This morning, after dropping the girls off at school, my son proclaimed, “Mommy, I’m bored with you.” Ouch…that hurt.

He followed this up with, “And I don’t want to go home.” Gee…neither do I. The house is a mess and I’ve run out of fun things to occupy you while I attempt to squeeze in work.

But I get it, because quite frankly I get bored with the same ‘ol routine of working mommyhood too. This is especially true during a time when I expected to be back to my normal work routine, with the end of summer break, the girls back in school and ‘Lil Man back with his caregiver part-time. So I suppose my son is just expressing our shared disappointment that he won’t be returning to “Tammy grade” for now, and is stuck with me while we figure out an alternative child care situation.

Beyond the whole child care dilemma that is obviously consuming my mind, his words caused me to lament over the lack of family support we have since moving a couple years ago to a city where, at the time, the only person we knew was the real estate agent who helped us find a place to live. Today, we know some more people, so don’t feel too sorry for me. I’m not totally friendless. But, there’s nothing like being close to your extended family of grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins and yea…in-laws. My husband, my kids and I are bored with each other because we’re all we see most of the time!

(ugh) Take me back to Cali!

As if I don’t already have enough to keep me busy, I’m preparing to take the SPHR (Senior Professional in Human Resources) certification exam in December. Today, I refreshed my knowledge of the FMLA, or Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, which most every working mom should know about.

You may understand FMLA as a federal law that enables you to take up to 12 weeks of job-protected, unpaid leave for the birth and care of your newborn child, for the placement of a son or daughter in your home as a result of adoption or foster care, or for your own or an immediate family member’s serious health condition. Depending on where you live, you may also be protected by additional state laws; for example, in California you have the added protection of the California Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL) and California Family Rights Act (CFRA). I don’t want to re-hash all the details FMLA in this post, so if you’re curious about whether you’re eligible for FMLA then check out the Department of Labor web site and also contact your employer’s HR representative.

The part about FMLA that new moms often overlook is that under some circumstances, you can take FMLA leave intermittently. That means you can take leave in blocks of time, or by reducing your normal weekly work schedule. So, if you take six weeks of leave after giving birth or adopting a child, you’re still eligible for six additional weeks of protection under FMLA. As a savvy integrated mother, you might use those final six weeks, or 240 work hours, to negotiate a flexible work arrangement (i.e. part-time, flex-time, etc.) with your employer and protect your job at the same time. That’s pretty good stuff!

By the way, new dads are also covered under FMLA, so why not encourage him to take advantage of these same benefits so you’re no doing the whole new working mom thing alone?

Lately, my home feels like a battleground as my three children - 7, 5 and nearly 3 - engage in non-stop verbal, and sometimes physical, disputes over just about everything. Most of it is initiated by my clever little boy, who attempts to leverage his position in the family as “the baby” to his advantage. Usually we’re pretty good about seeing past his manipulative tactics and just avoid engaging in them. But today, my eldest daughter lost control of herself and within minutes I overheard a fairly benign interaction between them turn into a full-out screaming match, with my daughter doing most of the screaming.

After completing my own mini-relaxation process (deep breaths and a quick prayer), I pulled her aside to talk about the situation. After explaining her side of the story she sobbed, “I just don’t know what to do!” Great…another “mom moment” where I swoop in to save the day…let me think…quick.

My impulse was to break out some of my The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People expertise on her and explain the importance of personal responsibility - that you must focus on changing yourself because trying to change others is equivalent to driving into a brick wall at 100 MPH. But that’s a tough concept for most adults to understand, so I drew this pictorial explanation instead:

Translated into 7-year-old speak, “When you fight with your little brother you get stuck in the Angry Circle. No matter what you do, you just get angrier and angrier; so does he. Instead of getting so angry, you can get out of the Angry Circle and move into to the Happy Circle. That might mean walking away and doing something else, being quiet and listening to your brother, or coming to me for help. Once your brother sees that you’re not in the Angry Circle anymore he’ll stop because it’s no fun to be angry all by himself. He’ll want to join your Happy Circle. Get it?”

She nodded tentatively (obviously, not buying my Angry Circle - Happy Circle explanation). Nonetheless, within a few minutes we were off to another topic of discussion and laughing about it. I think she was telling me about a Flat Stanley book she read at school. We had found a Happy Circle.

Moments later, our little “baby” walked into the room wanting to get in on our fun. With a look of surprise and disbelief, my daughter looked up at me and said, “Hey….it worked!” We all ended up laughing together in the Happy Circle.

Are you a mom who know all things Disney? If so, you’ll want to check out this ultra-cool opportunity to share your Disney love!

Launched in 2008, the Walt Disney Word Moms Panel is an online forum that provides first-hand tips and insights for vacationing at the resort from a panel of park-savvy parents. This year, Walt Disney World is looking for a diverse group of moms, dads and grandparents with vast knowledge of the parks and a desire to share their experience with others. And, due to the overwhelming response last year, the 2009 Moms Panel will expand from its inaugural 12 members to 16.

The application window to join this panel is September 8-19, 2008. If you’re one of the lucky moms selected, you’ll receive a 5-night, 6-day vacation to Walt Disney World for four people. In exchange, you’ll be asked to act as a “vacation advisor” for a one-year term where you’ll answer questions and post advice about the Walt Disney World Resort.

So brush off those cute pics of your family, get your bio ready and mark your calendar to apply starting September 8th!

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With the girls back in school, it’s just me and ‘Lil Man until we figure out an alternative child care situation. His regular caregiver is out on medical leave longer than anticipated, so we can either wait (until November) or find someone new. At this moment, it feels better to just keep him home with me. Frankly, it’s much easier to work with just him around, compared to the hysteria of having all three kids home with me this summer while I worked. Speaking of work…

When other moms see the work load I manage, both professionally and at home, they often comment, “I just don’t know how you do it all!” Today, I decided to whittle down exactly what I do and perhaps you’ll find something useful to glean from my approach.

When I step back from the day-to-day mechanics of my life as a working mom, there are three core elements that enable me to maintain the endurance and patience to get through my day and accomplish what I call “my high-leverage actions*:”

1. Relationships
2. Attitude
3. Skill

Relationships. I used to believe that I could do everything on my own; I followed the adage, “if it’s meant to be, it’s up to me!” And that philosophy worked for years. I powered my way through life as a strong, willful, and independent woman! Of course, marriage and motherhood changed all that because I was faced with new and difficult challenges that I didn’t know how to handle. I needed help and that was tough to admit. In the last 10 years, I’ve learned that all the things I do are impossible without core relationships in my life, first with God and then with my husband, family, friends and professional colleagues. This is why I always encourage working moms to develop relationships as a pathway to the all-elusive work/life balance. No…you can’t do it alone and it’s really pretty lonely if you try.

Attitude. I won’t waste your time preaching about The Power of Positive Thinking. That’s good advice, but old news; we’ve all heard it a million times. Besides, to be an integrated mother who does it all, you actually need more than positive thinking to get yourself on track. You need to be willing to do the things that’ll get you there. See that? The key word is willing. Take a moment to reflect on how much time you spend thinking or talking about the changes you want to see in your work/life. Now, compare that to what you’re actually doing to implement that change. You’ve got to have a willing attitude. For example, I’m willing to work less during the summer, reduce my income, and live frugally for a period so that I can be home with my children.

Skill. There are many skills to be learned as a working mother. The one that seems to get most moms caught in a snag is Time Management.  I use a fairly methodical, but proven, approach to manage my time, and it begins with my personal mission statement. This approach works because I’m focused on those “high-leverage actions” I mentioned earlier. Plus, I try to be purposeful in everything I do. Some may say that it’s too much work; trying to find purpose in every aspect of life is trivial. But again, I’m willing to do things people find unconventional because it creates the work/life I want.

So that’s how I do it. How do you do it? Share your ideas on The Integrated Mother Network.

(* high-leverage action = activity that brings you closer to your mission, purpose, goals.)

It’s quiet here. ‘Lil man and I are toiling around the house wondering how to keep each other company. After a full summer of activity, travel, and fun, the girls are back in school today. Well, actually ‘Lil P went for the first time; she started Kindergarten today. ‘Lil C is going into the second grade.

Since I suddenly have a bit more time (and less stress), I’ve been meandering down Memory Lane and thinking about when this journey into working motherhood began. Here’s a mini-photo montage:

Seeing these photos makes me think how quickly time goes by. I only have a fixed number of summer vacation with them before they go off to college! I’m not going to sugar-coat it, Mommy Summer Camp 2008 was a long, exhausting experience for me. There were days when I thought I might scream naked down the street (Don’t ask me why I wrote “naked.” Perhaps to emphasize how crazy I felt at some points during the summer, that running naked down the street would actually be freeing and logical. Anyway, it just came out that way and sounded more interesting.)

The Integrated Mother Bottom Line: I wouldn’t trade this past summer for anything else…especially work.

We had an amazing time on our recent trip to Maryland and I’m still filing through the 100s of photos we took during our 7-day vacation, but this particular one just sums it all up. It’s me with my son in front of the White House and I just had to share it. Priceless.

I’m back from my week-long vacation visiting family out East. Surprisingly, I have more endurance and patience than I realized. If you ask me how I managed to remain calm, friendly and caring during a six-hour plane ride to and from Baltimore with my kids - without the assistance of my husband who had to stay behind -  and then endured a week of non-stop activity, I can’t exactly tell you. Perhaps children and over a decade with a terrific guy (my husband, of course!) has actually grown me into a better person. Yea…that’s cool.

Overall, it was a really great trip. I loved being near family and it made me put “move to the East” on my short-list of possibilities for the future along with my other desire, “move back to California.” Yea, that’ll be a treat trying to figure out.

While I was there, I picked up a pretty cool life lesson too. I discovered that the key to my happiness rests with me. Okay, I know that isn’t necessarily earth-shattering information. After all, on a recent search of “happiness” on Amazon.com books, there were over 288,000 results, which means that someone else probably already made this discovery years ago. But reading about the the secret to true happiness and actually living it out are two totally separate things.

Basically, it comes down to this - I’ve spent a lot of time trying to live up to other people’s expectations. Whoa…before you start offering any pop-psychology tips, you might want to know I already have a library of self-help books on the topic…like I’ve said before it’s all much easier to talk about than implement. Anyway, I realized during my trip, that while my work/life isn’t ideal for a lot of people, it’s ideal for me at this moment and I like it.

Bottom line - I’m happy. But don’t mistake this happiness for complacency. Everyday I wake up with a passion and vigor to fulfill (and exceed, because I’m a die-hard over-achiever) my commitment to be terrific wife, mother, writer, consultant, professor and every other role in my very full life. Now, my only struggle is turning down the incessant echo that advice from well-intended people seem to leave behind in my head. That I’ll take some suggestions on.

p.s. If that totally rude woman on the July 29th Southwest flight 463 out of Phoenix happens to read this blog post, while I appreciate your curt suggestion to get my 2-1/2 year old son to stop crying and kicking the back of your seat as we were making our final descent into Nashville, I think you’re a heartless meanie who lacks understanding. Oops…maybe I haven’t learned how to be quite as patient and friendly as I’d like!

Starting today, I’m on vacation visiting family for the week so you won’t see any new posts. We’re all totally bummed that my husband couldn’t make the trip with us. 

At this very moment, I’m being cattle herded onto a Southwest flight with my three kids and silently praying we’ll all remain on our best behavior for the duration of the flight to the East coast - Lord, please help me with this and let there be kind, understanding people seated near us because I don’t want to sling mom-itude to folks who give me the evil eye for having rowdy kids on the plane.

If you need something to keep you busy while I’m away, here are some things you can do:

• Follow my Twitter updates at http://twitter.com/integratedmom
• Connect and network with other working moms here.
• Browse my old blog posts - I’ve been blogging since 2005 and there’s some pretty good stuff buried here!
• Visit some of my favorite sites:

Alltop - featuring all the top Mom sites (including this one!)
BookieBoo
Dooce
Mommy Track’d
Motherhood Uncensored

See ya in about a week!

I wrote this post for another blog in June, while I was on my mini-vacation to Chicago. I meant to share it with you here, but time got away from me, so here it is now…

Every mother knows the feeling of guilt. In fact, I think we learn this feeling far before having children.

I’m in Chicago for the weekend visiting my sister for a much needed break from mommy summer camp. I rarely have time away from my responsibilities as a working mother, yet I’m just half-way through my “me time” trip and feel a bit guilty.

• I feel guilty about leaving all three of my kids with my husband for 3-1/2 days. (poor him!)
• I feel guilty that the kids won’t experience my “mother’s touch” for 3-1/2 days. (poor them!)
• I feel guilty that I went out to two restaurants today, shopped at the outlet mall and had a good time without my family. (poor, poor them!)
• I feel guilty that I might have overeaten (okay, I overate big time) today and will overeat again tomorrow at the Taste of Chicago. (poor me!)
• I feel guilty that despite my best intentions, I don’t really feel like waking up at 6 am tomorrow to go running. (my poor body!)

There’s more, but you get the point. Isn’t it crazy how we long for time away…a break, a moment, anything to regain our sanity…yet, we spend that away time overcome with sorrow and worry about the ones we left behind, or chastising ourselves over “shouldas?”

I’m over it now though. I deserve this break; my family deserves it too. And my body could use a good ‘ol Chi-town hot dog with everything on it. Okay…I’m having a hard time convincing myself of that one!