For the Love of Camo and Sparkles

The balance of power has shifted in my home. With the Older One now taking up residence at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, the Hubs and the Dog are on their own against myself, my daughter and my MIL, who tipped the scales to the female side when she moved in four months ago.   I have waited many years for an extra jolt of estrogen to make my family complete, and while the Hubs may not be thrilled to be in the minority, I am finding most days to be a new and frilly adventure.

That is not to say that I don’t miss my son like crazy.  His absence is a very noticeable hole in the fabric of our family.   I miss him every day and am constantly reminded that the special relationship between a mother and her son is every bit as strong as the father/daughter one we hear so much about.

Camo Kid - My son wearing Daddy's uniform!

When he was young though, I would get so frustrated while shopping for his clothes.  I was forced to wade my way through row after row of pretty pink shoes and rack after rack of frilly and sparkly clothes to get to the solitary line of boy shoes and the one lonely rack of gray and brown utilitarian boy’s clothes.  Apparently shopping for boys is not meant to be fun!

When he would play, it was with trucks.  I would watch him digging in the sand for hours, wondering how he could stand to have all that dirt under his nails, in his hair, between his toes.  I cringe just thinking about it, but he could not have been happier.

Later it was G.I. Joe and any toy that could cause imaginary destruction.  For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out the fascination with lining up those little green Army men, just to knock them down!  Given the path he has ultimately chosen for himself, I guess he knew exactly what he was doing.

Then came the athletics.  At first it was t-ball, then karate and soccer and basketball.  By the time we hit youth football, the testosterone that invaded my house was, at times, overwhelming.  The Hubs bought me “Football for Dummies” just so I could follow the dinner conversation. Here again, my son knew exactly what he wanted, as he now proudly holds a position on the defensive line for the Army Black Knights football team. (Go Army! Beat Navy!)

My daughter, on the other hand, is all girl. On the soccer field, she is usually not the one running for the ball.  She is the one spinning in circles and admiring her manicure as the ball rolls past.  She’s more in her element during her Saturday morning gymnastics class where her favorite part of the weekly session is comparing the bling on her leotard to the sparkles on her friends’ clothes.

Princess Sparkles makes a grand entrance.

And speaking of sparkles, her closet practically glimmers when we turn on the lights. There is no gray or brown to be seen, and the choices in the stores are endless.  Even her toys have an element of glitter, and she would never even dream of playing with them in the dirt.  In fact, dirt is the enemy. There is no sandbox in the backyard for my four-year-old girl as there was for my boy at that age.  Dirt is now “yucky” and “gross” and cause for tears, where 14 years ago it was cause for celebration.  She would, however, love to play with her brother’s G.I. Joes if I would let her.  Their only role in her make-believe world, though, would be to drive the convertible for Barbie.

For all their differences, however, they are so amazingly similar.  The Beanie Babies that entertained the Older One, now snuggle close to the Young One at bedtime.  This morning during gymnastics class, I watched her sprint down a trampoline runway and launch herself into a pile of foam blocks.  As she laughed, I turned to the Hubs and said, “The Older One would have loved that too!”  Somewhere in the future I suppose, she will prefer football to soccer as well. The football team, after all, has a corresponding cheerleading squad that wears skirts and does cartwheels.

Tonight, after baking cookies and donning Minnie Mouse pajamas, the Young One will peruse her bookshelf, searching for the perfect bedtime story.  Chances are high that she will choose the same one she has picked every night for the last two weeks–a well-worn copy of a Richard Scarry popup book that lived on that same shelf 14 years ago.

I will turn the pages.  She will pull the tabs with fascination, and we will both shake our heads sadly when she gets to that last popup and says, “My brother ripped that one.”  She will be momentarily saddened that she will never pull that last tab, but my heart will warm with the memory of a little boy whose hands held the same cherished book and smiled with delight when his little fingers made the pictures come alive.

Yes, the balance of power has shifted…, but not much has changed.  I still pick up scattered Beanie Babies and read bedtime stories.  I still chauffeur a child to sports practice, and I still love two children.  One is just a little further away than the other and prefers to wear digitized camo instead of sparkles.

Stiletto Momma

Observations From The Boardroom

I take it as a point of pride and a testiment to my business acumen that I am invited to participate in my company’s quarterly board meeting reviews.  Someone in the chain of command believes the work I do on a daily basis is significant enough to warrant review and discussion with business leaders across the company as well as the CEO himself.  It is a great boost to the ego, and if all goes well, it offers an injection of self-confidence that lasts at least until the next conference call or project meeting.

But as much as I enjoy being invited to these elite board meetings, I hate the fact that I am the only woman in the room.

My torture device of choice.

Until not that long ago, I worked for a Fortune 100 company that saw the need for diversity in the work place to be a priority almost on par with the need to aggressively drive up our stock price. I rarely attended a meeting where I didn’t see someone else in the room who looked like me. In many cases, that person who looked like me was the most senior leader in her business. These were the women I aspired to be. Like them, I wanted to be one of the women invited to the board meeting.

When I interviewed with my new company, I commented to the executive recruiter I was working with that I was concerned because everyone I interviewed with was white and male. He  assured me that generating a more diverse workforce was one of the company’s initiatives. Needless to say, a few more people have been hired into leadership positions since me–all of them male. So, as I sat in the boardroom last week and looked around to see one man after the next take a seat at the table, I began to make some observations on what it is like to be the only girl in the club.

1. The Suit - At the proclamation that the board meeting attire was “business” (as opposed to “business casual”), a collective groan was heard down the hall. “I hate wearing a wearing a jacket all day,” one collegue complained. To me, the attire declaration went almost unnoticed.  On most days in the office, you’ll find my clothing choice to include a jacket or a “completor piece”, as my friends on TLC’s What Not To Wear describe how a jacket or sweater is used to to elevate an outfit to a different level.  That elevation is exactly the inequality I have felt for years.  In order for a woman to be taken as professionally as her male counterpart, she must routinely dress herself at a higher level. I learned this lesson while at that diverse Fortune 100 company, as most of those women I admired were always seen wearing a suit or jacket even when not presenting to senior leadership. The men, on the other hand, wear their golf shirts and button-downs as their daily uniform.

2. Torture Devices - As I walked down the hall to the boardroom, I met up with a sales vice president.  He took in my business attire (a truly sharp, brand new, tan pant suit over a silk tank in a tasteful reptile print with coordinating accessories), and said, “You didn’t wear a tie? That’s not fair!”  My response?  “No. No tie for me, but I am wearing four-inch pointy toe pumps. Would you like to trade?”  For the dinner following the meeting, my boss respectfully told everyone, myself included, “No tie for dinner.”  It was very nice of him to consider his team’s comfort at dinner.  We really can’t expect the guys to have to deal with a little adversity while they eat.  I, however, kept my four-inch pointy toe shoes on my aching feet throughout the entire meal!

3. Bio-Breaks - Board meetings at my company are all-day events with two miserly breaks distributed throughout the day.  The only thing that saves me from some serious bladder issues is the fact that our CEO is a chain smoker whose need for a cigarette happens just about as often as my need for a trip to the little girl’s room.  The guys it seems, can sit there four hours straight without a care in the world.  On the plus side, the smoking area and the restrooms are in the same general direction, so I was able to get some extra face-time with the CEO on the way out the door, while the men stayed behind loosening their ties.

4. Language - Prior to my first board meeting appearance last year, I was prepped by my peers to expect our CEO to launch several “F-Bombs” during the course of the meeting.  I don’t think their warning was a concern for my gentle nature so much as a statement of things to come.  When the first meeting ended without a single utterance of anything that would be considered colorful, I commented about the lack of four-letter words.  One collegue quickly joined the conversation to declare that the only reason our illustrious CEO was so tame was because I was in the room, and he probably didn’t want to offend a woman.  There may be some truth to that, as I have participated in four board meetings now and have yet to be a victim of his notorious F-Bomb attacks.

Regardless of the lack of estrogen in the boardroom, I don’t regret my decision to leave the Fortune 100 company for the smaller, less diverse employer.  While I am one of only a handful of women who work in my office, I don’t feel discriminated against, just a little lonely to not have another female to make these observations with while sitting in that boardroom.

Hopefully, one day soon, I will be able to add someone to my team, and I intend to make sure that person looks like me.  In the meantime, I’d love to hear your observations from the boardroom.

Be comfortable in your pointy toe pumps!

Stiletto Momma