One Fine Day

Yesterday was an unusually fun and busy Thursday that managed to touch on nearly all the roles I play- throw in a PTA event and I would have had a bingo!

The day began at 6:45 a.m., which is 15 minutes later than it was supposed to, but my bed was cozy and James isn't doing morning practices right now and I can't resist a good cuddle.

7:15 a.m.: Everyone is dressed and loving on the dog. I'm putting on my makeup, proud to have actually blow-dried my hair, and alternatively loving on the dog too. James is yelling at everyone from the kitchen to come get their lunches.

7:45 a.m.: Running into Starbucks for my chai tea latte. It's been a week and I decided I was allowed to have one today because I packed my lunch from home. I will reheat this in the work microwave at least 3 times because I'm incapable of drinking it fast enough to not go cold.

9:00 a.m.: I've been at my desk for about an hour writing a memo (or trying to), and am now on a call with some attorneys at the DOJ for another case.

11:15 a.m.: Still at my desk, now eating a frozen vegetable yakisoba noodle bowl from Costco I just microwaved because I'm a government attorney and it can't always be $13 potato skin nachos at Heim (my current greatest indulgence; omg they are so good). There is also a mini fat free strawberry yogurt as a second course because I'm still fancy.

12:55 p.m.: I head to the parking garage to drive over to Texas A&M Law School to meet my Professor friend. We were summer associates together at Vinson & Elkins in 2007 when I was a million moths pregnant with Landon and he ... looked pretty much the same as he does now.

1:30 p.m.: I am the guest speaker in his Business Associations class to discuss being a securities attorney (and former corporate associate, litigation associate, IP associate, law student, woman who's had a baby in every job I've had... all the things). It was super fun and the students asked really great questions on everything from substantive securities law to being a junior associate to transitioning between jobs.

3:00 p.m.: My time as pretend law professor is over- we used the full 90 minutes and the questions never stopped, which seems like a good thing? Hopefully some of it was helpful or at least entertaining.

3:15 p.m.: I'm back at work, still working on my memo. My legal analysis section is killing it.

4:30 p.m.: I leave work, forgetting which floor of the parking garage I'm on because I only ever remember where I parked in the morning and never where I parked the second time if I leave and come back. I don't know why this is so hard.

4:45 p.m.: I'm home, changing into my barre clothes because I accidentally left them in a bag on my bed instead of putting them in my car. My guard dog is on duty.

5:20 p.m.: About to teach my 5:30 class! 35 students and a great play list. Let's do this.

5:50 p.m.: "And we pulse..."

6:20 p.m.: Class is over and I'm heading home to de-sweatify myself and re-dry and re-straighten my hair for my birthday mama's night out! The sky is gorgeous and I take a picture.

6:30 p.m.: James gets home with all the kids about two minutes after I do. We all greet the dog, the kids put away their swim stuff, I start the water for the pesto pasta James is going to make, and then head back to my bathroom with my "Tween Pop" playlist and plans to put some new makeup on top of some old makeup. I sit with the kids and James when their dinner is ready and hear about practice and school and how Cora beat Claire in a race at swimming (except not really explains an exasperated Claire who has clearly heard this misinterpreted version of events multiple times on their drive home).

7:20 p.m.: My friend Kim picks me up to head to the same wine bar we went to last year for our double mama birthday celebration (background: my friend Kelly and I are almost twins! Born just 5 days and 270 miles apart! Our only other differences are several inches in height, opposite hair and eye colors, and she went to college on a full soccer scholarship whereas I played one game of soccer when I was 5, got hit in the stomach with a ball, and never set foot on the field again. But otherwise- twins! We are both very organized, Type A oldest children who like the read the same books and are very concerned with following the rules.).

7:45 p.m.: More mamas are arriving. Champagne is pouring, tapas are being selected, and wine flights are being chosen.

A special surprise cake was introduced and then we almost got in trouble because we didn't ask permission to bring it in (which, funny enough, I already worried about in our group text message earlier because my great fear in life is breaking rules I didn't know existed and are enforced by faux authority figures like restaurant personnel), but then our charm won them over (and the fact we got the cake from the bakery next door which partners with the wine bar for certain menu items... but mostly it was our charm) and we were told we could serve it after all. Thank goodness. My heart rate was high during the whole exchange.

8:15 p.m.: Presents! Gift giving is my love language and I get so excited about the rare, truly surprise grown-up gift. Presents are simply the best.

I feel so seen.

8:30 p.m.: Dark and Luscious. (The wine flight. Also, my pale Swedish self.)

9:30 p.m.: We discover the cake (salted chocolate with vanilla buttercream) is amazing.

A smash cake approach is suggested, but rejected in lieu of attempting to drink it through one of my new sparkly straws. Because we're ladies.

10:00 p.m.: We realize the wine bar is closing and we should leave. We utilize both the men's and women's restrooms because none of us have the left the table for 2.5 hours and 85 wine glasses have been emptied in that time (of 2 oz. tasting pours to be clear, we're not turning 21).

10:20 p.m.: The responsible mamas go home. The rest of us end up across the street at La Zona listening to a live Mexican band and dancing.

11:10 p.m.: We're still dancing. We've made some new friends.

11:11 p.m.: Vodkaquila is a thing you drink on your birthday (or so I'm told by experts, so I step up to the challenge even though I've forgotten which order the drink v. lime are supposed to go). Ever proper, I ask someone to hold my clutch while I shoot something that is possibly too voluminous to be shot.

Vodkaquila is actually quite tasty. I switch to water for the rest of the evening because I have a job and children to attend to in the morning.

11:30 p.m.: The live band plays a feisty rendition of "Feliz Cumpleanos" just for me and I dance with them at the front of the bar. This is unpictured. (Actually there are a million pictures and multiple videos, some of which were texted to me from numbers I don't know; it's just unpictured here).

12:00 a.m.: James texts me to see if I am coming home because the dog won't come inside without me. As luck would have it, Kim is pulling me up to the house! I let the dog in, fill James in on my shenanigans, and take a very long bath.

1:30 a.m.: Asleep.

7:05 a.m.: Cora sings an original anthem to Maggie about the fact she has Kindergarten Round-Up today. Maggie is super into it. A new day begins.

A Few Days In The Life

It's 11:01 p.m. central time and the federal government is officially shut down, the first shut down with one party in control of both houses of Congress and the White House, right on the 1-year anniversary of Trump's inauguration. As a federal employee and primary breadwinner for my family, nothing about this is funny. Except this tweet, a little tiny bit.

But let's talk about the past week when I was a full-time employee who was paid for the hours I was willing and able (and needing!) to work. Because it was quite a week! And one in which there was much balancing of that full-time job, full-time motherhood, part-time yogi, super-part-time-barre-teacher, and frequent chef and book reader.

(Quick aside, Iron Gold came out this week!! Surprise #4 in what was previously the Red Rising trilogy which had one of the most satisfying endings I've ever enjoyed in a trilogy of books. It was so good I almost didn't want to read #4 except OF COURSE I did and I must say I'm enjoying it very much; the leap forward in time combined with new first-person character perspectives is working for me. Even more importantly book #6 of my beloved Arcana Chronicles by Kresley Cole comes out in 4 weeks and I'm DYING to read it. I will start it at midnight that Monday when it is released and finish it by 5 a.m. Tuesday morning and I will not regret it ONE BIT. But we're getting way off topic.)

Monday was a holiday for the kids and me. We started the day with a roller blading scooter ride to a friend's house for donuts and then splintered off so James could work and I could watch the kids run at full speed for 2 hours through our beautiful if currently dormant (and always FREE) nearby botanical gardens.

They can run so fast for SO long. I just meander behind, snapping a picture of their backs every now and then and cautioning everyone not to get wet anytime they're near a body of water. We came home for lunch, I went to yoga (I am doing SO much yoga - yoga every day! - and it is SO wonderful and makes me so happy), and then James left to coach when I got back. We had agreed that the big kids would go to his swim practice at 5:00 (usually they go on Tuesdays, but usually I'm not with them all day). Sometime around 3:30 Landon came wandering into the TV room where I had just sat down to get a few things done on my computer. He'd been outside playing tag with the girls and generally having too good a time and he needed to be upset about something so he picked swim practice. 45 minutes later and I finally broke and yelled. He snapped out of it immediately. I hate when I break as much as I hate that it seems to fix everything. In general, things are really good and going so much better, but every now and then they aren't and it's just the worst. I dropped the kids at the curb and drove home with Cora. We sang "From Now On" from the Greatest Showman soundtrack on repeat and then got to work on a delicious dinner. On the upside, Cora was adorable, racing into the house from the car because Giant Pua (Claire's much-adored Christmas gift from my brother) doesn't like thunder and Claire told her to take care of him. She took her duties very seriously.

“Mom, Big Pua is afraid of the storm. Cwaire told me to take GOOD CARE of him while she is at swimming. ... And sometimes Big Pua is just hungry mom. He’s Just Hungry. And still a little scared. But I will take GOOD CARE of him. Don’t WORRY.”

The storm that so frightened Pua brought with it freezing temperatures and a sprinkling of snow. Our schools and office shut down for the first two hours of the morning for ice, but I went to work on time because Landon was still stuck in difficult mode (just for me) and my office is my new sanctuary. Kind of literally. It was completely empty of human beings and for the first few hours, my Starbucks chai latte and I were very happy to hang out alone and do some drafting.

I did yoga at lunch, I ate my pre-packed lentil salad lunch at my desk, and I enjoyed speaking with other humans later on in the day when the office was officially open. I stayed late to finish the document I was drafting, raced home to relieve our brand new after school nanny on her first day on the job ("this is unusual, I swear"), grabbed Cora and a granola bar, and drove to my PTA Board Meeting.

It was a really good meeting. Our sweet Title I school is amazing, our teachers and principal and students are amazing, and our parent involvement increases every year. I will admit that I did not really want to go to a meeting after 3 minutes at home after being at work for 9.5 hours, but it's a really rewarding part of my day and I love my board members. I got home (for real this time) at 7:30 p.m. to the crockpot meal James had started midday at the same time he pulled up with the big kids from swim practice (the nanny drops them off, and then he was held up talking to parents), so we all got to eat a late dinner together. And before we ate dinner, I found this tucked under my place mat.

Inside was a drawing of penguins and a very sweet and genuine apology note from Landon and after hearing his words, and accepting his hedgehog and hugging him tight, my world felt a little more balanced again.

On Wednesday morning it was nine (9) degrees outside, so this is how everyone dressed to venture out to school.

We have maintained our position that Landon gets to pick his own clothes and make his own outerwear decisions, but I really wished I could attach a little post-it to his back that said "I tried. I have chosen to fight other battles." Luckily the girls take their cold protection very seriously. Cora, in particular, enjoys all the extras.

Adjusting her "ear gloves."

Thursday was a great day. Super busy, weaving together every role I have and a few extra outfits. The day started with a rare blow dry of my hair, answering some emails, and heading to the kids' school with James to use some vacation time to watch our second year of Battle of the Books!

The Battle is an awesome, local (I think?) competition for elementary school students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade. Each grade gets a list of 6 varied and award-winning books to read. They take their usual AR tests and the 5 highest scores become that teacher's BOB team. The team practices together, making up questions for each other from the books, until they have the big school competition to determine which class will represent the school at the city-wide competition in May.

Each team gathers behind a table with cards for each book's name. The judges ask a question, something like, "in which book does the main character stain his hands purple" and the kids confer quietly for 30 seconds when a bell is run and the team captain (Landon!) picks up the card with the name of the book they think answers the question. The teams can't see each other, so while they'll know if they got the right answer or not once the judges announce it, they have no idea how the other teams are doing until the end.

It is just the best.

Last year Landon's team won after 3 rounds and an incredibly stressful bonus round of sudden death, but this year his all-girl team ("they're super smart mom") team emerged victorious after the first round, missing only the very last question!

They were so chill. They clearly had a plan for how they would communicate with one another and generally they seemed very certain of their answers. One time, Landon looked like he wasn't sure but was leaning towards one, when the girl next to him tapped one of the cards with complete authority and certainty and you could see him shrug his shoulders and mouth "okay" and pick that one up. They were the only team with that answer, so we were nervous, but they were the only one who got it right! Trust your team. Particularly when they're super smart girls.

Their smiles when they got the questions right and when they won were the best and we're so excited to cheer them on in May!

After the competition, I ran home to get some work done before driving to Texas A&M Law school downtown for a lunchtime panel, mandatory for all their 1Ls, on The Practice of Business Law. It was me, the general counsel of a large local hedge fund, and a real estate transactional attorney, so I think it was a good range of corporate law practice. I think it was a good conversation and lots of students came up afterward to ask more questions, so hopefully it was helpful! I love being back at law school and around law students, even if it shocks me to say things like "when I graduated 10 years ago..." I'm a real life lawyer you guys, sometimes I still find that surprising.

post-panel, wearing very pinchy shoes that are very cute and sadly unpictured

After the panel I finally got to my actual office where I worked until 5:00, changed quickly in a bathroom into my barre clothes and hoped I wouldn't run into anyone in my hot pink camouflaged leggings while I ran to the elevator because Thursday was also my first day back at TCU teaching my barre class for the spring semester.

It was a really full, really great day that ended with me coming home to check on our crockpot meal and pour a glass of wine that I sipped alone for 10 whole minutes before James pulled up with all the kids returning from their swim lessons. There was dinner and baths and bed and then a new Top Chef episode. It was just a really good day. That I finished by reading too many chapters of Iron Gold under my extra fuzzy blanket in bed until the wee hours. The back-lit Kindle app on my phone is probably one day going to kill me.

Today was more work, an Orangetheory class, other work, and then the making of signs with the children for the Women's March tomorrow (yay!) before drinking some extra wine and watching the shutdown clock wind down (less yay).

Now it is nearly 1 a.m. and I must go to bed so I can squeeze in at least a little ill-advised reading under the covers before that becomes completely unreasonable.

Ants Marching

I'm sitting here on the couch sipping my follow-on skinny margarita after my celebratory prickly pear swirled frozen margarita at my new fave local taco joint.

~ ~ ~

Annnnnnnd that's all I wrote last night. I didn't even put a period on the end of that sentence, but I just went back and added one now because I couldn't handle a word just left dangling in the wind like that. Clearly I abandoned my grammatical principles to tequila and exhaustion.

I know yesterday was only Wednesday, but it was already a WEEK.

I generally control the pace of my investigations- we're pre-litigation, so while I always have many things to do, I rarely have a tight deadline under which to do them. This changes when I have testimony. Particularly when I somehow end up with 4 days of testimony involving 4 different witnesses over 4 weeks in 2 cases. Not only does this require a lot of preparation- reviewing docs, picking exhibits, crafting an outline, thinking about what information I need to answer the questions still open in my investigation... but then you're in testimony, all day, shut in a conference room, not checking emails, not responding to messages, not doing the other forward moving things you need to be doing in your other 6 cases. Testimony is intense and fun and in many ways, one of the best parts of my job, but it can be exhausting. Once a week for a month, particularly so.

Which is a long-winded way of saying I worked until midnight at my kitchen table on Monday and Tuesday nights, just me, my laptop, a very large stack of documents, sticky notes, a beverage, and Landon's ant farm. James would occasionally call out "I miss you" from the TV room until he went to bed and then it was just me and the ants.

I know I've had some thought tornadoes lately, but nothing drove home the fact that I no longer like working at night like having to work at night for a few days. And it was just TWO DAMN DAYS. It sucked and I hated it. I didn't get to watch Better Call Saul at the precise moment it aired and I had to skip yoga and I was tired and I missed my hours of nightly couch osmosis bonding cuddle time with James and I left for work super early so, as Cora was quick to yell accusingly at me across the kitchen when she saw me Tuesday night, "MOMMY! I DID NOT SEE YOUR FACE THIS MORNING!"

I did not see her face either.

Our week in general was a little scattered and crazy. It's the first week of summer- which means the return of our summer camp "where are the kids this week?" excel spreadsheet. This year it's made both easier and more complicated by the fact that James isn't teaching any midday lessons, so the big kids can mostly stay home with him and then Tara will come over at 3, just like she does during the school year. We've got a few camps for the kids, James really does have a ton of work to do during those daytime hours, but mostly they're stay-at-home kids this summer and that's new for all of us.

(Also crazy, but mostly crazy awesome- taking our daily living room performances up a level with the microphone karaoke stand James and I gave Claire for her birthday - her birthday post is still coming! - because if your kid is going to sing the Trolls sound track all day, don't you want her to be able to do it LOUDER?! Yes, yes you do.)

But then this week Tara had to step in as James's deck manager so we didn't really even have her, so all the kids went to the pool all afternoon. And also James decided to coach a stroke clinic for 3 mornings this week (and only this week), so the big kids are doing that, but it makes for a lot of pool time and unique logistics of getting everyone where they need to be while I'm working 15 hour days and unusually inflexible and unreliable about helping with any of it.

I did manage to teach barre on Monday in my new stripey pants. I love them. And I love the new lunge set I made up and the fact that teaching forced me to take the time out to do them.

On Tuesday night the ants and I were grooving to the smooth stylings of the Dave Matthews Live at Red Rocks album (a 2-disc album, if you remember the days when music was limited by storage size). At a few minutes after midnight I felt my outline was mostly complete and I was ready to let my sleepy subconscious commit my exhibits to memory so I wouldn't be bound by the outline I'd just created (I like to skip around depending on where the witness takes me, but you can't do that unless you're sufficiently fluent in your documents).

On Wednesday, I was at work at 7 a.m., shiny new binder, pen, and notepad and boxes of docs ready to go. Plus a Venti lightly sweet chai tea latte, of course. I swore in the witness at 9 and a little over six hours of accounting questioning later, we were done with day 1! Just in time for me to answer a bunch of emails for other cases and then head home to dig out an old training suit to go swim.

Because, oh yes, adding to the general feeling of stress and craziness of the week, I'm signed up for my first swim meet in SEVENTEEN YEARS on Saturday. Seventeen years. Half of my life. I've swum a few laps here and there- right after Claire was born... swimming across the lake in Wisconsin last summer. But diving? Racing? Flip turns? Swimming in front of people? No.

But I'd told James and the kids I would do summer league once Cora was old enough to do it, and though she's a tiny three-year-old, she is mighty (and the daughter of a swim school owner) and she's taking the 6-and-under age group to a whole new level. It's going to be amazing.

And James, who forgets many things, somehow remembered my promise and signed me up for the team and the first meet. My name and age appear on Saturday's heat sheet under 18+ 100 IM, 100 Free, and 50 Free. Gulp.

So I thought Wednesday afternoon after no sleep and an exhausting day would be the perfect time to dig out that ancient TYR swimsuit, steal Claire's cap and James's goggles, and dive in. I had a secret hope that the water would feel amazing and my new barre and yogi strength would propel me to new swimming heights. That... did not happen. But I had a much bigger secret fear that it would all feel terrible and clunky and awful and that wasn't true either. It felt equally good and different. Good because water just always feels good, and different because I'm just different. I weigh 30 lbs. less than I did when I was a swimmer, so I'm leaner, but I think I'm stronger too. At least everywhere that isn't my shoulders.

To celebrate my ability to swim each of my new events without dying (even if I do now apparently only swim at one speed- I kept thinking in my head, "kick faster! go faster!" and my body was just like no, this feels nice, we're no longer a multi-speed model), and finishing my day of testimony, I took the kids to get tacos and margaritas.

Tacos for them, margarita for me, queso for all.

(I found this picture on my phone later, I'm assuming Landon took it. Love Claire's isntant posing.)

A very nice man at the restaurant gave all the kids koozies and Cora thought they were accessories for her arms and the big kids were like "OH! Mom! Cora figured out what these are for!" because I guess James and I never drink anything out of koozies (or cans, really) and they were so relieved Cora had cracked the case so they could use their new toys.

Also, Landon told me that he did an 8 minute plank in James's swim clinic and won the contest and he wasn't even tired but James made him stop because the other kids were bored and it was time to do something else. Today he did one for 11 minutes. Maybe we can rent him out for parties.

Today I spent much of my morning riveted by the Comey testimony. Luckily, I suppose, it's not every day your country's former FBI director who was fired for investigating your President testifies that your President is a liar and your Attorney General and former National Security Advisor are being investigated for lying about their meetings with and ties to Russia. Making America great again indeed.

And then James came by with the big kids to delivery beautiful flowers and 16 of my favorite fresh-baked Tiff's Treats cookies because the are awesome and I guess they missed my face too.

And now I have more work to do tomorrow and then my parents come to town to watch all five of us compete at our first swim meet of the season. We have to be in Granbury, nearly an hour away, by 7:30 a.m. on Saturday and I haven't gotten more than 5 hours of sleep since Sunday and it's 12:30 a.m. now so I should probably wrap this stream of nonsense up. Hopefully the next time I write I'll have victorious and non-humiliating things to write about my first time to get wet at a swim meet since early 2001. I'm sure I'll have something to say about that.