I’ve got an exciting week ahead of me. On Tuesday night I’m heading out for a 24 hour stay in NYC for a Mabel show. I love getting to that city because I went to grad school at NYU and it gives me the chance to pretend I’m leading that life again - even if only for 24 hours. Next bit of excitement comes on Saturday when I head out for a speaking gig at the International Camping Conference in Quebec City. Because I’m going to also help out Kim (our resident “Camp Mabel” program guru) it will be a longer stay - a whopping 36 hours.
I look forward to staying in a hotel room and having uninterrupted sleep. But this does not come without some major drawbacks.
The first issue is that I spend the entire time away obsessing over how the kids are doing and how daddy-o and caregivers are managing them all. I wonder if I’ve left enough detail on my three-page instruction list on the fridge. I contemplate whether the caregivers will have the instincts to know what to do if thrown a curve ball. I worry that the kids are waking up in the night crying for mama. I generally phone home three times in any 24 hour absence period. It’s a bit overboard, but it puts my mind at rest and allows me to focus on the work I need to be doing.
Last week daddy-o was away for six days. He phoned home once during that time period. Let’s compare our phoning home habits: I call once every five hours; he calls once every 144 hours. How is that for a stark contrast? Admittedly, he was virtually working around the clock, but I’ve worked those kinds of days and if I find time to go to the bathroom, I find time to check on how things are going on the home front.
It must be a real luxury to be away and not have a mama brain that nags you with irrational questions that you can do nothing about anyway: did the baby sleep through the night? Did the six-year-old eat the lunch that someone else packed for her? Did my son get picked up for his social group? Did daddy-o remember to look in their school agendas? Will they know where I put the rain boots if it’s a wet day? The list goes on and on….
The second drawback involves the amount of preparation involved in being away. I’ve had to re-arrange three car pools for my big 24 hour trip to NYC, and that is just scraping the surface of the organising that had to be done.
I remember when I was preparing to go into hospital to have my most recent baby. I was going to be out of commission for five or six days because it was my fifth c-section. I wrote out a very detailed list and highlighted which grown-up was responsible for what task. When I counted up the number of helpful family, friends and neighbours involved, the final head count was 17. There were exactly 17 names on that list and each received an e-mail outlining their assigned duties.
That list confirmed what we have all suspected and now know to be true: it takes 17 regular people to do the job of one mother!

There is a lot of chit chat going on out there about the number of extracurricular activities a child should be enrolled in. With all the talk of free-range children and the importance of unstructured play, parents are re-thinking whether Johnny should be in soccer AND piano, and if ballet AND violin are too much for little Janey.

Getting the kids settled into school over the last few weeks has been one thing, but now I’m trying to settle myself into their new activity schedules and it is proving to be quite an undertaking. You see, I am a self-confessed over-programmer. But I do need to qualify that - my defence is that I don’t have a real choice in the matter. Many parents have to deal with kids who are chronic activity drop-outs. They struggle and fight just to get their kids to finish out the session or term of the chosen activity. I have the opposite problem. When I try telling my kids that it’s figure skating OR hockey, they beg to do both. The rule in our house is each child is allowed one organized sport per season. You should have seen the carry on around here last spring when each child was not allowed to do soccer AND baseball. It was like I was engaging in some type of cruel torture directed at the small people in the house.
The number of activities we’re in is enough to leave our pocket books (and gas tanks) empty. But we made the conscious decision that we wouldn’t necessarily pay for the kids to have things, but to do things. When I reflect on my own youth, it was jam packed with activities. My mom would attest to the fact that I functioned best when my plate was full. That still rings true. During high school, my mom permitted me to take a fair and reasonable number of dance classes. When I didn’t feel that was enough, I cleaned the dance studio and helped in the junior classes to cover my additional class costs. In my final year of high school, I was occupied from the moment school let out until 9:30pm every day. I honestly can’t remember when I did my homework and I’m baffled that I got into university, especially considering I managed to have a fairly fulfilling social life as well. I can hypothesize though, that if I did have more time on my hands, my grades would have suffered and I would not have been as happy a teenager.

I’m guessing my kids are the same so I don’t think we can apply one standard of the acceptable number activities across the board. We mamas know our kids and how much they can handle. We make decisions based on what we are the experts of: our kiddos. No amount of research can convince me that my kids would be happier if I pulled them off the soccer field or ice rink.

But when you have five kids and each are in a few activities, there is the practical issue of getting them to where they need to be. Sure, car pooling is a saviour and I’m all over that, but even still there is a lot of shuttling around that goes on. I’m really quite deserving of an uber-cheezy “Mom’s Taxi” bumper sticker, but sporting that would mean the final good-bye to my very last scraps of cool.

I think before I accept defeat on that one, I’d look into hiring a driver!

Julie Cole LL.B, M.A is one of the founding Mompreneurs behind Mabel’s Labels Inc. (http://www.mabel.ca) and the mother of five.

Myth-Busting the Mompreneur

Maternity leave gives women the opportunity to step away — if only temporarily — from the traditional workforce. But suddenly, baby’s first birthday is around the corner and it’s time to start planning. The questions begin: Where will baby go to daycare? How will I transition to being a working mom?

Occasionally a strange phenomenon can occur at this point – Momma starts thinking about alternatives. Maybe she has an urge to stay-at-home or perhaps a small business idea which has been nagging at her seems possible. This is where more questions arise. The timing is perfect, but can it happen? What would her family think? How could they afford to have her drop out of the workforce? Is she willing to take the risk? Where would she start?

 Speaking as a weathered Mompreneur, I thought it appropriate to share some of the Mabel’s Labels experiences. Over five years ago, Mabel’s Labels was created when I got together with three other moms and we put our clever little business plan into action. Mabel has felt like another child we have nurtured along with our other children. We were thrilled to recently receive the Savvymom Mompreneur of the Year Award.

 We belong to a huge network of Momma customers, friends and entrepreneurs — here are some of the thoughts that swirl around taking the plunge into becoming a Mompreneur.

MYTH: I am going to have more time to spend with my beautiful children. I will be able to talk to customers while the baby naps, breastfeed while reading reports, and go on play-dates around meetings. I may even volunteer at the nursery school co-op a couple of mornings a week!

 REALITY: While you may have more time with the children, you don’t actually have more time. What you now have is flexibility. Flexibility is what allows you to drop the kids off at school or go to the park in the afternoon. What it doesn’t do is get your work done and tuck you into bed at a decent hour. Trading time for flexibility has its drawbacks. The play-date you do in the afternoon equals sitting at the computer til the wee hours. The result is a pretty exhausted Mompreneur — which can make that activity you do with the kids less enjoyable for everyone.

As for thinking you will make phone calls during nap time — you may need to re-consider that one. If your children are like mine, they have an internal sensor that notifies them when there is an important phone call being made. In my experience, this career path is best suited to those who are not too hung up on getting sleep and are very functional without it.

MYTH: It will be fantastic to be my own boss and set my own rules. I won’t be accountable to anyone or have to report what I’m doing or where I’m going. Bring on the freedom!

REALITY: It’s true you are not likely going to fire yourself, but that is where the job security ends. If you’re not accountable to everyone you have business dealings with, the business will fail. So while there may not be one single boss breathing down your neck, there will be numerous other “bosses” who hold even more power — the ability to make or break your business. At Mabel’s Labels, our list of “bosses” is endless and includes customers, staff, suppliers, business partners, just to name a few. Suddenly one nagging boss doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

 MYTH: I don’t have the money to start a business

REALITY: Clearly this aspect will be different for every business plan, but don’t assume that because you want to start a business it’s going to cost a bomb. Many Mompreneurs have started successful businesses on buttons and pocket lint. Women are not inclined to go to banks and get big loans to start a business. We prefer to hit up the people close to us – parents, husbands, partners, neighbours, innocent by-standers. Many successful Mompreneur start-ups are the direct of result of “love money.

So before writing yourself off as an Entrepreneur, sit down and really budget what you will need to start your business. You may be surprised by the resources you can tap into.

MYTH: Working alone will be isolating. I’ll miss interacting with adults and the office social scene.

REALITY: You may not be attending power lunches or catching after work drinks on a Friday, but you are hardly alone. The Internet provides Mompreneurs endless opportunity to research, network, blog, message and facebook. It allows you to communicate with customers, peers, colleagues, moms and experts. The best part is no one will ever know that you are doing it all from the comfort of your home while wearing pajamas soaked in sour milk. The Internet provides resources that never clock out. Once ensconced in the Mompreneur scene, you quickly discover the invaluable network the Internet provides both professionally and socially.

Is the Mompreneur lifestyle for you? That may be up for debate. It is certainly not for everyone and there is a lot to consider. For me the answer was clear — though you can often find me hunched over my computer well-past midnight, I wouldn’t trade foggy-brained afternoon playdates for anything.