Jun
30
2008
Improvisational Garden
Ever tried to get things done, I am mean really getting things done, while working from home in the company of a breastfeeding infant, a 2 year old with a broken leg and a project loving three and a half year old?
No?
Really?
Well, if you haven’t occasion to run to the DMV at noon on the eve of a holiday weekend, this is the next best way to slowly lose it. I kid.
Last week I had several things I very much wanted (and needed) to get done in conjunction with the launch of the redesigned SaraBear website. I knew that I would need to be aggressive in my activity planning to keep the girls a) less aware of the unrelenting Adirondack humidity and b) relatively out of my hair in order to cross some things off of my list. I knew that my greatest chance of success lay in my successful choreography of a project that would put the big girls in plain sight of the littlest girl.
Successful projects when working from home, in my experience, tend to involve the weaving of said project into your work. Now, even though my girls can steer a mouse through iTunes and sing their abc’s, they have not yet mastered HTML, helping was out of the question. Parking them in front of the tv or computer, while occasionally effective, always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Taking my laptop outside fails as the glare from the sun is too intense and the dirt that Avery gets into and the water that Briar splashes in, put the baby and my computer in peril. Sigh.
Looking at my mountain of things that I take to and from the office each day I spied my research, magazines. A collage? No, that would mean 2 projects rather than 1. It needed to involve both girls and, quite honestly as much structure (read: less choices) as possible to allow more “project-doing” and less bickering. I grabbed a magazine and sought inspiration, it came in the form of water-colored sketches of women in Real Simple, a magazine that I love for its reassurance that everyone is really just trying to figure it out the “it” being managing work, family and organization.
I quickly snipped the heads off the illustrations as the wheels in my head turned, we’d make a garden.
No pipe cleaners…Cardboard from the discarded Huggies box could be stems.
No pots…The diaper caddy could house the garden.
No activity…once finished they could “water” the garden and “pick” the flowers.
I alternately wrapped green construction paper around strips of cardboard while oohing and ahhing over the faces the girls picked and drafted a press release for Eve Gumpel at WomenEntrepreneur.com. The nature of the project allowed for little fingers to assist with positioning and taping and for little sisters to watch while kicking and gurgling.
Now, I may not have found a way to change the world, but I did find a way to get three kids to pass an afternoon without screaming, crying or fighting, while I managed to get things done. All in all, for this working mom, it was a pretty perfect little world for a little while.
