Washington DC Mommy blogger

My House. It Doesn’t Rise Up to Greet Me Pleasantly.

August 1, 2012

I love creating my own Someecards. Photo Credit: Someecards

Oprah says your home should rise up to greet you.

Maybe my first problem is I don’t know what that means.

Or maybe I don’t especially love what my home says when it greets me.

Or maybe my problem is I have children.

And what is it that my home should say, when it rises up to greet me? Should it say “Look, mommy, there’s a mouse-hole in the shower!” as my daughter did the other day, when she was pointing to what was actually some mold in the corner of the shower….our cleaning lady kept cancelling on me and I ran out of Clorox to get rid of that bad boy……

So is that what Oprah means about our homes rising up to greet us?

Is it me or is it next to impossible to not have total chaos in the home? Particularly during summer?? And it’s not just children here. Children are rivaled only by the husband. I know I’m not the only one who finds work socks on the dining room table, for example. And hammers on low window ledges that 19 month olds with gumby arms can reach easily.

I’ve been known to take a collection of dirty, sweaty socks improperly strewn throughout my home and carefully put them between two pillows in bed….the pillows used by Mr. Wired Momma. Unfortunately this does not phase him.

My favorite story on this topic came from my workout instructor, mom to three kids. One fall day, her back door wasn’t shut properly and blew open when she was taking the kids to school and running errands. The alarm went off, the police arrived to the house before she did and said “Ma’am, it looks like this place has been ransacked.”

Sounds about right.

So Oprah’s home might rise up to greet her quite differently than mine. Mine rises up and says “Do others raise children who know discarded food belongs in the trash, not the floor.”

And maybe Stedman puts his socks in the laundry basket.

“Like” Wired Momma on Facebook so we can trash Oprah and talk more about what our homes would actually say if they could greet us.

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Husbands, Life with 2 kids, Motherhood

Summer Truths: Hopes & Dreams…or Reality

July 30, 2012

I had mixed feelings a few days ago when I first started to see the new Target “Back to School” commercials airing on TV. On some level, it felt like seeing Christmas decorations in October. Is it really already time for back-to-school ads? Isn’t it still just July?

At the same time, is it really JUST JULY….said the other part of my brain.

With a month left to go until schools start again, I’ve noticed some patterns have emerged. Much like we head into vacation with fantasies about what it will be like – you know, relaxing and spending some time together as a family…and then suddenly we are on “vacation” and realize it’s actually just job re-location….I had some pre-conceived notions of summer time possibilities and goals. I’ve also been surprised by some of my children’s habits.

I pretty much need to know I’m not alone.

Haven't read quite this many yet this summer

1. The eldest Wired Momma child’s goal was to read 90 books. I believed it was possible.

Reality: 24 have been read. Most of these on her own volition. I’ve lacked the discipline and structure to impose a mandatory learning time on her day – or let’s be honest – some vague sense of structure over the course of the week.

#Lazy

2. We were going to do writing and math homework every day.

Reality: Ummm…not so much. Again, this one falls on me. She’s only 6.

#NotATigerMom

3. I was going to take them on exciting adventures to explore DC.

Reality: Does moving and going to the pool pretty regularly count? We’ve gone no where. My big goal for this week is to get them to the zoo.

#NotParentoftheyear

4. Youngest WM was going to learn to write her name.

Reality: We haven’t practiced.

#StillNotTigerMom

#WhatIsWrongWithMe

The constant grazing drives me nuts.

5. My children are like cows. They eat all day long. Constantly. I swore this wasn’t going to happen. I threatened at each meal if they didn’t finish what was on their plates, they would get nothing until the next meal. I am full of shit. Feeding them drives me nuts. I have now declared the weekends a feeding-free zone. I just don’t do it. The second they start demanding anything, I walk away and let it be Mr. Wired Momma’s problem.

#StopEating!

What have you discovered this summer?

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Summer Survival with Kids, Uncategorized

In case you missed this amazing advice

July 26, 2012

Marissa Mayer, new CEO of Yahoo. Photo Credit: Fortune Mag & CNN Money

I am so slow with getting this post written because of my lack of internet access at home…oh…and being lost in boxes and cans of paint. You know it’s insane when it’s been days since I’ve last blogged. Unfortunately my guess is that my chance to write will be spotty for the next few weeks so please…bear with me! With that aside, you might have missed what I thought was the best article in the Sunday papers. In a rare moment, I found myself buried deep in the Sunday Wash Post business section (a far cry from my usual Sunday NYT Style section obsession, c’est vrai). Way back in the Technology & Innovation page was a piece on who else – Marissa Mayer. It was not about her pregnancy. And let’s talk about that for a minute. To me, her pregnancy is relevant because a Fortune 500 Company Board hired a her as CEO despite being pregnant. This strikes moi as a huge step forward. The news is not about how LONG she will take her maternity leave for. Her maternity leave is her maternity leave, not mine or yours or all woman kind’s maternity leave. Not to mention, to be a Fortune 500 CEO at the age of 37 means you aren’t just ‘Superhuman’ as Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote about wildly successful professional woman. It means you are addicted to working. How could it mean otherwise? Your drive and ambition is unlike most others hence being a CEO. So OF COURSE her maternity leave will be brief and she will work the entire time. This shouldn’t be a point of discussion, in my view, instead we should just hope that other companies take note that women can and should be hired while pregnant. Is anyone else with me here?

Now to the point. Farhad Manjoo’s piece in the Post, which after an annoyingly long Google search, I realized first appeared in Slate, was about Mayer professionally. Majoo describes how Mayer interviewed with Google as she was finishing graduate school, back when Google only had a few employees, how she was offered a few different jobs and as she weighed her options, she explained how she made a decision. It was how she approached making a difficult decision that really stopped me dead in my tracks. Here’s what she says:

——————————————————

“I had to think really hard about how to choose between job offers,” she said. Mayer approached the choice analytically. Over spring break, she studied the most successful choices in her life to figure out what they had in common. “I looked across very diverse decisions—everything from deciding where to go to school, what to major in, how to spend your summers—and I realized that there were two things that were true about all of them,” she said. “One was, in each case, I’d chosen the scenario where I got to work with the smartest people I could find. … And the other thing was I always did something that I was a little not ready to do. In each of those cases, I felt a little overwhelmed by the option. I’d gotten myself in a little over my head.”

————————————————————–

I thought her advice was remarkable. Admittedly, it’s never once occurred to me to study the most successful choices in my life to look for what they have in common. Has this occurred to you? And while working with the smartest people isn’t the most revealing advice, it’s part two of her advice that I think is good for everyone to hear – this idea of taking a chance, putting yourself in a position where you are maybe not quite ready, out of your comfort zone – and on some level – probably being willing to open yourself up to failure by taking that risk. I think this is really common advice from very successful people all the time but personally I find it easy to lose sight of that because we are hearing from them only when they are already successful – not in the middle of their failure.

Anyhow – pack to unpacking…but if you’ve ever studied all your past choices to look for commonalities – I’d love to know. What an analytical and smart, non-emotional way, to approach a decision. Quite un-Wired Momma like…..heh heh.

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Work, Work-Life Balance

Summer 2012: Chic Date Night on a Budget

July 23, 2012

Beautiful presentation of the yummy arctic char. Photo taken before I realized how heavenly the basil pistou gnocchi is.

Through the chaos of the move, I received a gift in the form of an email. A representative from the web site Restaurant.com reached out to me to introduce their site and ask me if I’d like to use it and go out to dinner.

Umm?

Moi? Eat?

Mais oui!

It was music to my ears – an excuse to head out for a nice dinner without my kids in the midst of life amongst boxes and moving trucks. No one was going to have to twist my arm or convince me to agree to it. Truth be told, I wasn’t familiar with Restaurant.com before she reached out. Turns out, this site works with over 18,000 restaurants nationwide and much like Open Table, you log on, search for the kind of restaurant you want, based in the zip code and then easily make your reservations online. We chose PS7’s in Penn Quarter and within 10 minutes of making my online reservation on the Restaurant.com site, I received not only an email confirming the reservation but an automated phone call confirming the reservation. I liked that attention to detail.

What distinguishes Restaurant.com from other sites is that you are purchasing a bargain and you can do it either for yourself or for someone in your family, all with the click of a button. For example, for $20, you can purchase a Restaurant.com gift card equal to $50 with the participating restaurants. Like any deal sites, however, there are fine print details that I urge you to read in advance. Two examples: alcohol cannot be used as part of the gift card and some days of the week are restrictive with participating restaurants (i.e. weekends). It’s always worth it to be a thorough consumer but moi loves to eat and moi loves a bargain in a chic place, so this was a perfect match from the start.

How was PS7’s, you wonder? Spoiler alert: we can’t wait to go again. Located just above the chaos and fray of Penn Quarter, at 7th and Eye Street, the interior of the restaurant is modern and chic. Parking is also easy despite this downtown location because there is a parking garage located next door. The service was exceptional, the chef sent out a delicious summer cocktail and the pastry chef brought out a beautiful pineapple upside down cake. The wait staff was attentive and so helpful. But it was the food…we were there to really eat and try out the menu and it’s criminal that someone didn’t just roll us down the street when we waddled out of there.

Ridiculously good appetizer. Now, I didn't eat that whole thing. But I didn't leave much either. Oink oink.

I started with the open-faced bread topped with the “Nutty Goat” – which included goat gouda cheese, arugula, walnut butter and toasted shallots (umm..yummm) while Mr. Wired Momma started with the 3 hot dog starters. By the time we were done with the first course, we begrudgingly admitted we were already getting full and we shouldn’t have eaten so much.

Then came the salad. Mr. Wired Momma chose the heirloom tomato salad – which he said

The warm spinach salad was heavenly. Trust moi. Oink oink

was delicious and looked so – and while it was a solid choice because now is the time to order the tomato salad – I mocked his choice because we can make something similar (though not as good) at home. I ordered the warm spinach salad – the house made dressing was warm, and the bacon pieces, cheese, mushrooms and crispy onion rings made this salad a home run. At this point, Mr. Wired Momma conceded that in a rare moment, I had made the slightly better food choices.

I relished this small victory. As we both finished off the delicious salads and wondered how in the world we could eat another course.

Then came the main course. I ordered the arctic char and Mr. Wired Momma ordered the smoked gnocchi with basil pistou and peas. I toyed with also ordering the gnocchi because of the basil pistou. We had one of the best meals of our lives in the South of France one summer (shocking, I know) because of the basil pistou in the soup. We still talk about that particular meal even though it was 5 years ago.

Sure enough, my arctic char was absolutely delicious but the gnocchi with the basil pistou was show stopping. It was exceptional. The combination of flavors and the texture of it left us only regretting that we’d already eaten so much because frankly, we are such pigs, we wanted to be able to eat more of the gnocchi.

But we just couldn’t. The madness had to stop.

Also noteworthy, PS7s has this really awesome summer menu option where you can order a summer picnic, centered around fried chicken, and they even set the table with a separate red and white check table cloth to fit the picnic theme. I loved that this modern, chic restaurant doesn’t take itself so seriously and instead offers its guests some kitschy summer fun. There was a table of 6 older adults who looked like they’d been great friends for about 40 years enjoying the picnic table option menu and I almost wanted to pull up a chair to their fun table too.

Our meal really was exceptional. We ate too much food. We drank a little more wine that we anticipated going in. We indulged. It was fabulous. And the best part was we indulged on a budget through Restaurant.com. Our bill totaled $145 but with the Restaurant.com gift card of $50, we came away with an exquisite meal for under $100 (I realize this isn’t necessarily budget friendly but we also don’t usually order three huge courses like that…we were celebrating our move and the house – so we indulged – could have spent quite a bit less). I will absolutely be using this site again and you better believe, I’ll be visiting PS7’s again. Maybe next time, we just don’t need to order quite so much food.

Oink Oink.

Disclosure: Restaurant.com compensated me for my meal at PS7’s, I didn’t disclose to the restaurant that I was there as a Restaurant.com guest. My opinions here are all my own.

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Date Night, Uncategorized