capitalist culture.  Easter couldn’t last much longer.  And then, I’d be home-free until Halloween.

My kids ran around gathering up eggs, giggling and encouraging each other on.

“There are eggs on top of the swing set!”

“They’re up in the tree!”

“How high can that Bunny jump?!”

An hour later, my son was sitting hunched over the kitchen table coloring with his new crayon set.

“Whadda ya doing?” I asked.

He waited a moment, then sat back, putting his hands behind his head.

“I’m making the Easter Bunny a card.  I bet no one thanks him.  But I love him.  He’s really nice.  And he makes kids happy.”

Makes the whole damn thing worth it, doesn’t it?

Happy Easter Everyone!

Games with My 8-year Old: Name that Lady!

  

       My Daughter:  “Mom, of all the famous ladies alive now, who do you like the most?

       Me:  “Oh, that’s hard to say.”

       My Daughter:  “But if you had to choose.  Who do you love?”

      Me:   “Does she have to be famous?”

      My Daughter:  “Yes.  Or else you’ll say ‘Me.’ ”

      Me:  “Famous to me or famous to everyone?”

      My Daughter:  “Famous on those magazines the babysitter brings over.”

      Me:   “Can I choose different parts from different ladies?”

      My Daughter:  “That’s not the game.  But.  Okay, fine.  But you have to write it down.  And you have to choose ONLY ONE who you want to be when you get older.  Those are the rules.”

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Some Famous Alive Ladies & Their Part(s) I Really Like

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Tina Fey

Her perfect funny and perfect nose.  Both are sharp and pointed.

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J. K. Rowling

Her copious, creative writing skills.  870 pages in one volume?  And kids read all of them?  The first twenty pages of my “great American love story” have taken me four years to write.  And no one wants to read them.  Trust me on this.

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Michelle Obama

Her seriously awesome “Don’t Fuck with me” thing.  In a gorgeous State Dinner gown or a “growing your own organics” stained sweatshirt, I wish I could exude that kind of scary.   Oops.  I meant to say, ‘Her “Don’t Fool with me” thing.’  My bad.

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 Arianna Huffington

Her accent, perfectly-coiffed hair and reasonable “Left-Right-And-Center” comments.  But mainly, for her accent.  And her blog business.

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Julie Andrews

Her cross-generational If-that’s-singing-then-I-want-to-do-singing inspiration.   There’s nothing sweeter than hearing my son lull himself to sleep with “those songs that the pretty lady sings in that mountain movie.”  It’s one of my favorite things.

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Meryl Streep

Her grace at being the most talented woman in the room.  No one wants to see her trip up (or down) the steps.  Not even other women.

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Hilary Clinton

Her enigmatic ambition.  Clearly she’s smart and driven but otherwise, impossible to define.  Actually, I don’t think I want to be like her but what I wouldn’t do to be a fly on her wall!

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Oprah Winfrey

Her wealth.  Billions.  Self-made.   She wields the same kind of influence as a dozen male Forbes billionaires.  What woman doesn’t want that?

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Ellen DeGeneres

Her next-door neighborliness.  Self-deprecating but not insecure.  Up-on-gossip but not catty.  Smart but not arrogant.   She makes you want to bake a bundt cake.   That’s good for America.

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Madonna

Her deep, unrelenting love of herself.  Every woman should love herself this much.  Just think about the problems we could solve if all women around the world felt as good about themselves as she does.

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One Alive Lady Who I’d Like To Be When I Get Older

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Betty White

Because of her charmed octogenarian life.  When I’m 80, I want to be that involved in the world around me, even if it’s just doing fun stuff.  Wait.  She’s 90?!   Well then, it’s settled.  I SO want to be Betty White when I grow up.

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And that’s a list that People magazine could stand behind

Spoiler alert, ladies: If you’re not exhausted, you’re not doing it right

Anyone can be a kick-ass working mom a la Sheryl K. Sandberg.  Just drop the Martha Stewart-suggestions for hand-made toilet paper, agree to stop competing for the “harder working spouse” title against your husband and be prepared for total & utter fatigue.

Yes, after biting my tongue for the last two weeks, this is my official response to the flurry of “Women-pull-up-your-bootstraps-marry-a-good-mate-bear-children-break-the-glass-ceiling” discussions running rampant around Facebook IPO news (you can only keep an alcoholic out of the bar for so long…)  Oh wait.  Those discussions have been running rampant around every “female near business” news story I’ve read since graduating from an all-girls highschool.  The hairstyle is different but the sentiment is the same.   The only real difference now… I order my drink straight-up and without an umbrella.

If you want to have it all, prepare to be tired and overwhelmed.

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Oh look.  I just realized my title is a double-entendre.  Ha!  That’s funny, except when you think about it in a working mom kind of way.  Exhaustive sex & working mom life go together like peanut butter and cashmere.  But I so digress.

Back to my main point.

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1.)  Who is Sheryl K. Sandberg?

I first learned about SKS last July in a detailed New Yorker article.  She’s the charismatic, smart, accessible, soon-to-be-billionaire COO of Facebook.  She’s a mom to two young children.  She’s an advocate for working women, especially in leadership positions.  Her 2010 TED speech has 1,000,000+ views.  Her opinions on getting “women to the table” and balancing work and family are both cult-able and divisive.  She is the current spokeswoman for the female executive with kids.  Love her or hate her, women should know her name.

2.)  The Simple Truth About Working Moms

It’s hard to be a woman.  Same way it’s hard to be a man.  It’s hard to be a productive, involved human-being — let alone a successful, attractive middle-aged one (that’s why plastic surgery exists… but again, I so digress).  The simple truth is that everyone has it tough.  No one is getting off easy.

This weekend, my husband and I duked it out on who does more juggling work and family.  I do the grocery shopping on Sunday nights and he makes the coffee every weekday morning.  I conduct conference calls at 8 pm (after the kids go to bed) and he responds to business emails at 5 am (before the kids wake up).  I pack the lunches.  He loads the dishwasher.   I check-in with the teachers.  He checks in with the stockbroker.  Neither one of us gets enough exercise or haircuts or compliments.   And we’re successful.  We’re in the upper 1%, we have a housekeeper who does the laundry and we send our kids to private school where we know they are getting a good education.  Yet, we feel guilty that we don’t spend enough quality time with the kids, we are stressed about the overflowing inbox that didn’t get completed today, we are annoyed that the other one didn’t bring in the mail, we wish we had more time as a couple (our love-life would be totally bereft without our nightly menage-a-trois with Jon Stewart) and we often bemoan the loss of our social life (who has the energy to go out on a Friday night for drinks with friends?)

Being a working mom means the score is even.  Everyone is stressed.  Everyone is exhausted.  Did you really think it would come easy?

3.)  The Complicated Truth of Stay-At-Home Moms

Sure, I have days when I think, “In my next life, I’m coming back as a man of the establishment married to me.”  That’s the gig.  All the freedom of being a man at the top of the pyramid with a woman like me running my house and family?!  I could then leave for my penthouse office with the calm certainty that my children were in the most capable, intelligent, caring-yet-firm, creative-yet-organized, playful-yet-mature hands.  You see, I’m hugely egotistical that no one could do a better job than me raising my kids.  That’s part of the problem that SKS doesn’t address.  If you’re a woman ambitious with her career, chances are you’re ambitious with your child-rearing.

I don’t have any solutions on how to juggle the two.  Truth is, I think I suffered low-level depression over the last 8 years of full-time stay-at-home momming and now, I am suffering from wake-you-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night stress of a business start-up.  Life is a catch-22.  Nothing comes easy.  I used to harbor resentment that my husband had a growing career while I excelled at block-and-crayon management and now, I harbor fears that my children are suffering from chicken-nugget overdoses & outsourced babysitter bus pick-ups.  Yes, I have all the responsibilities of running a business AND all of the responsibilities of raising two kids.  But so does my husband.  He might not be the one who’s buying the uniforms or making the cupcakes for the bake sale, but he’s explaining the concepts of electrons at breakfast and reading the stories at bedtime.

I’m happy that SKS has gone big and it’s great that she’s talking so openly about her experience.  I just think the discussion is getting bogged down in semantics.  Rich or poor.  Male or female.  Working or not-working.  Having a family is a HUGE responsibility that takes time and resources.  Having a big career is a HUGE stress that takes energy and focus.  Both require sacrifice.  Both require supportive spouses. Both require getting out there and being tired.  Is any of this really new news?

4.) The short rant about Martha Stewart

No blog post about moms in the boardroom would be complete without a mention of Martha Stewart.  In order to juggle the demands of  a working mom’s life, all reference and knowledge of Martha Stewart needs to be expunged from the cerebral cortex.  Otherwise, the burden of “pretty-ifying” life threatens the entire species.  It is impossible to make cupcakes that look like ladybugs, wrap christmas presents with hand-stamped papers, disinfect your bathtub with hand-squeezed lemon juice, and throw a Superbowl party with homegrown heirloom tomato salsa AND raise two kids AND get the VP promotion AND have a meaningful marriage.  Something has to give.  I love that Martha Stewart was a working Mom and a successful entrepreneur but if you look closely at Sheryl Sandberg’s many speeches, she never once shares a recipe for shaping a shrimp skewer into an origami swan.

I’m just saying… women can have it all but you have to be very careful how you define “all.”