September 2nd, 2010, posted by Aimee Grove
Invisi-Mrs.: woman who sends out emails using her husband’s account, possibly because she doesn’t have her own email account (or computer or smartphone).
It was one of those emails in my inbox that I would ordinarily delete without opening. After all, I don’t know anyone named “John Stanke,” and doesn’t my IT guy regularly warn us against clicking on unknown messages? If it weren’t for the subject line “Playdate for CPP,” that sucker would’ve been history. But CPP is the shortened name of my son’s preschool, and so the email – inviting us to a Friday afternoon park playdate – was spared. Turns out, the email was signed “Sherry Stanke,” obviously the spouse of said John Stanke.
Not sure why it irked me, but it did, the fact that Sherry was sending out notes from her hubby’s account. But I wondered, in this era of iPhones and crackberries, Droid phones and everything in between, not to mention free Web-based email services from Google and Yahoo, how is it even possible that an adult woman might not have an email address of her own? Does she have to ask her husband permission to use the computer at all? Is she invisible now that she’s married? Thus was born, “Invisi-Mrs.” – someone whose identity is completely absorbed and subsumed by her role as mother and wife.
The whole thing reminded me a bit of the perspective I had prior to getting married about taking a husband’s last name. These days, mainly because I have been too damn busy to get down to the DMV and other government offices to officially switch “Grove” to “Wells,” I encounter the numerous hassles of having a different last name than your child when dealing with doctors and schools and playdates. But aside from this, I still sometimes question the idea of literally losing a piece of my own identity – the name I have worn for more than 40 years – to my husband’s. More than two decades of a career in which my byline has appeared over hundreds of articles and a LinkedIn/Google presence all chronicled under my maiden name … how do you toss that aside so easily? How could others do it so easily? (Okay, if your name was hard to spell or embarrassing, I could understand a little better …).
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August 30th, 2010, posted by Marcie Carson
Yakiddie-yak (verb): the revealing, honest, often insightful and always hilarious talk that gets blurted out of children’s mouths
…that is very much worth repeating. Here are some good ones that the WoMo girls have collected over the last couple of parenting years:
My three-year old asked for a penny to throw into a fountain. After he did, I asked him what he wished for. “A penny,” he replied.
When my grandson asked me how old I was, I teasingly replied, “I’m not sure.” “Look in your underwear, Grandpa,” he advised. “Mine says I’m 4 to 6.”
I just went camping with my two sons. We kept the lights off until we were inside to keep from attracting pesky insects. Still, a few fireflies followed us in. The three-year old looks over and in a frustrated voice says, “It’s no use mom. Now the mosquitoes are coming after us with flashlights.”
My kids are very picky eaters, so the variety of meals in our house is slim. The three-year old finally asks me, “Mom, why is lunch made out of dinner?”
One day I found my granddaughter staring at my false teeth soaking in a glass. She turned away and whispered, “The tooth fairy will never believe this!”
I was rushing to get my three-year old ready for day care in the morning. In an effort to help he said, “Mommy, if I brushed my hair, do I have to brush my teeth too?”
The other day I was trying hard to get ketchup out of the jar. During my struggle the phone rang, so I asked my 4-year-old daughter to answer the phone. “Mommy can’t come to the phone to talk to you right now. She’s hitting the bottle.”
I was in the bathroom, putting on makeup, under the watchful eyes of my young granddaughter. After I applied my lipstick and started to leave, the little one said, “Grandma, you forgot to kiss the toilet paper goodbye.”
I was driving with my young children one warm summer evening when a woman in the convertible ahead of us stood up and in full view of us flashed another car. As I was reeling from the shock, I heard my 5-year-old shout from the back seat, “Mom, that lady isn’t wearing a seat belt!”
My young grandson called the other day to wish me Happy Birthday. He asked me how old I was, and I told him, 62. He was quiet for a moment, then asked, “Did you start at one?”
My two kids were diligently searching for a lost Lego piece. When they found it, I said, “Wow! Was it hard to find?” The three-year old replied, “Not anymore.”
My kindergartener had just finished her first week of school. “I’m just wasting my time,” she said. “I can’t read, I can’t write, and they won’t let me talk!”
I’ve been trying to break my three-year old son of picking his nose. The other day I caught him in the car with his tiny finger up his nose. He replied, “Mommy, the booger monsters are mad and they don’t like you.”
My son was pounding away on my laptop. He told me he was writing a story. “What’s it about?” I asked. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I can’t read.”
I didn’t know if my granddaughter had learned her colors yet, so I decided to test her. I would point out something and ask what color it was. She would tell me and was always correct. It was fun for me, so I continued. At last, she headed for the door, saying, “Grandma, I think you should try to figure out some of these colors yourself!”
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August 25th, 2010, posted by Aimee Grove
Wining: the act of quaffing copious amounts of mid-priced Chardonnay with your girlfriends, bitching about work and gossiping about other friends’ marriages while the kids are somewhere terrorizing the house.
The combination of harried moms and white wine is well-nigh notorious these days, what with books like “Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay” earning bestseller status and a TwitterMom Happy Hour making the New York Times. But I would argue it’s the working mom crowd who take this trend to the next level.
Here’s how it always plays out. Fridays roll around and the fog of a hectic, stressful work week begins to lift. By 4 p.m., your mind begins to wander: “Did I remember to pick up a bottle of La Crema at Safeway?” … “Do I have time to stop at Trader Joe’s on the way home?” Then the strategizing. How to combine a couple … okay, sometimes a few … glasses of vino with a more acceptable mom activity and get some quality time in with not only your kid, but your long neglected spouse and friends. How about a pizza night/happy hour at the house? Read: safe, contained area for kids to destroy without endangering themselves or pissing off non-parents + cheap booze + crazy early timing (uh, 5-8 p.m. anyone?)
Interestingly, no one ever breaks out a bottle of vodka and starts mixing up a cocktail at one of these Friday night soirees. It’s as if La Crema/Kendall Jackson/Edna Valley are the only acceptable alcoholic libations for WoMos. And what’s with everyone claiming to prefer “buttery” chard anyway? What’s that really mean? But I digress. Wining is a party of a WoMo’s world and perhaps an indispensible survival tactic for many of us.
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August 19th, 2010, posted by Marcie Carson
Freebie-Jeebies: noun; the angst and uneasiness that sometimes occurs when a working mom is unexpectedly left alone
It doesn’t happen often. But every once in a while, along comes an sudden space in time where a working mom will find herself on her own, without a single thing planned to do.
What the…!?!? Huh? Look around the house… no movement. Stillness. Silence. A beautiful yellow-orange stream of sunlight is piercing through the window. Fluffy dust bunnies are dancing on the hardwood floor.
“Hellooooooo?” Apparently, the hubby took the two screaming (albeit cute) wee ones to the park.
The silence is foreign. The house feels unfamiliar. Move a few cautious steps forward. Pause, take in a deep breath. Wow. That feels good. (An interesting fact about WoMos is that they often forget to breathe. Apparently, it’s low on the list of priorities.) Shoulders drop. Shock gives way to disbelief, then excitement. Look around again. Sure, the house is a mess — Lego shrapnel covering the floor, lunch dishes still in the sink, laundry overflowing. Noooo waaaaaay, the chores can wait! This, girlfriends, is a once in a lifetime experience. Unexpected, unadulterated, unplanned…
Unfortunate!
The disbelief returns… What to do? What to do?!? A nervous tension takes over. MUST make the most of this time! DON’T WASTE IT. Surely, reading is worthy. Or a nap. Or a bath. Or a manicure… watch bad television, shop online, knit (always wanted to learn), bake, call an old friend (okay, now there’s guilt rearing it’s ugly head), prep dinner, change burnt-out light bulb, do laundry… aaaaaaah!! Now what?
Know this: Moms are under a lot of pressure to seize (and enjoy) “me time.” But me time requires proper planning and should not be sprung on an unsuspecting gal who is used to a life of busy-ness. All that unexpected peace, tranquility and free time is enough to give this WoMo the willies. My house has never been so clean.
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August 15th, 2010, posted by Aimee Grove
Eternalist: noun; denotes the neverending “To Do” list of any working mom.
The urge usually hits around mid-day on Sunday. While others are enjoying the sunshine by the pool or relaxing with friends and family, most working moms begin to develop an almost uncontrollable urge to get out the pen and paper (or pull up the outlook calendar on her phone) and start jotting down the inevitable to-do list for the week ahead. “Oh god, what time’s that meeting with the new client tomorrow? When did he say the deadline for that RFP was? Wait, isn’t Braden’s dentist appointment Friday, right at the same time as my practice group outing?” The thoughts of commitments and conflicting appointments washes over you, obliterating the joy of what’s supposed to be one of your only two days of leisure in a whole week.
If I can control myself until the early evening to pull out the “list,” the rush of pending doom is still inescapable when I finally pull open the calendar and grab a pen to plot out the days to follow. The truly pathetic thing is how many carryovers there are from day to day … and those that never seem to get crossed off. For example, “Rearrange your asset allocation in the 401(k)” has been on my personal list for 18 months now, and “Start Weight Watchers again” somehow appears day after day after day. It’s also amazing how many slots everyday are filled simply with meetings. There are more meetings about things we are supposed to be doing at work than work being done it seems at times.
Absolute bliss for me as I imagine it to be for just about any WoMo is the thought of an entirely list-free existence for some set period of time, in which the only worries are somebody else’s and the only item I “have” to do are those obvious to me without writing anything down. Ahhhh.
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