Anyway, regardless of the pandemic, the kids are known to linger around my office, come in and out, often play under my desk as I work, and have even hung on my neck as they sit tightly with me on my chair. Side note: If you ask me “have I breastfeed while drawing up plans or modeling a 3d site proposal, the answer is also yes”. I love my kids and they are a part of my every day business. I am also not ashamed of being a working mom and mastering the art of doing both. I am proud of this and so why not share it with the rest of the world. Back to the meeting, so during this time, the kids could not interrupt. I do keep my professional face when needed, and this was one of those times. Again, today, I was leading the discussion by displaying, and explaining our architectural design proposal.
So, the conversation went like this:
“Boys, please go to your rooms and keep the doors shut, I am going to set an alarm in your room and you must stay in there for an hour and a half, no you are not prisoners, yes I do love you very much, I just need for you to read for 30 minutes write for 30 minutes and then play together for 30 minutes on either a math game or any of these toys you have chosen”
Earlier, we had gone in the playroom to pick some of their toy choices, legos, chess, and construction paper to make gingerbread people for a school project.
“Then you can quietly go and eat the lunch waiting for you in the kitchen.”
I usually mass cook on a sunday and then each day in the morning I have breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared for the family. As a working mom, and a mom of hungry boys I find that half the battle won, is having food ready to go. I highly suggest glass containers to pack cooked meals and then just reheat at mealtime. I have taught my children how to use the toaster and microwave at the age of 2, so they are pretty savvy around the kitchen. Well, they were very happy with their schedule, and meal waiting for them.
And, then before I almost left I made this very important point clear:
“No pooping in the foyer bathroom.”
Sorry to be crude but for some reason the boys love to go to the bathroom there and it is adjacent to my office. So, I don’t want any of that background noise related, as my camera and video is on. They giggled and thought this was so funny. So, I figured that was consent. I left them rolling around happy and laughing in their room, and got down to my office with time to spare. I delivered our architectural proposal, and took the city’s audience through the visualized renderings and plans, the inspiration and internet for the project. At the end, there was silence.
Thankfully, the kids still seemed preoccupied upstairs, so the silence could not have been a surprise element from that angle, the kids that is, so I said “open for discussion,” waiting to hear feedback. The audience spoke up and led with “spectacular” and then added “a wow moment, this is so great.” So exciting, everyone in the meeting was happy, and I managed to leave mom out of the office today as nobody observed two kids on my neck, no baby on the breast, no loud pooping sounds from the hall. Nope, that was a good silent moment, where people were happily surprised and collecting their thoughts to put into words about the architecture, as art. So, I was full, and everyone else left the meeting happy as well, and now we can move forward and we are all very excited to be working together on this philanthropic and community vision of a cultural arts center that is going to impact the world in so many good ways. I breathe this successful moment in, let it sink in and feel how grateful I am. I tie up a couple more calls as I hear the bowling balls upstairs who seem to be getting louder as they are holed up there, so my next move is to go up stairs and share my happy news with them. “I did it guys.”
And I expected them to pinball out of there, excited by their release. But instead one hugs me and says “I am so proud of you” and the other says “you can do anything, mommy, I am so proud of you too”. I am filled with joy of their support, and tell them that I am proud of them too for doing their work, staying respectfully quiet during my meeting, and not using the hall bathroom. We all had a good laugh again and skipped (and snapped) down the stairs for lunch.
Good day of achievement.
