Silicon Valley Moms Blog

I'll have the champagne, the halibut...and a label maker

Yesterday I awoke to the following:

Isaac: I want to play on the computer!

J [stage whisper]:  Okay, Bean, go wish your Mommy a happy Mother's Day, then you can play on the computer.
[poundpoundpoundpoundpound down the hall]

Isaac: Happy Mother's Day, Mommy!

Me: Thank you sweetie! Can I have a hug?

Isaac: No.  [Hugs me].
[poundpoundpoundpoundpound back down the hall]

Isaac: Step one, say Happy Mother's Day to Mommy!  Step two, play on the computer!

I fell back to sleep until 9:40.  Bliss.

Overheard at Bucks today .....

This morning, my husband and I woke up childless.  Yes my blogosphere friends, we shipped the kids off to the Aunt and Uncle and Super-Cool Cousins house two miles away, and had a child free day yesterday and today.  Don't get me wrong, I love my kids.  I live for my kids.  Being a mommy is the best thing ever (except when they are whining, fighting, complaining or asking to play yet, another game on the computer and I already said no a billion times).  But, other than that, I dig the girls!

So this morning we woke up - ALONE.  The house was silent.  There were no little feet running through the hallways and knocking on our door to get up at 7:00am sharp.  It was our lazy morning, alone.  We debated what we should do - walk to downtown Palo Alto, hike the Stanford Dish, drive to Carmel for the day.... but a bike ride to Bucks in Wooside won out.  We pumped up the tires, brushed off the leaves and set on our ten mile bike ride from Palo Alto to Woodside.

Scene and Heard

I remember reading Jill's post about hearing some men complain about their millions at University Cafe in Palo Alto. I just had a similar experience while having yogurt with Beckett at Fraiche in Palo Alto. We sat at an outside table, and had the pleasure of listening to two gentlemen discuss being venture capitalists, or shall I say wanting to be venture capitalists. It appeared to me that one man was trying to help the other secure a job as a V. C. Beckett overheard the term "venture capitalist " a few times, and exclaimed, "Hey, that's what daddy is!" I thought that would be enough for these two to lower their voices. No such luck. Here are a few excerpts of what I heard and can recall.

"After seven years as a V.C., they all still call me a banker, that is bull shit."
"Yes it was riding the heels of a Kleiner fund and went down in 1999."
"I was fucked and had to bail that fund out "
"I took some time off and started a company and did some triathalons"
"Do you know X and X, they have started a new fund "
"They manage 3 Billion Dollars, you can live off the management fees"

It went on and on with much swearing. Why they chose to do this at a yogurt shop crowded with kids is beyond me. They were not like able folks. Talking about money in public is rude. I am thinking that my little yogurt shop has become what Bucks in Woodside was., or perhaps still is. ( I hear that Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerburg get yogurt at Fraiche too...I am sure that they do not talk about money!)

The price you pay, living in Silicon Valley

I always tell myself that we are extremely fortunate to be living in Silicon Valley.  The weather is beyond incredible (hey, I grew up on the east coast - NEW JERSEY to be exact), we are close to the ocean, major cities, resort communities, we live in a multicultural area, surrounded by the smartest and most ambitious people in the world, we are living the heart of high technology and bio technology.  We have it "all" here.

And then I remember the COST of living here.  The actual price of everything, from housing, to food, to schools.  Everything we purchase, we pay more.  And the rat race to have "more" never seems to end.

A house down the block from us sold for ten million dollars.  Yes, TEN MILLION.  And another one sold for over fifteen million. And the median price for a home in North Palo Alto is three million.  So where do people get this kind of money (oh yeah, they work at Google)?  Or maybe their startups or venture funds hit it big.  So do you see where I am going with this one?

Overheard during a busy morning ....

This year, our kids' school decided to start earlier for grades 3 - 5.  A wee bit of a problem since there are 2 campuses, the earlier starting one is farther from home, and ... I am most definitely NOT a morning person.  It's been speedmomma from hell challenging in the mornings to get three young kids dressed (you are NOT wearing that to school!), fed (here, take the toasted frozen waffle and eat it in the car), hair mostly bowing to gravity, and at the first school by 7:45 AM.  Did I mention that I am a night owl?  Why our schools still insist on the agricultural timeline/start time, I will never understand!

So, I will leave it up to you to imagine what a typical morning is like at our house (think herding cats with lots of cajoling/pushing/nit-picking ending sometimes with yelling).  I'd had enough of this.
Last night, I told all three that I expect all of them to be dressed nicely with clothes I put on the table for the next morning, hair brushed, and backpacks all ready to go.