2 Years, 2 Kids, 2 MBAs was Easy Compared to This

I’m three weeks into my new job and whenever I tell the story about how hubby and I attended business school together with two kids I have to explain that it was not so tough, because we had Marina Poppins, and she was the best ever. In the past 21 days I have become totally amazed by all working mothers. I mean, I know I worked after I returned from maternity leave in 2007, but that seems like eons, no, light years ago and our family was 25% smaller at the time. I don’t remember the pangs of dressing small bodies in the morning, or fixing breakfast, or packing lunches, or really any of it. But then again, I hardly remember how painful childbirth was.



You know on TLC, after a first-time mother sees her precious beautiful miracle for the first times she sheds tears of joy? That was not me. Of course, I selflessly, unconditionally love my children, but my first thought after I saw Amari was ‘he’s going to be an only child.’ Because I am never ever ever eva doing that again. So, with time, memory fades, and thus, I cannot remember feeling so burdened as a working mother years ago. I do not feel the guilt that so many moms say they experience. I am overjoyed to return working. I love what I am doing and where I am so, and I would not trade that to spend all day with my sons right now.


Whoa, yes, I just said I would rather be at work than playing, cuddling and kissing my boys all day. And there is a very logical reason for that. There are many, many things that come with the blessing slash chore of being a stay at home mom. The past two years at NYU I had so much flexibility that I had the best of both worlds, and now I am slave to the ‘get-through-the-day-so-that-you-can-get-ready-for-tomorrow’ task masking.


I woke up at 5:55 and hit the snooze button one time too many. After getting showered and dressed, it was 6:50 and then it was on to the boys. I got them dressed, took Amari to the potty, brushed his teeth, put oil on his hair, and then began all over again with Joshy. I changed it diaper, which thank God was just number 1, wait no, it was a number 2 this morning, got him dressed and then packed him in the stroller.


I put ice packs in the lunch boxes hubby packed the night before and then grabbed my laptop bag and headed for the car. It takes about 10 minutes to walk from our apartment door to the car and get both boys strapped into their carseats. We headed to daycare, and then parked and unstrapped, got the lunches and headed inside. I got Joshy and Amari set up at a table to eat breakfast (oh yeah, I put two bananas and cinnamon rasisin bagels into their bags before we left home). While they started their day off with a wholesome meal, I filled out their daily status forms, changed the sheet in Joshy’s crib and then initialled the sign in sheet.


By now it’s 8:10 and traffic on the Merritt is thicker than I would like. At 5:03 PM I head back to the car to do the reverse of everything I did this morning, except it’s the Thursday before Labor day, so traffic is really bad, and I’m not going to be there by 6, so I exit off the Merritt to trek through the back roads of North Stamford to make it to the daycare by 5:48. We get home (after a car ride full of questions about where’s daddy and where’s Traci), and daddy’s home! Woohoo! He fixes dinner while I finish a sell deck for work, and then I feed Joshy some spaghetti (with jerk – it was nasty, don’t do it). I put on a movie for Gadget and then head downstairs to exercise because I have not felt sweat drip down my face in the past seven days. And now I’m writing this post and it’s 10:34. I still have to shower and put up the dirty dishes. So what didn’t get done today? No one bathed the boys, but we did lay out their clothes for the week on Sunday.


And I will repeat this routine tomorrow.

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September 3rd, 2009 • 2 Years 2 Kids 2 MBAs, Children, Health & Fitness, Marriage, WOHM, Wife.

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The Ice-Machine that Saved Our Marriage

Hubby loves to fill his glass brimming to top with ice. Big chunks of ice, fresh out of the freezer. The only problem is that I hate to refill the ice trays. So, when we moved into our apartment in Stamford and saw the ice machine that came with the fridge we thought it would be great. In fact, every time hubby is parched, he heads straight for the freezer and reaches into the deep tray of ice. There are no more ill-spoken words about abandoned ice trays on the counter. No more disappointment when reaching into the freezer only to find one, malformed ice cube left in the tray. And for that, I say “thank you, ice-making-machine.”

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August 12th, 2009 • Husband, Marriage.

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Another Wedding

On Friday a dear friend came into town to attend a Stern classmate’s wedding. Hubby and I found a babysitter, and left the boys for ten hours to drive down to New Jersey to celebrate another blessed union. On the way there we experienced stop and go traffic and decided to try out our internal compasses.



We ended up in an exclusive neighborhood in Rye, New York. Hubby pulled over to regroup and figure out how to get back to the interstate, and a car pulled up in front us and rolled down the window. The driver told us that we were parked on some grass that his neighbor had just planted and for us to get off of it. This was such as a lie, as the grass was worn, dry and missing patches. Most importantly, it was not anybody’s yard.



Hubby asked him the route back to 95 South, which he gladly told us. I wanted to tell HIM where he could go, but figured it was not the best place for that. We arrived slightly late for the ceremony. It was just in time to blow bubbles on the couple as they exited the church. The reception, however, was absolutely gorgeous. The photo of the bride captures the atmosphere at the wedding. I heard they were even giggling during their vows.



The food during the cocktail hour was scrumptious. Hubby had four lamb chops, and I savored on the crab and sliders. The view from the reception hall included a small waterfall and fresh landscaping. We took advantage of the opportunity and snapped some photos together.



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August 9th, 2009 • Husband, Marriage, Wife.

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I Just Realized…

As hubby and I were talking yesterday, I realized what a gamble he took when marrying me. Being a father has been at the top of his list of life goals for a long time, and I can’t see him being truly happy and fulfilled without children, and especially a son, to raise in his image.

When hubby and I were courting, I had some of the typical female issues, like cramps and the like. My mother strongly pushed me to have exploratory surgery, because she was convinced I had endometriosis. I felt as though that was a big jump to make. It was like when Joshy is hungry, instead of just pointintg at the food item he wants, he screams like his last meal was in 1943. At the time, surgery was a HUGE deal to me. As a matter of fact, this was the first (of many subsequent) surgeries, and I was rightfully cautious and slow with agreeing to lie down and let someone slice me open just to see what I looked like on the inside.

I knew a lot of friends that had it rough every 28 or so days, and I thought that was just a part of life as a woman. Well, my mother knew, with a sixth sense conviction, that the pain I was experiencing was not normal. She did not want me to suffer the emotional tornado of infertility issues. So, after receiving confirmation from God that surgery was indeed the right way to go and necessary, I agreed to have laparoscopic surgery.

You know how people say that moms are always right? Well, my mom was spot on like a ladybug. I had moderate endometriosis which was causing my pain. Now, the thing about surgery, any kind of surgery, even the same day, minimally invasive, small procedures that they try to minimize as though you are getting your finger pricked, ARE BIG DEALS. You know its a big deal because because of all the waivers and legal documents that you sign before they open you up.

The biggest “complication” I rememeber on my medical waiver (obviously, other than death), was risk of hysterectomy. Now, I was 22 when I had this surgery. Hopefully, I had a loooong life full of reproductive opportunities in front of me at that age, but you can’t naturally reproduce without all your lady parts. So, seeing that if something went wrong, like massive internal bleeding, removing something that would prevent hubby and I from ever having kids the natural way was a gargantuan deal.

So, the other day, I just realized that when hubby married me, there was a possibility that we could never have children the old fashioned way. And we want to have lots of children the old fashioned way. He married me inspite of these issues, and that’s pretty cool.

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July 29th, 2009 • Children, Family Planning, Fatherhood, Husband, Marriage, Pregnancy.

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First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage

We had lunch today with one of hubby’s dearest friends, Alvin, and Alvin’s girlfriend. The couple has been dating for just over a year, and it reminded me of us back in the day. Back in the day when we were swiftly heading down the endorphin waxed slope that ended in marriage. For us, we met in March of 2002, and in March of 2004 we were engaged, two years to the day that we met. Hubby had this requirement that we had to court for two cycles of all the seasons. He had this theory that people act differently throughout the seasons, let’s says for example, if you get depressed during the winter time, so he observed me throughout all these environments.

The goal of all of this is to make sure that your potential future spouse doesn’t become a vampire when you’re not looking, but just between June 10-15th. The thing is, no amount of time can predict exactly how your lifelong mate will act in different environments. Let’s take for example business school. I definitely thought I knew what was coming for our marriage when we entered NYU Stern’s fulltime MBA program. I naively concluded that it would be just like our undergraduate experience. We were both Electrical Engineering majors at Georgia Tech throughout our entire courtship, so I had this MBA thing in the bag.

Ha, ha, ha. Spending first semester pregnant and at home with a one-year old boy while my husband attending DAILY recruiting events that ended at 10PM at the earliest was not quite my idea of going to business school TOGETHER. Yes, we took classes in the same building, but we were rarely in each other’s classes. Yes, we tried to travel to and from school together, but that meant coordinating ALL of our extracurricular activities, and that wasn’t happening. All in all, it felt great to know that hubby was somewhere in Kaufman with me, but it was not like at Georgia Tech.

The result was a lot of unmet expectations. I say all of this in hopes that the next married couple who attends b-school at the same time will not fall into the pit of uncommunication (apparently that’s not a word). It is a deep, deep pit that is lined with resentment and bitterness if you remain trapped inside. I don’t think we fell really deep into this pit, but we were down deep enough that we, again, realized that business school, just like everything else was only possible with God, prayer, supplication and all the other things Jesus needed in the wilderness.

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July 26th, 2009 • 2 Years 2 Kids 2 MBAs, God, Husband, Marriage.

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