If you’ve ever walked into the store and seen a lovely lady fashionably clad in great jewelry and with a killer smile, then you’ve had the pleasure of meeting Kelly – co-owner/founder, mom of three, Martha Stewart, breastfeeding advocate, empowered childbirth champion, do-it-all.  She always wears a smile despite how hectic her days become.  Here, Kelly has documented a day in her very fashionable and crazy life.

Wake up at 5:30 am to try and keep the number of awake children under two, because if one more wakes up it is really going to be a long day.

Shower, dress and feed several people.

Prepare lunches and then get in car (warning: you should love your car, lots of time will be spent there)

Enter carpool line, drop-off  your eight year old.

Park and go inside to pick up paperwork for PTA.  Chat with outgoing PTA president who no doubt wants you to volunteer for one or nine things.  (note: Yes I could have skipped one step by avoiding the carpool line but I can’t bring the child into the school because he is too cool for that and needs to be dropped off.)

Next stop: pediatrician for a well-visit.  You hear about statistics and development; and then console a weeping six year old because she wanted to be told that her eyes needed glasses.  Two out of the twelve children in her class have needed to get spectacles this last month, and she wants them, too.

Back to the car.  Drop off six year old.

Head into work with The Baby.  Work for a few hours, deal with questions, and products, phone calls and woes, and then…

Back to the car.

Pick up two children here, and then one there, and then off to one more stop for the day.

Come home.  Laundry, dishes, homework, cook.

Back to the car (do you see why you should like your car?).  Get the kids, the gear, the coats, the umbrellas, the seats, the drinks, snacks, money and keys all into the car in the rain.

Head to baseball diamond, cheer on your child and other people’s children with more intensity than you have ever summed up for a professional being paid 4.1 million dollars a year.  You watch your child be so incredibly proud of himself, and his body, for what it can do.  You see that amazing joy a team has when they have been modeled a life of sportsmanship and respect.

Back to the car, and when you get home, covered in dirt and rain, with frizzy hair, your little one, The Baby, sits down on the potty and <gasp> goes potty! You will cheer so loudly it will make her jump. After you tuck them all in that night you will sit down and write this blog post, because you hope, you pray that you will never forget this day and all of the amazement of it.

Thank you, Kelly, for doing all of the above and still being able to put a smile on each day for the wonderful customers of Bellani!

PS. When do you sleep?

OK onto a few things I am loving right now.

The first is my Flip that I got for my birthday. Yes we have a video camera but it’s old, and big and well rarely sees the light of day. My Flip is the perfect purse-sized mamarazzi accessory. Singing in the car, capture it on the flip. JT going across the monkey bars for the first time, captured. I love this little affordable gem. The downsides are the charger is sort of cheesy (and sold separately) but I am glad I got it anyway. Also if you shake a lot your videos will shake a lot, the Flip doesn’t have the image stabilization that other video camera (which cost 5x as much) have.

When it comes to make-up I think I am not a brand loyal person and use what looks good on me. Lately I have been obsessed with the new Bare Essentuals 100% natural lip glosses and their new super awesome “Flawless” mascara. I like glosses because lipstick always ends up on my teeth. Seriously, I look like a fool a work. I find the result isn’t the same with these glosses. These go on great, provide some nice color and some shine/sparkle without so much you look like you borrowed Barbie’s lip gloss kit from your 4 year old. However, it’s the mascara that’s my obsession. I love the brush and the natural look of this one. It’s easy to apply, doesn’t clump and lasts all day. When you are running late a little gloss and mascara can make even jeans and a t-shirt look pulled together.

What are you favorite things right now?

Stacey

I decided to save some money after we had our first child and thought that I could take on this task. After all, how hard can it be? The first time went pretty well. It was just an all over color. Maybe it did look a little to red looking back, but doable. Then I started to get creative and try highlights. That’s when I went back to letting a professional do the work for me.

I have a favorite spot, along with several  people at Bellani. It’s a crazy name I have to admit, but has grown on me.  South County Choppers now gives me hightlights, lowlights and when needed a toner. I love Amanda C. she is an artist with hair and my little secret…but I’m in a mood to share so I figured I’d let you in on it.

-Shannon

I work in the high tech industry and have my very own cubicle to prove it. I love my job and have flexibility in the work place but after I cam back to work with #2 I found it hard to pump and fit it all in. There were 7 moms using one space, which was an old shower room converted – there was a rocker, a shelf and an outlet. A keypad lock and a shower curtain kept the room off limits to people passing by. However with 7 women using the room if you missed your pumping start time by 10 minutes because a meeting ran late or whatever you were reduced to pumping in your car, borrowing an office and hoping no one walked in or the worst choice of all a bathroom stall. I spoke to someone in HR about it and got immediate results. They outfitted a room with a wonderful chair, lights, and best of all a sink! Now we had two places to go. I remember the facilities person asked why only 7 women needed 2 places to pump and telling him “well they have 4 lanes on Rte 95 for 1 hour of rush hour in the morning…it’s sorta the same situation with pumping.” He laughed and immediately “got it.”

Not everyone at work was so comfortable with the idea of taking time out to pump. I had to leave an all day meeting twice to pump and I remember a guy (grown man, father of 2) asking “how long are you going to do that?” and eyeballing my pump as I sat it under the table. For some reason his comment brought out the inner lactavist in me and I retorted “THAT…as in feed my child? Probably till she’s 18…THAT as in breastfeed my child? Well it’s none of your business but at least till she’s a year old. But now that I know it makes you so uncomfortable I will bring my pump to every meeting and leave it right next to you on the table…sound good?!” Needless to say he never asked me about pumping at work again!

I found that after I helped get the new mother’s room up and running and after I quietly exited meeting to pump and then return younger female co-workers would ask me about pumping, and other new Mom questions. It actually made me feel good and I didn’t realize until I put it out there in a semi-public way they were too embarrassed to tell their bosses they had to pump and instead sat in meetings uncomfortable and worrying about finding the time to squeeze in another pumping session. I learned speaking up about mom/work/life balance issues helps us all feel a little more normal and we get great advice and support from some of the mostly unlikely people and places. Moms –be it breasfeeding, not breastfeeding, birth mother’s or adoptive moms-are on a journey together and we need to have each other’s backs.

Stacey

I have big boobs; during puberty, I went from no boobs to giant boobs.  I’ve had a lifetime to figure out how to flatter, hide, lift and support them.  Imagine my surprise when I had children and they got even BIGGER!  As I’ve continued nursing my toddler, gone through another pregnancy and had another baby, my boobs have been yo-yoing in size.

What I wonder a lot of the time is what they will look like once all the breastfeeding fun is over.  My instincts tell me they will not miraculously perk themselves up.  I once thought I would never, ever consider getting plastic surgery.  I wanted to enjoy what I was meant to look like.  However, that was all before I knew what breastfeeding could do to your boobs.

Don’t get me wrong, my boobs look like, well, regular old breastfeeding boobs.  But once the they run dry, I’m not so sure they’ll look so appealing.  So yes, I think one day I may consider getting some help in perking up again.  I’m not saying yes for sure; I’m just leaving the possibility open.

How about you?  If you’ve breastfed, do you ever think about getting some assistance in getting the girls up again?

Before discovering this little beauty gem I always disregaurded my hairdresser’s advice to not shampoo everyday, because I felt my hair would look too greasy on day two.  However, with this I can make it out the door without a baseball cap – which let’s just admit is every Mom’s way of telling the entire grocery store “Look I made it here but no way did I shower!”

Give it try, you’ll breeze through the aisles of Bellani looking fabulous and you won’t have to tell another Mom your secret!

Stacey

The topic had reached me and it was my turn to speak. This wasn’t very hard for me. It was something I have thought about for years, but not very seriously. This is what I would like. I would like to walk into Victoria Secrets or Gap Body and actually have more than one bra that would fit me. I have two choices actually: the ultimate push-up or the training bra. That’s it. Most bras don’t even come in my size. Now I understand if you are a C cup that you would want them to be perky, but come on…give the girl who can’t even fill an A cup something to talk about.

Which leads me to my topic: Implants. Do you do it? Is the surgery worth the outcome? Is the cost worth the outcome? I haven’t personally met anyone who has had the surgery. I would love to know exactly what happens and how they felt about it. In the meantime, I’ll just have to create a bra line myself.

-Shannon

As I was driving on a side road I thought about the fact that I barely remember a time without him.  I remember when he was little, I remember picturing him all grown up.  Whatever I never thought about were all the years in between.  His friends, his stories, his love of Pokemon, his lack of front teeth.  It’s so amazing, and endearing.  I’m just so amazed by it all.

kelly

As time went on I still did the picking for who my son and I were going to hang out with. I would scope out the parents and the child and make a date. Life is easy then. You are the judge and the jury.

Flash forward 6 years and now these friendships are being formed by my sons and not by me. Not by me at all. They decide who they like to be around and I have to kind of “go with it.” I don’t know these families from a hole in the wall and I am being thrust into this whole awkward…”dating” thing -getting to know this family my son is smittin’ with.

Why am I writing this? I just had a playdate over here and I am still feeling my way through this. The Mom seems really nice but…we were awkward. While the kids ran off to play – we stood there. Of course we chatted but this is like a whole other level of motherhood. The Mom left and here I was in charge of this whole playdate. The child was a darling and I saw quickly why Noah found this person fun.

But here is my problem – tomorrow they want Noah to come to their house. Do I do the whole “sure – call me when you need me to get him.” Or do I do the whole –“do you have guns? Do you have dogs? Do you know CPR?” thing? I don’t want my son blacklisted because his Mom is crazy.

I’ll let you know what I end up doing – maybe something in the middle.

Take heed – your child is learning about friendship everytime they are around other children – the park, bellani classes, etc. You are giving them the opportunity to see what feels good about being with others and even what doesn’t feel good.

Yeah – I guess I wish arranged marriages were still around but it seems so far that my boys are making some nice choices.

Namaste,

Lisa 

I would like to say that I was lucky because I had a mom who worked “inside” the home for most of my childhood. But as I write this, I feel like a hypocrite because even thought I appreciated that greatly, I am not doing that now. I loved that she would send us off to school (where I grew up in NJ, our town was only 1 mile x 1 mile so there were no buses. We walked everyday and it was uphill BOTH ways!) and be there when we returned. She volunteered for school events (maybe a little too much some times, just kidding mom) and cooked us healthy home made food. I have a sister who is almost 2 years older than me, and we played every sport we could. Soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and softball in the spring (and if my mom was really unlucky, we would make the all star team and travel all summer). My sister and I did this from the time we were 5 years old, until High School where that got into another realm of commitments. Since my mom worked “inside” the home, my sister and I were able to attend all of our commitments and activities.

And I do think that is all wonderful, but the main thing my mom worked on, was to make my sister and I independent. She wanted to raise daughters who thought for themselves, who were strong and had boat loads of common sense. We were raised to call our elders Mr.& Mrs., please and thank you was a must and your napkin was always on your lap when you sat at the table. My mom worked on having my sister and I always look at the others person’s point of view, to know that the grass wasn’t always greener on the other side, and even though you may have it good right now, there is someone out there who doesn’t. I don’t think compassion and empathy is something you can teach by words. It must be viewed everyday and witnessed by the youngest of eyes.

So when asked “Did Our Moms Work”, I had to think what my mom worked on. I look at my children right now, so vulnerable at ages 4 and 6 and wonder what they think of their mom working outside the home. I am hoping in the future they will see a strong woman who started a business from scratch because of compassion, vision and drive. I hope they will feel loved and never felt that my “work” was ever more important than they are. It will be interesting to see in 20 years how the views and opinions will have changed for all “working” moms.

-Shannon