Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Escaping the SUV

As I was pulling into a crowded parking lot the other day, I was not surprised to see a large SUV pull out of a compact space.  That is common place in Silicon Valley.  I don't know the number of SUVs in our area, but there are an  estimated 91 million SUVs or trucks on the road today in the US.  The fact that I am not offended any more that the SUV drivers think they own the road is what it is.  That some SUV drivers pull into spaces way too small for their cars so those parked next to them feel like they have to crawl through the trunk to get into their own cars is annoying.  All of this is something I have come to not only accept but also expect. 

But recently we had to go out and get a new car, and I was truly disappointed.  So, in my dream world, I would be back driving a sporty little two door.  Small, compact, maybe electric.  But I am a mom now, and that isn't such a reality based endeavor.  I put together my list of requirements: safe, four doors (my kids are too young to crawl into a back seat), as small as possible, good gas mileage.  In our search, I quickly realized, I wasn't going to get all of these things.  It came down to hybrid SUVs (not small, not really great gas mileage) and a "sports" sedan (sage, not good gas mileage,but relatively small).  We got the "sports" sedan but I kept thinking, I should have had more choice and could have chosen something with a better environmental footprint if there weren't those horrid SUVs on the road.

Getting some Perspective

It's 9:15 at night and I am in Urgent Care with my daughters.  As I hold my baby down on the x-ray machine in Urgent Care and listen to her hoarse little cry, I am getting a perspective lesson.  This was my second trip in a week to Urgent Care: the first with my older one, and now with my 9 month old.  I am a busy person.  It is how I stay sane.

But as I sit there singing to my sweet girl to try to keep her calm while her big sister sits in a chair behind the lead wall reading her books, I am almost in tears and all the stress from work, volunteering, well, life, is gone.  How did my 9 month old who weighs a whopping 14 1/2 lbs. end up on this enormous table with a radiation machine above her taking pictures of her little chest?  And I think how do the parents of children with serious illnesses do it?  They are so strong.

Brand loyalty at 3?

I don't consider myself brand loyal.  In fact, I explicitly try to purchase clothes and item, especially for my children, that do not have brand names on them.  You won't see me in a t-shirt with BeBe across my chest.  My kids don't know what McDonald's is.  I live in a household with no television let alone TiVo, Netflix, or any other media stream, no radio (except in the car), and up until we moved into our current house, no microwave.  A good friend described us as living in the dark ages.  Others wonder if we are intellectual snobs.  Not really.  We just aren't tv fans and with two young children in the house would rather not have it now.  When we did have a tv, we rarely watched it, although I admit to missing a good episode of Iron Chef. So how did my three year old get so brand loyal already?

Despite my "brand neutral" stance, I was blown away while my daughter played the other day.  As I was preparing dinner, I listened to her telling me that she was off to the Apple store because her iPhone was broken and she needed to get it fixed.  Even the email wasn't working, she told me matter of factly.  Then she came back and was going to Whole Foods for some fruits and veggies, organic, of course.  The list continued as she "visited" many of our favorite haunts.  UGGH!  What have I done? I was sure that the lack of media in our house would keep her in the world of Winnie the Pooh (the original one not Disney), Max's Words, and No Visitors for Bear. 

A Bird In the House

"There's a bird in the house," I say to my husband over the phone while the bird tweets above me in panic trying to get out our skylights. 

"A what?"

"A bird!" (Which frankly, I am a little worried about swooping down and attacking me.  Paranoid, I know, but I saw Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.

"Oh."  Great, I am thinking he has nothing to contribute.

"Suggestions?" I plea as calmly as possible because I am trying not to upset my girls.

"No idea...open all the windows and doors?"   

"Okay, keep you posted."  I hang up.

I run hiding under a jacket(...and yes, you can laugh, because looking back on it now, I acted ridiculously) to our front door and open it.  A few minutes later when I am out of sight, the bird hops over to the door gives a little tweet, flies out and lands on our lawn.  I say good bye to it, the bird looks at me and flies away.  In the end almost a little too Mary Poppins, really. But some days can be just summed up with a simple phrase like "There was a bird in my house."

Living in SV- Supporting the local economy

When I opened the fridge this morning to assess the next couple of days of veggies and fruits, we were down to a couple of tomatoes, a pint of strawberries, a generous handful of cherries and a small basket of raspberries.  UGGH!  Thank goodness farmer's market is on Sunday.

I love, love, love the farmer's market.  Not only do we know the vendors and they know us, but the food is fabulous and my money goes into the local economy.  I especially love this time of year.  The samples are plentiful and the selection large.  Last week we enjoyed strawberries, early season peaches and nectarines, raspberries, and cherries in large quantities.  The vegetables are beautiful.  My oldest daughter adores the samples and loves all the vendors. 

My Time

So I admit I am starting to feel a little resentful at all these female celebrities being quoted about the importance of personal time. Of course it is, Duh! Some of us don't have three nannies, an unlimited spa budget, and resources to just take "off" for a couple of days for personal time.

While waiting for an appointment recently, I was flipping through a pile of magazines looking for something decent to read. I picked up Self Magazine, which I have never read. There was an article on Christina Applegate who I vaguely remembered hearing that she was on broadway recently. In talking about keeping it all together, she mentioned a series of things she does to let go inlcluding

1. Ignoring negative words about her (I guess as a celebrity you would need to)
2. Not being available 24/7 (I like this and recently wrote about my own technology diet)
3. Dreaming of a beach house to look at the water to get perspective - well, who doesn't want a getaway house on the coast or otherwise
4. Just taking time away for herself for a few days - easier to say for some
5. Taking better care of herself by not neglecting things like manicures and facials - ARRGHH!

I admit it was these last couple that put me over the edge.

SV Pays It Forward

It's a beautiful day in Silicon Valley.  The sun is shining and the early morning air has the crispness of Spring with a hint of the warmth to come for the day.  I needed to wake up, so while the rest of the household slept, I took my youngest, Giggles, to my favorite cafe, Dana Street Roasting Company, for a rich, steamy hot chocolate, my personal version of an espresso shot.  When I pulled out my money to pay, Nick (yes, I go so often I know everyone's name), told me that someone had told him to pay for everyone's drinks this morning.  He had a stack of twenties next to him.  After my late night and the evening facing me, having my drink paid for felt like a little piece of sunshine. 

As I stood to wait for my cocoa, I watched the others in line discover they were being treated to their morning indulgence by an anonymous donor.   Reactions  ranged from dumbstruck to big smiles to cheers of "woohoo."  I was so struck by this small gesture to the community, that I started thinking about how I could use the goodwill to pay it forward and make someone else's day a little brighter.

The second child gets the shaft

As mother's day approaches, I will be celebrating being a mother of two.  My first mother's day, BooBoo was two weeks old.  This mother's day, she will be three and Giggles will be 8 months old.  I was looking at all the things I have collected in boxes for each girl from their birth which will some day (probably never) go into a scrapbook.  BooBoo's is the size of a medium sized moving box.  Giggle's is about the size of a shoebox.  I have been thinking about it for awhile, and you know the second child really gets the shaft.  I can say this as a second child myself.  It isn't just the hand me downs of clothes and toys.  It's everything. 

It's Time For a Diet

Last night at the Maria Shriver event, fellow SV Moms blogger and start up lawyer, Linsey K was teasing me about checking my five email accounts on my iphone.  She was right.  I was embarrassed.  Instead of using the great night to chat with the 60 some fascinating women who were also there, my head was down checking email as if anything so important happened in the last hour that I couldn't address later that night or the next day.  The live social networking was much better than checking my email which I was going to do again about ten more times later.  I put my phone down and met some fantastic fellow bloggers.  New to the group but an avid reader, it was great to put faces with the blogs.  I felt as if I already knew some of the stories behind these women. 

So lesson learned, put down addictive piece of technology and talk to people live.

Too Attached? Technology and parenting

It's 6 am.  I roll over to confirm the time on my iphone and then slide the unlock button and wait for the single ring tone that follows the receipt of email.   With my 8 month old Giggles sprawled across me, I rapidly scroll through each email address(I have 4, uggh), and read my messages.  I then return to the menu, check my to do list and take a long breath readying myself for the day ahead. 

I admit that the iphone has been a valuable part of my ability to spend time with my children during the day and also work hard on my business.  Even now as I type this, I scroll over my email every few minute on my phone so I don't have to check email on my laptop.  I mean technology is great, but are we too attached to it?

The First Amendment Violated?

In the morning when I run, I often see the same 4 people walking to Starbucks, two men and two women.  The women dressed in long skirts are usually about 10 feet in front of the men, wearing dark suits.  The first time I spied them, I was especially struck by them because of the formation walking and by the formal attire.  In Silicon Valley at 7am, they stick out.  After passing them on several different occasions, they offered me their religious literature. As you have guessed, they are Jehovah Witnesses.  I admit I was irritated.  I am pretty anti-organized religion to start with and then they have to bug me while I am having my solo time, a very precious part of my day.  And before you tell me how religion is great, I will just say to each his own.  If it works for you, gives you a sense of community, provides a deep sense of calm in you, fine.  I have my view, you have yours.

It's not that I believe all organized religion is bad, but think about all the things that are done in the name of religion.  The latest in a series of idiotic "religious" although truly more of a cult than a religion is the polygamist compound in Texas that was recently raided.  The ranch called the Yearning for Zion and run by the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, a sect that split from the Mormon church, promotes the men having multiple wives and marrying and having sex with girls as soon as they hit puberty.  As the mother of two girls, thinking about it turns my stomach.  Interesting to me in several of the articles I read on the incident was the statements by men in the compound and neighbors that these were victims of religious persecution.  One man told CNN "We trust in the heavenly father," he said.  He then added: "We always believed America to be a free land."  Really?

 

The Gift of Education - A Child by Child Choice

A wise woman told me that the greatest gift we can give our children is the gift of a great education.  True, I agreed, but when I try to wrap up that gift with a pretty bow, I struggle to find the right solution for my BooBoo.  She is almost 3 and brilliant.  And yes, part of that is mom bias, but part of it comes from the teachers of classes she has had and other adults who have worked with kids her age.  When she was younger, I thought she was bright, but when I saw her interacting with other kids her age, I realized wow, she is pretty far ahead.  Teachers keep telling me she is way ahead of others in her age in her knowledge and understanding of the world and I need to make good choices for her in terms of education.  Great!  Woohoo!  Now what?

I was sure that I would just send her to preschool, any one would do, and then on to the good local public school for elementary school and private school for junior high and high school.  And I may do that.  More often than not, I feel like I am in that commercial where the child goes back in time starting with graduating from college going all the way back to preschool with the voice over that more kids who go to preschool finish elementary school and go on to succeed in Junior high school, etc.   And frankly, graduating isn't the issue.  It feels as if we choose the wrong preschool than she won't have a chance for a top college.  True?  Probably not.  But in Silicon Valley, the land of bright people, the opportunity seems greater for success but also the pressure for giving the best gift we can give seems extraordinary.  Is it private school, public school, dare I say it home school?

Being a Cool Kid in the Web 2.0 World

With LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, numerous online groups and blogs all part of my day these days, I am feeling like quite the cool kid on the block.  I admit, I hadn't heard of most of these things just a year back and was perfectly happy being part of a couple of yahoo groups, reading the occasional blog on a topic of interest, and using the internet primarily for email and research.  My husband was the one who could sit for hours reading the political blogs like Huffington Post and connecting through IM.  He was part of this Web 2.0 community. 

I grew up in the Bay Area and went to Nueva and Castilleja.  Frankly, neither of them really had a "cool" kid group.  They were too small.  At Casti, sure there were girls who were nerdier than others, but essentially, being cool was pretty directly related to being smart.  Being in the honors classes or AP classes brought its own circle of "hip" or certainly what we thought were hip group of friends.  For an academic focused girl, it was a great place to be for high school. 

Now that I am over 20 and under 40, I am experiencing my true "teenage" years of being a cool kid.  In starting my business, I ended up getting connected with all the in crowd both on and offline.  Without knowing it, I started an endeavor that is all part of this very hip trend called "coworking." 

Larry, Larry - The Price of Real Estate

This morning as I was running through my neighborhood, I was stopped in my tracks by a headline on the Palo Alto Daily News - "Schools to Pay for Ellison's Break."  Of course, I knew they must be talking about Larry Ellison, CEO of Oracle.  Turns out Larry had his Woodside estate reassessed for property tax.  Instead of the $163 million (or $170 million depending on the source you read) that the county had his property assessed at, it is now assessed at a mere $64 million (or $70 million, again depending on the source.)  The gist of it is that billionaire Ellison will pay less property tax and thus pull about $250,000 out of the Portola Valley School District, Sequoia Union High School, and town of Woodside's budgets. 

At first I was disgusted.  Of course, Larry can afford the extra tax money and the fact that he took the issue to court and cost taxpayers' money angered me.  Here we are living in the land of plenty, and schools all over California are seeing athletic programs, resources for gifted and talented as well as needy students, libraries, and other "extras" demolished because of budget shortfalls. I mean, come on, Larry, did you really need the money?  But then, I thought about what's fair...

25 Things Worth Doing

I would like to be able to claim my inspiration for this posting as my own brilliant idea.  I would like to, but I can't.  Instead this random list is inspired by Maggie Mason's post on her website, Mighty Girl, of 100 Things Worth Doing.  It reminded me to take stock and think about my best moments.  Am I on track to where I want to be?  Is it about getting somewhere or just enjoying the precious joys as they happen? 

I have pared my list down to 25 for now, possibly the first of a couple of installments.  These are things that I have done in my life to date that I will always remember as the best of choices, adventures, etc. in my world.  It is in no particular order and at the end I added just a couple of things I would love to see on this list if I were to write it again a year or two from now:

xxx
1. Being Pregnant (even though I hated it at the time) Twice - for no other reason than the two beautiful daughters in my life

Every Woman Deserves a "Wife"

That's what my friend calls it...a wife.  She has someone who comes every afternoon and picks up the house from the wear and tear of the day, does the grocery shopping, covers if the nanny has to go before mom and dad are home, prepares menus, cooks, does a deep clean on weekends, does the dishes, helps get the kids settled for the night, and in short is a wife.  Or at least the traditional definition of a "wife." 

Who wouldn't want that?  It sounded fabulous to me even before I had such long work days.  My husband has been traveling out of the country, and after five days on my own juggling Giggles and BooBoo with work, I was exhausted and begrudgingly ready for a little help. 

Being Your Own Parent

Recently, I posted about my own mommy guilt trying to figure out the work life balance.  Not meaning to, I offended the stay at home moms out there.  I immediately responded with a comment of apology, and then realized that really, I have way more to say on the subject. 

While I was pregnant with my first daughter, known at the time as thing one, I was confident I was going back to work after my maternity leave was up.  I loved kids, sure, but I was a career person.  I had a successful and growing design practice that was on the verge of exploding, and a child would certainly not slow me down.  When in fact, BooBoo was born, it was just like the scene from the movie The Waitress where all the noise around her stops.  I was so blown away with how beautiful and delicate and sweet my daughter was that I don't think I put her down for the first month and was completely in love with her.  She was my center.  I remember asking my husband about 5 days after she was born if I had to go back to work.  "When," he asked.  "Ever," I replied.  My enthusiasm for work was gone and I wanted to spend every minute with my little one.  Fast forward a few months...

Mommy Guilt

We all have mommy guilt, unless you are one of those practically perfect people ala Mary Poppins out there.  For me who is not practically perfect, making all the work, mommy, hubby, volunteer and even occasionally personal time meld together is increasingly a challenge.  Yesterday, was one of those practically perfect days in that we enjoyed the beautiful weather in the park.  But then I looked at my iphone for messages and my daughter BooBoo said "I'll go over here with Daddy while Mommy works."  I hadn't even taken the weekend off.  And then when I ran off to get a pedicure at Gorgeous Nails, my last totally me thing before my husband leaves on a trip for two weeks, my daughter was in tears telling me she was missing me.  Was she fine in the end?  Of course, but that doesn't make my heartstrings pull any

But then there are the good days when she loves going to work with me and I achieve that balance of achievement and mommyhood...

Getting things done...NOT

As this is my first posting to SVMoms blogs, I thought I might as well start with a recent day in my life, one probably similar to one most of you have experienced... 

5:30AM - My 2 1/2 year old daughter wakes up crying for mommy with a bad dream. 

5:32AM - My six month old daughter wakes up for attention.

5:33AM - I am wondering when I am going to get to go for a run again in the morning.  I am up with both children.

By the time I get to 8am, I am grumpy, tired, and wondering when I will get work done.  A great stroller walk with my older daughter,  including a rich hot chocolate, whip cream of course, from my favorite cafe in Mountain View, Dana St. Roasting Company,  and I had rallied.  The bag and car loaded with snacks and amusements for the day, and we were out the door to Nana's so mommy could go to her haircut and get some work done.