Essential Ingredients: Life-Motherhood-Career-Simplified

From Burnt to Bounce

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking at the Mentoring Partnership of New York's Breakfast Forum on the subject of burnout.

Ironically, this session came on the heels of a day where 482 things HAD to get done before noon or else the world as we knew it would end.  (I exaggerate slightly, however, it was an intense day).

Once the 482 items were checked off the list, I could look back and laugh at the almost burnout that almost befell me before I had to give a talk on preventing burnout.

Sometimes (in addition to the tools below discussed at the seminar), laughter is indeed the best preventive medicine!

Download Values Game

Download Annoying List Instructions

Burnout Symptoms 

 

 

 

Beginnings and Endings

 

This month has been a whirlwind (tornados and all) of activity - some of it good, some bad, some bittersweet.

The back-to-school ritual went off without a hitch.  All the new activities, classmates, and routines were for the most part celebrated and embraced.  To see my former preemie board the school bus with confidence and fearlessness was astounding to me.  She greeted the day as if there were hundreds of new adventures waiting just for her.  As I stood there bawling after the bus pulled away, it felt  as if every conversation, activity, word of praise, and word of correction was all for this moment.  And it was.

This new beginning corresponded with an ending.  My grandmother passed last week at the age of 93.  As a family, we came together to care for our matriarch and support each other.   Her five-week hospitalization was exhausting for all of us, yet somehow it was filled with resilience, hope, and ultimately, peace.

So now, another beginning is upon us - the beginning of our family minus one.  Even though my grandmother had been declining for some time, she continued to be the glue that brought the family together.  Whether at the assisted living facility, the nursing home, or the hospital, we gathered and celebrated the occasion du jour (birthday, holiday, Tuesday).  No matter the locale, we were her raucous bunch of granddaughters catching up, great-grandkids racing about, and sons and daughters-in-law most certainly bragging about our latest accomplishments.

I have no doubt we will continue to be “glued,” but in a new way.  My hope is that we will create it with that same excitement and sense of what-is-yet-to-come of the school bus adventure. 

Calm in the Storm

Lately, life has been a bit chaotic (Hurricane Earl has nothing on the Casey's).  Things have been feeling a bit like this:

 

Perhaps as a reaction to my ducks being amuck, I have been creating "happy places" in my home.  These are little patches I can catch a glimpse of throughout the day to help me remember there is order in the universe somewhere...

 

 

 

 if only on my windowsills and ledges at the moment...

Another Rare Moment

I hope you find one/some/all of your ducks in a row today! 

The Lost T

The first few days of warm weather motivated me to tackle the much-anticipated seasonal closet changeover.  This tradition usually brings me joy and satisfaction.  I find it rewarding to purge, organize, and greet each new season with a streamlined wardrobe.  This time, however, the feeling was different.

My own closet transition was simple – fall/winter items to the back of the closet, spring items to the front, summer items gathered in a holding pen to be transported for future weekend beach outings.

Next, I tackled my daughter’s clothes.  She is at the stage at which her sleeves were just a bit too short and so were her pant legs.  With each outfit there was a reminder of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals.  This fashion faux pas could not continue any longer!

I sorted piles of outgrown Alfalfa-wear (4T shirts and pants) and made up big bags to deliver to my 3T niece, Gracie.  I held the 5T pants up to my daughter’s skinny waist and realized that these wouldn’t fit her either!  They were not cut to accommodate (or flatter) her tiny green-bean figure sans toddler pooch.  She would need a 4 slim or worse…a 5!

Then, it hit me.  In the blink of an eye, I lost my T!  No more feetie pajamas, crotches that snap, or blanket sleepers.  Granted, that was so two years ago, but that didn’t matter at the moment.

Now before me, I had my almost-kindergartener who was planning her future – ballerina, doctor, and mommy – who used words like simultaneously and needed to know how pearls get into oysters.  How did this happen?

Prior transitions were expected, planned, hoped for (potty training, anyone,) and celebrated.  This transition crept up on me, and I was unprepared for its impact.  I was blindsided and saddened by my lost T.

With every ending there is a beginning, and while I mourn the loss of my T, I look forward to whatever letter (or adventure, or discovery) comes next in her alphabet (or in mine).

Rare Moment

My ducks are in a row!

I hope you find these shining moments today.

Summer Beginnings

It's been raining in New York for what feels like three years now. To cheer myself up, I have been recalling Memorial Day weekend and our annual start-of-summer beach expedition.

The preparations for this festivity are elaborate. Around here, buying new bathing suits and sun hats begins in January, with product testing in the tub commencing in February. Constructing mock beach in the living room, complete with umbrellas and sand toys, helps us mark time until the actual day arrives.

When it does, we traipse all the 4,682 pieces of equipment down to the beach and set up camp.  Then the most important ritual takes place.

My mother takes a small bucket down to the water and fills it. She then dips her fingers in the water and makes the sign of the cross on my daughter's forehead. She has told me that this was something her father and her aunt did with her each year - a blessing for a child for a safe and happy summer, with the first beach water of the season.

When my mother first shared this tradition with my daughter, it brought tears to my eyes (giving me my own blessing of sorts). This year was no different. The tears were flowing as usual, and even more so when Courtney put beach water on my mother's head, and then walked up the beach with the bucket in hand and blessed me too (for the record, she blessed my nose).

I hope Courtney remembers these small rituals and family traditions of summer for years to come. They remind me of what really matters (no matter the weather).

Cead Mile Failte

For the past ten years, we have been hosting a St. Patrick's Day celebration, with more corned beef, shepherd's pie, and soda bread than you can imagine.  There is meat boiling in vast pots for hours, 15+ pounds of potatoes to be peeled, cooked and mashed, and U2 music blasting all the while.

 

This year, my small house was overflowing with friends, family, and neighbors (most of them gathered in the kitchen of course), and I'm sure you could hear the revelry blocks away.  After the guests arrive and the eating frenzy is over (for the moment), the kids parade through the living room, dining room, and kitchen to the sounds of bagpipes ("too noisy," according to my daughter).

 

We are big on parties in my home: Christmas, Easter, St. Patrick's Day, The Summer Party, Tuesday, Cookies and Milk, to name a few.  Party planning is a science for us, each festivity with its own ritual and menu.  With a small house and hardly any spare time to spare, I often get asked (and I often ask myself), "Why?"

 

Why?  Because whatever the holiday or celebration, I want our house to have these main ingredients:

 

1. Family - the house will always be big enough for one more guest

 

2. Food - there will always be enough food to go around even if we have nothing left

 

3. Fun - there will always be laughter, music, joy, hard work, games, and presents

 

This is what I hope our family and friends take away with them when the night is over, and what my daughter remembers when she has a home of her own.

 

100,000 welcomes!

The Angels in the NICU

On my daughter's birthday, October 4, I make a ritual pilgrimage to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at North Shore University Hospital.  It has been the same visit for the past two years.  I bring cookies or brownies, I give them an update on my daughter's life, I thank them for all they did for her, and I cry.
 
This year, the ritual will be different.  Courtney and I will go together so she can say thank you.  I have told her the story: How I would say over and over, “Momma loves you”; how Daddy would make sure she had music playing; how the doctors and nurses took such good care of her.  She is intrigued with the picture on my dresser of herself as a "little tiny baby" (old soul that she is at three) with all the monitors and leads coming off her.  She loves the picture from her christening with "Mommy, and Daddy, and me doctor, and me."  Daily we are reminded of the generosity and talent of the team that took care of her for the longest 28 days of my life.
 
The walk down the long winding hallways of the hospital will be different this Saturday.  Although the visit is bittersweet and emotional, I know that my beautiful, happy girl will bounce into the NICU and say a big thank you to all her new friends.  This year, she will join me in the important work of paying it forward, a lesson I hope will always be ingrained in her from this experience.
 
Our eternal gratitude to the angels in the NICU.