Sami’s birthday (the big 5 – a half decade!) is approaching quickly now, and there’s a lot to do to prepare.

And while her party is quite elaborate, I’m really talking about the space we have to make to fit a whole new year of kid into our house.

I asked Sami to go through and put some toys in a box that she doesn’t play with any more.  She picked out one doll but said she wants to keep “everything else.”  Mostly it just ended in a gigantic mess.

Phase II (aka Phase I of Doing It Right) has involved me sitting in her room for half hour spans putting like toys into separate containers.  So the Little People Pirate Ship is in its own bag with all of the Little People that go with it.  I’m only about half done, but jeez, this kid has almost all of five years worth of toys still in her room!  Mostly from the last three years.  Most of the baby stuff is gone.

Well, I’m looking at what I’ve done and what I’m asking Sami to do (I think we’re going to pick A Certain Number of Big Toys to keep, and garage sale everything else) and it’s kind of inspired me.  Suddenly I’m executing serious fridge and freezer audits and weeding out single plates from sets we no longer use.

The teachable moment here isn’t, “Let’s dump our old toys because we’re getting new toys!”  It’s, “There is a maximum of stuff that we can hold in our space and attention. Let’s try to match our space and attention.”  And this is something I need to teach not just to Sami, but I need to master it myself.

Because just now I feel like my brain might explode from the condition of Having Too Much.  May Sami learn it young.

I’m sure Ben will read this and have commentary to share, but in any case this post is dedicated to Ben and the motivational tidbit he shared with me yesterday.

Jerry Seinfeld has been reported (by Ben) to say that the idea of “don’t break the chain” is a powerful and effective tool for a) productivity and b) habit forming. My real life example is running – I’m resuming my running habit after six months off, and my focus inland performance yet – it’s simply logging miles. I will tick off every day that I’ve run, and try not to miss a day.

(Obviously when incinerate to focus on performance I won’t run every day, but I will work in some kind of low impact fitness on the running rest days. Recovery exercise. This messes with my example, so don’t focus on this.)

Day two, so far so good. I know it’s working because I thought about not working out tomorrow and then immediately rewrote my day so that a run is feasible. I WILL NOT BREAK THE CHAIN!

How many days does it have to be before I can consider the habit formed? I think even time alone cannot tell. Time and my inclinations will tell. However, I’ll add a photography chain after the running chain is built. One task at a time.

Update:
Benjamin Katz: Lifehacker article about it is here: http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-secret

Cheryl Brummer Katz: Oh and here, Lifehacker says it’ll take 21 days. Reiterating some of my habit forming thoughts! http://lifehacker.com/5724234/how-to-form-good-habits-this-year?skyline=true&s=i

New year, new normal… new post.

As usual, we’ll start with some catch-up. I spent June through mid-August in London, on my culinary internship. I spent August through early November in San Francisco, on my “second internship:” the one I should have chosen not to do but was too awesome so I did it anyway.

I came back to San Diego just in time to be job seeking before the Holidays, and into a nearly completely unstructured universe where our daily schedules were completely upended. It was safe to assume I might be working non-traditional hours, Ben had recently quit his job, beating the path back to entrepreneurship, and the only “constant” thing was Sami’s school schedule, which naturally had been jacked by the trip to London and then shuttling between me and her grandparents in San Francisco, and home, Ben and school in San Diego.

Whew. We made it through all that stress and confusion, and emerged a better cook, a fresh entrepreneur, and a kid in a happy, regular routine, respectively.

Needless to say, we are still in the process of writing “the new normal.” I can’t even begin to describe how difficult it is to establish a baseline of normal life, but what I can say is that it feels *absolutely critical.* I feel like a big kid in search of that routine structure – all those things we worked really hard to establish and maintain for Sami – and the epitome of the stiff upper lip of adulthood is learning to live some kind of normal existence without the establishment of that adult routine!

It’s a new year, now. Welcome, 2011! I learned a few hard lessons last year that I hope to benefit from, and never repeat. Mostly, though, I see this new year as a vehicle for adding to my life, and hopefully not spending too much time on my previous regimen of self-flagellation. Here are a few things I hope to write into my new normal:

+ More photography. I left my DSLR at home when I went to London and almost never picked it back up. Here’s to more art in 2010.
+ More singing. Even if it is just in the car or shower, but especially if it involves karaoke, other musicians, or making music on my own!
+ More entertaining. We have a lovely house, and I can cook. Here’s to more people enjoying good food and company at my house this year.
+ More writing! THis blog post, I hope, will be a regular feature of the New Normal. Setting the tone today.

Essentially: + More things that make me happy. Positive additions to life that serve the added benefit of making myself and my life better. If my life is better, our life will be better. That’s the perfect goal, right?

What are you adding for the new year? What do you hope for your New Normal to be?

The July issue of O magazine included a column by Suzan Colón in which she describes her baking habit.  “When in doubt, bake,” she writes.  “That’s always been my answer to uncertainty, maybe ever since I slid that first tin of chocolate cake into my Easy-Bake oven as my mother wondered aloud how she was going to pay the phone bill.”  In an uncertain economy, she faced dwindling employment status and a lot of unpaid time on her hands.  So she baked muffins – a productive activity for her, a pleasant and portable snack for her husband to take with him to work.

Colón’s “Muffin Manifesto” describes the reactions of her friends when they learn about her baking habit.  Who knew that being called a “Good Wife” was more than just two four-letter words?

I can relate to this, because when I left work after the sale of our company, the first way I was able to engage myself in this new angle of productivity was to cook – furiously and a lot.  It was an element of this foreign domestic life that I truly enjoyed, and my gateway into what I’ve taken on.  But I got a wide assortment of reactions when I’d talk about cooking and baking, ranging from eyebrows raised without comment to abject incredulity that my husband comes home to a home-cooked meal (almost) every night.

Well, my mind is on both sides of this matter simultaneously.  I’ve certainly made no bones about the fact that being a stay-at-home-mom in the post-feminist world isn’t the easiest choice to make, nor to explain to oneself after an elite women’s liberal arts college highly academic education in how to observe inequalities and then to compete and feel equal in this world.  I’ve made no bones about questioning whether I’m doing anything at all, even with all the cooking, cleaning, planning, driving, coordinating, parenting, parenting and parenting tallied up.

I’m on both sides of the matter because in my head, I have a sense that the things I’ve taken on are very important.  My kid will grow up with more than a passing sense of how a kitchen works, because that is where most of our food comes from – not cardboard boxes and microwaveable wrappers.  She’ll know where vegetables come from (no, not just the supermarket produce aisle, but plants that have roots in the ground, that sprout and spring forth and blossom into juicy ripe fruits of the vine practically before her eyes) because we grow some ourselves, and buy the rest from farmers.  She has some sense that a home takes work, because she sees someone doing that work every day (and doing it during the day has the added, and oh so important value that there aren’t piles of chores left for all of us to do in the limited night and weekend family time.)  Together we are demonstrating how teamwork and division of labor are contributing to domestic tranquility and a successful relationship.  The things that I do are, underneath it all, just as critical as the paycheck when it comes to sustaining our life and lifestyle.

I’m on both sides of it because at the same time, there’s an ugly bottom line to the life I lead.  I used to get that paycheck for the hard work that I did, and that was a measurable standard of household contribution.  I work a lot harder now, and get paid a hundred percent less.  I have to remind myself of all the benefits I listed above, because by default I don’t feel proud.  By default I feel that most of what I do now is beneath me, because I was trained and educated to do much, much more than this, and to make matters (seem) worse, I actually did and achieved “more than this.”

This post isn’t to glorify my choices and methods.  It isn’t to look down on stay at home moms, even ones who don’t feel the conflict about it that I do.  My point is that I don’t get any medals for making daily life go.  If there is a medal to be earned, it’s for being able to suck up that ugly bottom line and go on doing this amazingly challenging job – for which I was completely unprepared – because I was told from an early age that I could grow up to be anything I wanted.  Anything, if I set my mind to it.

This part falls under the “No one Taught us How to be Grownups” Handbook.  Chapter 2, shall we?  I could grow up to be anything I wanted – but chances are still good that my then-future-husband didn’t calculate housework and child rearing into his “when I grow up” plan.  While that didn’t make it entirely my problem, this speaks to a greater problem that is causing some growing pains first for women and then for people these days – if you have a household where two adults are grown up to be whatever they dreamed of, because they set their minds to it, which one of them should put aside all their self-direction to take care of whatever family plan they’ve agreed on?

In our house, that would be me.  And in my case, that’s kind of OK because as I referred to in a recent post, I’m still trying to figure what I should make out of this shapeless lump I like to call my life.  Ben had a more specific, longer-term idea, and his came along with expertise, willpower and a business plan.  I could have held on to the piecemeal series of jobs I sometimes call a “career,” but in the interest of economies of scale, and in the face of no particularly focused aspirations, it made sense to let him be the breadwinner, a role that he plays well, and for me to be the “homemaker,” a term that I sort of loathe but which suits my job description well.

Being a good wife (as opposed to a “Good Wife”) entails being honest about what parts of the work of household providers one is able to undertake.  Same with being a good husband.  Being a good spouse means examining the relationship to a certain extent as a business partnership.  No one will necessarily end up “perfectly happy,” but all needs are met, and there is always room to improve.

This doesn’t but scratch the surface of the personal negotiations that allow me to function in my current role.  To then receive thinly masked derision from women who still work is… okay, not entirely unexpected, since before I was hired for this role I didn’t understand what a “homemaker”‘s life would be like either… but it is frustrating.  Yes, my husband and child eat home cooked food more often than not.  Why shouldn’t they?  She’s two, and fulfills age appropriate responsibilities in the home; he works hard and does a great job a) supporting us and b) getting his job done.

This IS my job.  I have to take pride in the things I do well.  Not just because it’s my half of the duties that keep a family afloat, but because it’s important to enjoy one’s time.  Even if the reward is the knowledge that I’ve tipped the balance from put-upon, frustrated post-feminist MOM person, to objective and fulfilled team player person; if at the end of the day I’ve spent my time in ways that are not on some level rewarding to me, it becomes a lot harder to enjoy life.

Cooking and baking are not some kind or retro “women’s art,” and they don’t compromise power any more than stamp collecting, playing poker or reading books do.  They are interests and hobbies, however, that fall into a sloppy category called domestic responsibilities, and as such they do have the potential to present threatening feelings and choices.

The larger issue, and the reason that despite having established a pattern of normalcy in this new job title I am unsettled by the compromise I’ve made, is that we ARE all told, for the most part, that we can be whatever we want when we grow up.  Some conscientious parents of people in my generation added a footnote to the effect of, “If you’ve got boobs, remember to factor in the dishes,” but while it was admirable that they created an awareness of how a woman’s life would unfold differently from men’s lives, it isn’t a particularly fair one.

A frank discussion with one’s kid, like the one I’m already constructing to one day have with Sami, would outline that yes, the world is attainable to you with hard work, perseverence and some brains.  But nothing comes without a price.  If you live alone, the sky is the limit.  You have to compromise almost nothing – apply yourself, carve out a career, set goals and achieve, achieve, achieve.  If you make the money, you don’t have to cook or clean, or necessarily be primary caretaker to the children you might be able to afford to have alone or adopt.

If you enter into a life partnership of any kind, you need to be prepared to make concessions.  Housework will need to be done.  Food will need to find its way from the wide world into your mouths.  Clothing will need to be cleaned.  It may not be a gender divide – maybe you will split the chores evenly.  Maybe you will hire someone else for all of them.  Maybe you will each do what is most important to you, and you’ll agree on the resulting state of the home.  Maybe one of you will make far more money, maybe only one of you will work, maybe one of you will need to or choose to stay home.

There no longer need to be predefined gender roles taught by rote to children.  But they do need to grow up prepared for the possibility of compromise – whether they compromise personal relationships to achieve career success, or compromise careers to make their home lives work.  It doesn’t matter whether male or female, even little boys need to learn that they could grow up and make less money than their wives, or might find more fulfillment in being the stay at home parent.

When it becomes not any different sort of predefined role, but truly a choice children, are raised to be prepared to make within the contexts of their own lives, THAT is when we can measure some real progress.

Until that day, in my house we examined our options and I agreed to take on this role.  I don’t think it’s because of gender, and it could be different if I or we wanted it so.  I don’t resent it, but it is something that weighs on my mind from time to time; as it should because I’ve made an enormous cultural adjustment.