Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Overscheduled Kids? No, Overscheduled Mom

A mom friend told me she was feeling kind of run down recently, then asked how I was feeling. When I said I was tired, my friend perked up and said that she thinks it is something in the water. "I know a lot of moms who feel kind of frumpy. It has to be the water." I laughed until I realized she was serious. I tried to explain that I think the tired, stretched-thin feeling comes with the job. Moms have a lot to juggle: kid activities, work (inside or out of the home) and a disproportionate amount of household chores, to name a few. Short of round the clock nannies, it's hard to imagine feeling rested until the kids are sent off to college.

A lot is made of the downside of overscheduling kids and rightly so as the benefits of play are clear. But what's left out of the discussion is something which many of us suffer from: overscheduled mom syndrome. My kids are young, which means that while they each have their own activities, neither participates in anything requiring traveling tournaments or extensive practicing. Yet, even though they are only modestly scheduled, having multiple kids with a few activities a piece produces a parent with a lot of driving, scheduling, and organizing to make this work. I find myself frequently feeling overextended, bouncing from one activity to the next or one chore to the next, all in an effort to keep the train on the tracks, so to speak. This leaves me wondering if researchers are studying the effects of no play time for mom.

Spring, Is it Really You?

Twice a year when the seasons change (in Silicon Valley) from cold to warm or vice versa, my husband goes up to the attic to bring down the bins of clothes I stored away months before. Also twice a year, once I get all of our clothes swapped out, the weather inevitably makes a backwards swing, leaving my family wearing shorts in the cold or sweaters during an Indian summer. I am the groundhog who is perpetually wrong about seeing my shadow.

Obviously this means that a lot of second guessing goes on when it's time to make our seasonal clothing change. More thought goes into a bad decision than one would think. I wanted to bring out our warm weather clothes a week ago, but then a drop in temperature occurred. I keep asking myself if it's safe now because I know the second I bring out the capris and short sleeved shirts, a cold snap will likely hit. Can I clean and put away the rainboots or will that leave us wearing flip flops in the mud?

Thanks for Fill in the Blank

Thank you notes are important to me. I don't care if it is a long note or a quick scribble by a child, it's the personal acknowledgment that time and generally money were spent to do something nice for the recipient. I developed a good  - some may say neurotic - routine as a child, writing the notes as soon as possible, which usually meant I was dashing off thankful, but not very prosaic notes the day after Christmas to get it over with. I knew I did not want to be like one of my cousins whom, to this day, is so notoriously bad about thanking gift givers that my elderly relatives grumble about her.

My kids are young, but they are starting to get the drill. My six year old writes "Dear (so and so), Thank you for the toy (or whatever)" and she signs off for both her and her brother. Then the note is passed over to my two year old, who scribbles in Crayon around - and sometimes on - the words. Despite having a big family, it really doesn't take long. The point is to show that the gift giving was appreciated and this could be why I was so put off by a thank you note we received earlier this year.

Feeling the Potty Pressure

I told myself I wouldn't worry about it until March, but when we returned to our Mommy and Me preschool class after the holiday break, suddenly my son was one of the very few kids still wearing a diaper. My husband reminds me that boys tend to potty train later, but as more and more of my son's friends lose their diapers, I'm starting to get a little tense.

My son really doesn't need to be out of diapers until early September, when preschool starts. He has more than seven months to figure it out, which is a long time in the life of a two and a half year old. With my daughter, I was completely relaxed, saying that it will happen once she's ready, but with my son, I can't seem to achieve that stage of potty training Zen. Maybe it's because after two kids, I am ready to get rid of diapers or more likely it is because my son fights almost every diaper change, making me chase him around while he laughs. Or maybe it's because his new hobby is taking his diaper off and peeing indiscriminately. For my son, the diaper madness isn't about readiness, it's about sport. And I don't want to play.

Unforeseen Economic Causality: My Mood

Unable to sleep one night recently, I was trying to figure out what felt so different about this holiday season. Sure, as the kids get older, things get more complicated - there are more events, more things to do, more demands - but that wasn't it. Finally I realized what was different: it's the economy, stupid! Trying to buy gifts on a shrinking budget, but get something that suits the person, while balancing that with a desire to buy handmade gifts, has put a damper on my mood. Especially because our failing economy, with a roller coaster stock market and a growing number of layoffs, hangs over this season like a dark cloud. It's hard to be happy and optimistic while getting pelted with hail.

The thought of "what if" is pervasive. What if layoffs hit our family right after a big Christmas? This has led me to scale things back, which is fine, but it's added a lot of stress. I'm more worried about what to serve for Christmas dinner than I have been in the past. The big dinner with fancy desserts and champagne cocktails is out, scaled back to something simpler and hopefully more fun. But it's Christmas, therefore alternatives need to be found because it still has to be nice or else this dinner would look about the same as our Superbowl party with nachos and chili galore. Walking the line between saving money and making it work has given me a case of the blahs.

RSVP Does Not Mean "If You Wish"

It's so ingrained in our culture that one doesn't have to understand a lick of French to know what RSVP means. Répondez, s'il vous plaît is a polite request that the invitee let the party host if they will be coming or not. It sounds so simple, but after hosting several kids' birthday parties, it seems that stronger language may be needed because many people view responding as suggestion. More commonly, RSVP seems to be translated as "call if you want, when you have nothing better to do" or "it's cool if you let me know 30 minutes before the party."

Wedding responses were bad - a reply card would come back indicating six people would be attending when only one was invited - but on the bright side, I should be happy they responded. Wedding invitations are generally an easy response as it usually only involves checking a box and sliding the card into a little stamped and addressed envelope. Trying to make it easier for everyone while encouraging more responses, I sent out electronic invitations for my daughter's birthday for the first time recently. What could be easier than an Evite response, I asked myself, it only takes a second to click yes or no. I'll get almost all of the responses, for sure! Sometimes my naivete even surprises me.

When Will We Be Hit?

The statement that arrived last month showed our college savings down, but I tried to stay optimistic. I told myself it's a set back, but we have time for things to bounce back. However, now, a few weeks later, my optimism is pretty much wiped out and I fear the next slew of statements - college, retirement and rainy day funds all diminished. My only shred of optimism tells me we're lucky because we're young, a long way off from retirement, and our kids are young too, giving us time to boost their college funds. So in the meantime, I wait.

The news is bad and impossible to ignore, but I'm waiting to see what this really, directly means for me and my family. Will this mean increased financial stress or a full blown Christmas-is-called-off depression? Until an answer is clear, I'm putting most things on hold.

For the Love of Carpool

Before my daughter began kindergarten, a mom friend mentioned the idea of forming a carpool. I pretended to go along, but inside I firmly thought "no way." I don't drive a minivan and I didn't want the hassle of cramming extra kids into my car's doll-sized third row. Also, I wasn't ready to trust my first born with just anyone cruising down the highway. Without a carpool, I drove the 25 minutes to my daughter's school, back and forth two times each day. Between drop off, pick up and some extra playground time, school transportation easily gobbled up almost three hours of my day.

When I was offered a spot in a carpool this year, I jumped at it and soon embraced it with religious fervor. Carpooling has changed my life.

Halloween Debates: A Princess Goes to the Dark Side

The first catalog of Halloween costumes hit our mailbox a few days before August. We've never ordered from one of these catalogs, but because they can entertain our five year old for an afternoon as she pours over each page and costume, we haven't tried to get our name off the mailing lists. That may change as this year the catalogs have sparked an early debate in our house over Halloween costumes, pitting parents against child.

"I want to be on the Dark Side," my daughter announced the other day. Our little girl, who last year was Princess Aurora (feel free to roll your eyes, I did too) and the years before that was a butterfly and a ladybug, made a quick, yet firm decision on her costume: Darth Vader. Last year it was heels and tulle, this year it will be a black suit and heavy breathing, if she gets her way.

What's My Name Again?

When we got married, before kids, when there was a clear line in my life between work and home, my name decision was easy. I kept my maiden (I hate that word, around here I usually say "real name") name at work and took my husband's last name for all home and family related things. This remained until my daughter was six months old and I quit my job, leaving my maiden name behind in the process.

Years before I had kids, I knew I wanted to share a last name with them and not a hyphenated name because my husband's last name is long enough on its own. I'm already worried that our kids will run out of spaces when coloring in letter bubbles on Scantron tests. Maybe those tests aren't even used anymore, but still, the name is long, which is especially clear as I help a five year old learn to write it. Long ago I was struck by an Anna Quinldlen column where her son told her that she wasn't one of them because she did not share their last name. I wanted to be apart of the same team as my kids, I just didn't realize what difficulties that would mean for me.