Author Archives: The Harried Mom

Talk About A Bun in the Oven…Or Maybe a Loaf! An Adventure in Baking.

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve loved being in the kitchen-not just to eat, but to actually cook! When I was a toddler, I could spend hours sitting on the floor with the pots and pans cabinet doors open, playing happily with a wooden spoon and stirring up my own creations. As I got older, I would help my mom out on Sundays as she cooked our big Italian family meal. It wasn’t too long before she handed the reins over to me to do the whole Sunday shebang myself. Over time, I perfected my Sunday sauce (I like to use both pancetta & anchovies), meatballs and pasta dishes. As I developed my culinary skills, I was soon cooking all of our holiday meals, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Flag Day…you get the idea. I guess I turned out to be a decent cook! After I got married, I enjoyed treating the hubs to a romantic meal…and after our two kidlets came along, cooking became even more challenging! I still love to find new and exciting recipes and discover new foods to try as well as incorporate into tried-and-true recipes.

What I love about cooking is that it is not an exact science. For me, it’s about taste, adding a dash of something here, a dab of this there. I think that attitude helped my cooking ability-but unfortunately; it’s also made me a truly HORRIBLE baker. I’ve found baking is so precise: too much baking powder, not enough sugar, or not enough water and you’ve made a disaster. Whether it is made from scratch or from a box, if I’m baking it, it’s nearly guaranteed to be a total food fail! Pound cakes that could be used as doorstops, pre-made cookie dough in my hands made cookies that were either burnt or raw…usually on the same cookie sheet! Breads and baked desserts in our house are almost always from someone else’s kitchen! Needless to say, I was more than a little skeptical when I got a box of Bountiful Beer Bread Mix from my friend and fellow mommy Joan Flores, who recently became an independent consultant for Tastefully Simple. Joan told me that there was no way that I could mess this up, that making and baking it would be so simple, even a two year old could make it. With my track record of baking I was sure it would be another epic fail, so I took Joan’s advice to heart and I had my 2-year-old daughter make the beer bread for us!

Okay, so I had to help out just a little a bit with making the bread. We all know that 2-year-olds are resourceful, but where could she get a 12 oz bottle of beer without having to show some REALLY good fake ID? How would she know how to turn the oven on to 375 degrees, or set the timer to 50 minutes??? So I helped, but in all the ways that wouldn’t really impact the “making” or mixing of ingredients of this bread.

As you’ll see from the photos, my little girl is a baking whiz. Now when they say the Tastefully Simple recipes are simple, they aren’t joking. Open package, pour in 12 oz of beer, place in greased bread pan, pour a little melted butter on top (totally optional, but come on, it’s butter on bread, who would pass that up) and pop it in the oven. There was no kneading or rising time, and it literally took about 5 minutes from opening the box to the oven.

My daughter’s favorite part was adding the beer and seeing the batter all foam up. We wound up using a dark lager, one of the Irish kind, so it kinda looked like a sandcastle was erupting. Her eyes lit up and she let out a little chuckle. For a first timer, her mixing and spatula skills were excellent and she poured the butter — mmmm, butter! – on like a culinary pro.

After 50 minutes of baking, my daughter & I checked on the bread – it was a lovely golden brown and gave off a nice, homemade aroma. The real test would be at dinnertime – when I served it up to the family alongside the turkey noodle soup I made (see, good cook here – I used Turkey Day leftovers to make a totally different delish- dish). I am happy to report that the bread was a HUGE success. It was so tasty and as of this morning there was only one slice left, which I scarfed up walking out the door to work with my hubs (sorry, honey!). The box suggests all the yummy things you can add to the mix like fresh herbs or Parmesan cheese, or maybe use the finished bread to make grilled cheese sandwiches or cut up into cubes and dip into spinach artichoke dip. I think it might be time heat up the oven again.


I’m buying a few more boxes of the Bountiful Beer Bread, along with the Absolutely Almond Pound Cake & Ugly Chocolate Cake mixes. Some are for me and some are perfect as stocking stuffer gifts for some of my family & friends.

Starting today and running thru Wednesday, December 7, my mommy-preneur friend Joan Flores of Tastefully Simple is running a Holiday Giveaway especially for The Harried Mom Facebook friends and Twitter followers. Ordering by Dec 7th guarantees that you will have your tasty items delivered in advance of the holidays for proper gift distribution! Why not help out a fellow mom who is making a go of her own business!

All you have to do is log onto either: http://www.tastefullysimple.com/web/jflores4 or www.tastefullysimple.com and check out the catalog and make your Tastefully Simple selections.

When it’s time for you to checkout, make sure to attach your order to Host – me, Debra Fazio-Rutt AKA The Harried Mom (there, now I’m fully revealed, so much for mystique!). Every time orders, now we’re talking all combined sales reach $200, one random order-er from The Harried Mom from will receive a free gift! FYI – if you order the Classy Chocolate Pound Cake Mix Tastefully Simple donates $1 to the Share Our Strength’s No Kid Hungry campaign – so that’s an added bonus! HAPPY SHOPPING.

For full disclosure here, this is not a sponsored post from Tastefully Simple. I am not being paid in any way here and the only compensation I received was one box of the yummy Bountiful Beer Bread Mix from Joan that my family made and ate at dinner this past Sunday night!

What’s the best meal you cook?  What can you whip up on a second’s notice or without a recipe?

Teaching Kids How To Give Back During The Holidays – Children’s Hospital of NJ

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This past weekend we went as a family to go grocery shopping.   Normally, grocery shopping falls to me, by my own choice.  I’m one of those crazy couponers – I look at it as a game to get the groceries we need and eat, but for the lowest price possible.  Seeing a savings at the bottom of my receipt gets me giddy.  I also usually take one of the kidlets along to “help” me, and feel involved with helping the family.  However, this was not a routine grocery run or to trip stock up for our Thanksgiving meal.  This was a special grocery visit – to buy and donate food to our local food pantry.

I don’t think it is ever to early to teach children about being thankful for what they have and to consider those that are not as fortunate.   The hubs & I always try to make our kidlets aware that there are children, families and people out there who do not have a warm bed to go home to, food stocked in the fridge or toys to play with.   Talking about it always seems so abstract to me – and I’m sure it does to the kidlets too.  I hope that involving them in getting food to help out at our local pantry will give them a better idea of what is going on.   Above all, the hubs and I want our children to grow up to be compassionate towards others and think about those not as fortunate as we are.

With Black Friday and Cyber Monday coming up, we’re already starting to figure out what holiday gift drives we’ll participate in.   We usually buy toys for our local police department’s toy drive.   We like to give back to our local community, and hopefully make a direct impact.

If you’re a NJ resident like me and looking for a local cause to donate to, please consider the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey.  Children’s Hospital treats ill and injured children with specialized care from newborn to adolescence as well as preventive programs that promote wellness in the community.  Children’s Hospital of New Jersey is an affiliate of Barnabas Health and helps nearly 50,000 children each year.   They also recognize that the special needs of children and their families extend far beyond clinical interventions.

This week the Children’s Hospital of New Jersey kicked off its annual holiday Wish List drive.   Supplies and toys are constantly in need for the children that are cared for at the hospital.  Some of the items on their list include developmental items that help premature babies feel like they are still in their mother’s womb, sensory equipment to treat children with learning or behavioral challenges, and playthings to distract a child from the tedium and fear that can accompany a trip to the hospital.   A trip to the hospital is a stressful situation for anyone, but imagine what it must be like for a child.

They’ve made it very easy for people who are looking to get involved and donate this holiday season.  By clicking on  http://www.givetochildrennj.org you can see the list of items they are looking to have donated and if you don’t to do the shopping yourself, you can also make a general donation to the hospital, and they’ll take care of buying the items for you!   And keep in mind that all gifts, whether it is an actual item or a monetary donation are also tax deductible.

Do you have a favorite charity or cause that you like to help out during the holidays?  If you do, post it here – and tell me why!

The Parent DuJour – The Harried Mom!

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The Harried Mom is honored to be one of the many wonderful moms & dads profiled on The Parent DuJour.

The Parent du Jour is the brainchild of entrepreneurial, work-from-home mom, Lisa Duggan, and freelance journalist and stay-at-home-father of three, Steve Berger.

The Parent du Jour is a living book that documents the stories of today’s families—one day, and one parent, at a time. So it’s 365 moms and dads, served fresh daily! Each day they serve up a different parent telling , in their own words, how they combine work, family, and life. Dads are featured in the “A Dad a Day” series, moms in “Once Upon a Mom”.

So click on the link below to check out my entry – you’ll learn a bit more about me, the hubs & the kidlets!

Thanks to Lisa & Steve for including me.  You can also find out how you can be included in this amazing project by visiting their page!

DEBRA RUTT The Harried Mom

What I’m Thankful For, But Not In A Traditional Sense…..

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With Thanksgiving just a little more than a week away it seems appropriate to reflect upon what one is most thankful and grateful for.   I’ve been seeing and reading lots of lists and figured I should give it a go too.  But this isn’t going to be your conventional “thankful” list.  Of course,  I am plenty thankful for my family & friends.  I’m grateful that I have a loving place to come home to every night and a job and co-workers that I enjoy seeing on a daily basis.  But what about the other things I’m thankful for… the ones that don’t get remembered on lists like this?  Those things that are taken for granted and not given their due.

So here’s my shout out to some other things I am thankful for this year (in no particular order):

My flat iron – On many a morning this handy hair straightening aid has transformed my locks from looking like the Bride of Frankenstein to that smooth, sleek – just come from the salon do, making me presentable to the outside world.

Spanx – The inventor of Spanx should get a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, an Oscar, a Congressional Medal of Honor they’re just that good!  I couldn’t wear half of my wardrobe without mine.  My Spanx have literally helped me in a pinch…like when my suit pants are pinching my waist from an overindulgence of cupcakes, cake & chips.

Drive thru restaurants – On those nights where I am totally worn out and run down, making a quick pit stop to pick up a meal without having to decamp the kidlets is a life saver.  Honorable mention goes out to the toys in those kid meals I get at the drive-thru.  They have helped to occupy the kids on a night when I’ve totally needed a break!

Handi Wipes – When I’m out with the kidlets and one of them touches, say, bird poop (like my son did this past weekend), I can just whip out one of these little packets and clean their hands lickety-spilt. Totally convenient when you’re finished at the local playground and your kid is covered in dirt or when you’re out at a restaurant and they’ve managed to put more on themselves than in their mouths.

iPad – I have a love/hate relationship with the digital age, but this is one of those gadgets that I just love.  I can of course carry around dozens of books to read, and I’ll admit to playing a bit of “Peggle” as well, on the train, subway, sitting on a park bench or waiting in the doctor’s office.

AAA Membership – In addition to bailing you out in an emergency – i.e. fixing flat tires, towing and jump-starting your car, a yearly membership to this auto club also gets you great hotel rates, and member discounts for Broadway shows, amusement parks, museums, shopping and the like.  Best of all they also offer a trip planning service – where they’ll plan your driving route for you, complete with maps and useful local area information.

If this was your list what would you add? And why?

I Just Don’t Understand Vampires…..

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All my life, I’ve enjoyed reading.  I mostly like to read biographies.  It really doesn’t matter who it is, I just like learning about interesting people and the events that shaped their lives, what they achieved, even if they had a huge downfall or tragic ending.  I also really love books about post-WWII America, a huge period of growth and discovery that fascinates me.  And in the digital age, I’ve been able to lose my Quasimodo hump since I no longer have to lug around these massive tomes.  I just tuck my Kindle and iPad into my purse to read on the go.  Now don’t get me wrong, I enjoy chick-lit or a good trashy every now and then.  You’ll find plenty of Jackie Collins, Helen Fielding and Sophie Kinsella on my bookshelves, virtual or otherwise. 

But for the life of me, I don’t understand the obsession with the “Twilight” books.  Seriously, I just don’t get the appeal. Maybe I’m just a late adopter, because sometimes it takes me a while to warm up to something before I become obsessed. Every time a new movie based on the saga comes out, I try to see what all the fuss is about, but I feel like I’m being left out of a major conversation.  The women here at work and the moms of my kidlets friends all seem to know whether they are on ‘Team Edward’ or ‘Team Jacob.’  So I have once again gamely picked up the first installment, aptly named “Twilight,” but I still can’t get past the first 50 pages or so.

You might be saying to yourself, “Well, you clearly have no sense of whimsy.” Or maybe you think I am a pop culture snob. Neither is true, I promise!

For example, I voraciously devoured Stieg Larsson’s “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” novels, even watching the foreign film adaptations on Netflix.  I can’t wait for the Hollywood version, either.  I also read Suzanne Collins’ “The Hunger Games” trilogy in one week, staying up late each night just to find out what Katniss would do, if she’d survive and save her district. I hope those upcoming movies are good too!

I’m not trying to sound judgmental here, if you enjoy them, well, it’s great that you’ve found something you like to read.  I guess I just don’t “get” the whole vampire thing.  I have never found ashen, bloodsucking neck-biters romantic or sexy — gee, I can’t imagine why! Maybe it’s because I have a horrible vision of George Hamilton dancing around as Dracula in “Love At First Bite.”   Or Bela Lugosi creeped me out whenever he showed up on “Creature Features” or something.  Who knows, maybe I just need to “close the book” on the idea that I might ever get into sexy vampire books, is that a such a bad thing? ;)

What kind of books do you like to read?  Do you read to your kids?

My 4 Year Old Has A Better Social Life Than Me…

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Checking my appointment book is part of my morning ritual. I long ago gave up trying to remember everything I need to do without actually writing it down, so my book basically maps out my whole week. But looking it over this morning, I made a horrifying realization.   Sure, I am busy this week… but I’m busy chauffeuring around my 4 year old son.  Apparently he’s got quite the social life!

This week alone, my golden boy has a swimming lesson, soccer practice followed by season end pizza-party plus not one, but two birthday parties.  And there are his Pre-K: activities:  a KidClicks computer class one day, show-and-tell another, and Friday a walking field trip to a local restaurant for donuts & apple cider to mark Veteran’s Day.  Oh, and he wanted me to schedule a playdate with his bestie-whew! Take a break, kid!

I don’t ever remember being this “busy” when I was his age.  Sure, I played on a softball team, went to the occasional birthday party, played with my sister and the neighborhood kids, and of course had school, but I was rarely “scheduled.”

Is it just me, or do kids today have “activity overload”?  Even planning a playdate has turned into a complicated ordeal. Most of my son’s classmates have their own activities– art class, karate or dance lessons, team sports or even a Lego class (I didn’t even know this existed until this weekend and apparently it is all the rage among my son’s pals, but do you  need a class to learn how to play with Legos?).  I spoke to one mom who said, that the first opening she had for a playdate with my son was in mid-December.  Are you serious?!?!

Am I doing my son a disservice by not scheduling every moment of his day to maximize his enjoyment and happiness? Should I be less rigid and not schedule anything for him at all and just “go with the moment?”

I’m not sure what the answer is. Right now he seems happy and content with his social schedule – busy as it is.  I know how cranky I get when I’m over-loaded and over-scheduled at work.  Imagine that for a 4 year old.  Total kidlet meltdown is not a pretty sight!  Maybe our solution for now is that he, and I, dial it back a bit, scheduling a few key activities and keeping it open enough to allow for things “happen” rather than micromanaging every minute of every day!

What do you think? How much is too much for kids?

What A Week It’s Been!

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Me & the pooch taking a day shift to run generator at very cold house!

This past week has been nothing I could have ever expected.

In a previous post I talked about my 85 year old father, who has now been in rehab for six weeks following colon cancer surgery. He still cannot get up, stand or walk even with the aid of a walker or cane.  He has not regained his strength or coordination. Though my father had been trying during his therapy sessions, there has been no significant improvement in his condition.  So last week his medical team at the rehab hit our family with a sad conclusion: his physical and occupational therapy should be discontinued. They have suggested that we place him in a nursing home where he can receive 24-hour care.   My dad’s not totally aware of what is going on, but you can clearly tell he’s tired, frustrated and scared.  However, before we even had the chance to look at potential nursing homes to move him to, we received a call that he needed to go back to the hospital.  He had developed an abscess and would need an operation to resolve it.   He had the procedure yesterday, Thursday, and is now comfortably recovering.  The next step for him is still to be determined, but we are fortunate to have him here for another day.

In the midst of all this was Peanut’s second birthday.  She’s still very young and oblivious to what is going on with her Pop-Pop, though she does know something is not right, but I still wanted her to have a birthday celebration.  So we invited my mom, sister and brother-in-law to come over for dinner and mini-party, complete with a Hello Kitty birthday cake.  That was this past Saturday.

Now, we live in NJ, and as I’m sure you’ve seen on the news over the past week, we had a freak October snowstorm aka “Snowtober” on… SATURDAY!  Yes, the very day of Peanut’s birthday celebration.  The wet snow combined with leaves still being on the trees resulted in lots of downed limbs which also meant lots of downed power lines.   Just as my mom and sister arrived, the electricity went out and wouldn’t return for four very long and cold days.

We made the best of the situation and used our ingenuity to make sure that Peanut still had a celebration. My husband was able to rig our gas line grill up to our generator so he could cook the roast and grill the veggies.  I was able to light the stove with a good old-fashioned match and cook some couscous.  Mom helped make a salad with what was soon to spoil in our rapidly defrosting fridge and we wound up having a pretty nice feast lit by candlelight and flashlight.  A couple of glasses of Pinot didn’t hurt, either!

Waking up in my house on Sunday morning was like walking through a frat house the morning after a rush party.  My house was a mess, dirty dishes and glasses in the sink, empty bottles on the counter and sleeping bodies everywhere.  With the power company telling us it would be days before electricity and heat would return, the kidlets and I decamped to my mother’s house. She always manages to escape these disasters, so we stayed with her for the next two nights.  The poor hubs spent those two nights with our dog at our igloo, I mean, house, with the generator cranking away to make sure our basement wouldn’t get flooded from the melting snow.

I was thankful that my mom took us in.  Though I grew up in that house, it’s been a long time since I’ve lived there and with my dad not there, it certainly felt strange.  I felt bad for my mom and sister, they are not used to the chaos of two little kidlets.  They can sure wear you out.  My mom said she enjoyed it all, that having the kidlets around took her mind off of things.  I also felt bad for the kidlets, though they dressed up in the costumes, they didn’t really get to celebrate Halloween since it wasn’t really safe to be trick-or-treating with downed power lines all over.  However, Nana saved the day with some well placed candy snacks in the kidlets jack o’ lantern buckets.

When the power went back on at 4:50 pm on Tuesday,  I screamed and jumped with joy.  We were able to return home – as a family unit.

It was not the week that I expected, but right now I’m just grateful that I still have my family….

What are you grateful for?

My Favorite Toys As A Kid – A 70s/80s Flashback!

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This past weekend the family took a quick roadtrip down to Philly for a visit to the Please Touch Museum.  I’ll have a full review later in the week, but it’s a great place where kids and adults can get a truly “hands on” experience.  You are allowed to touch and play with EVERYTHING.  They also had several vintage, iconic toys on display such as Lite Brite, vintage Lego sets and the very first Mr. Potatohead, but unfortunately, you couldn’t play with any of those!

One toy in particular caught my eye and instantly took me back to being six years old and happily playing in my parents’ living room. It was the Tree Tots Family Tree House from Kenner.

Sure, it just looked like a weird green plastic tree, but push the button on top, and the magic happened: out popped the secret home where the Treetot family lived.  The Treetots were pretty hip for the ‘70s, after all, they did live in a tree, so they were I guess the first truly “green” family! Their home had an elevator, mod furniture, an outdoor swing, and even a stylish car. Treemont & Willow Treetot lived there with son Chip, daughter Honey and the family dog Barky, who of course had his own baseball-sized bush for a doghouse.

Honey Treetot was my favorite.  She kinda reminded me of Pebbles Flintstone with her red pigtailed hair.  Sometimes I would carry her around in the pocket of my Toughskins pants (there’s another 70s throwback) and forget she was there.   I would go into a panic when she went missing.  Soon after, my mom would hear something banging in the dryer and discover Honey, now a little cleaner and no worse for the wear.

Seeing that Tree Tots Treehouse put a huge smile on my face, and got me thinking about the other toys I enjoyed when I was a kidlet.

Here they are, in no particular order and photos of each are below:

Rub-A-Dub Dolly – Rub-A-Dub Dolly likes to take a bath with you! Mine sure did, and I don’t think she ever had any clothes on, even when I took her out into the world.  I always wanted the Tugboat caddy that went along with it, but my parents never got it for me. If you clicked on the link and saw that video, I’m sure you got an eyeful.  That ad would NEVER run today without landing someone in prison.

Dorothy Hamill Doll – As a young girl I was totally caught up her 1976 Gold Medal Olympic win and even had my hair cut into the famous Hamill wedge.  She had skates instead of shoes and a little stand for an ice rink.  You move the rink around with your hand and she skates and spins around and around.

Bionic Woman Styling Boutique – I loved to play beauty parlor at home, pretending to wash, cut and brush my mom’s hair while she was watching Phil Donohue.  I didn’t really think the Bionic Woman was all that glamorous (Farrah Fawcett, the styling head I actually wanted, was) but she did the trick – ugly green eyeshadow and all.

Bargain Hunter –  Predating my love of shows like “Supermarket Sweep” and “The Price Is Right” as well as my my obsessive-compulsive couponing, why this board game appealed to me now makes perfect sense. You had your own plastic credit card and went shopping-what could be better?!

I’m now searching E-Bay to see if I can find a complete Tree Tots Treehouse that won’t break the bank…I think my kidlets would really enjoy watching mommy play with it.

What was your favorite toy when you were growing up?

Boo At the Zoo – A Family Field Trip

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I think I love going to the zoo almost as much as my two kidlets do. Luckily, our family lives in the NYC metropolitan area, aka the Jersey ‘burbs, so it’s an easy hike to great places like the Turtle Back Zoo, Bergen County Zoological Park and Maritime Aquarium to just name a few.

This past weekend we went to The Bronx Zoo, located in the “Boogie Down Bronx” as the hubs jokingly told our son on the drive over.   My son was as confused as I was by this comment, but we just went with it ;)    Our kids are big fans – during our last visit our daughter became obsessed with peacocks and this time she announced that we had to see the rhinos!

This year we finally sprung for a family membership, which gives us unlimited visits to the Bronx Zoo as well as zoos in Central Park, Prospect Park and Queens, and the NY Aquarium in Brooklyn. There are lots of plans for different budgets: we spent $130 and got four pre-paid parking passes, worth it for those alone, I think, sixteen free attraction passes, plus a cool limited edition wildlife t-shirt (my son claimed it immediately!) and plenty of additional perks. If you hit the zoo more than once a year, you’ll save a lot.

While the kids never get bored looking at all of the exotic animals, the zoo also plans seasonal themes keeping it fun and ever-changing all year round.  This Halloween season, it’s “Boo At the Zoo” where kids, and even adults, can dress up in costumes and can go “trick or treating” throughout the zoo, grabbing treats like Sour Patch Kids, Swedish Fish and granola bars.  There was a haunted hayride and maze — we ran out of time for those — as well as some Halloween mask making…you see the kidlets’ handiwork in the photo above.

If you go with little ones, go early.  We got there soon after it opened and grabbed a plum parking spot.  We also took advantage of short lines for “in demand” attractions such as the Wild Asia Monorail, Jungle World, Tiger Mountain, the Children’s Zoo and the Congo Gorilla Forest which can really get crowded as the day goes on.   In addition to our kids’ favorite animals, we saw zebra, buffalo, a red panda, okapi (sort of a half zebra/half brown horse, kinda weird but neat looking), elephants and baboons.  We never made it over to the monkey and reptile houses and to the sea lions – it’s really hard to do it all in one visit!

The whole family even took a ride on the Bug Carousel.  The carousel has a photographer that roams around and takes your picture, and he took a great one of me & my daughter, but quite honestly it wasn’t a great enough photo to spend $13.95 on.  In fact, I didn’t see one sale of a photo during our ride on the carousel.  Sidebar here: the hubs & I decided that with digital photography today, it can’t cost them more than $1.00 to print out a photo, if they lowered the price to 9.99, parents and grandparents would be buying the pix like crazy.

We walked everywhere on our visit and must have logged more than 2 miles, plus lots of pushing the stroller uphill-a better workout than the gym!  If you don’t want to walk, you can catch a tram, which are scattered around the zoo, but be warned, you have to buy an attraction pass to ride them. The zoo itself is so large – 265 acres – that even though there were lots of people, you never felt like you were over-crowded.

Another plus for a family looking to keep costs down, like ours, is that you can bring your own food with you.  I made sandwiches, packed some juice & milk boxes plus some snacks and put them into a little cooler made just for outings like this.   Not only does it save money –the food can get pricey – but I can actually get my kids to eat something they are familiar with. Plus it helps mom/dad avoid the inevitable fried lunch! My hubs joked he’s feeling like a gourmet expert on chicken fingers!

Our four hours at the zoo was perfect-and went fast.  The kidlets fell asleep the moment we pulled out of the parking lot.  They were still talking about all the animals they saw on Monday morning and couldn’t wait to tell their pals at school what they did.

I’d have to say that The Bronx Zoo is one of my favorites – with the Denver Zoo and Philadelphia Zoo coming in second and third respectively.   Our next animal outing is likely going to be the NY Aquarium. I’ve never been, so I will share our experiences as soon as we go.

What is your kid’s favorite animal to see at the zoo?  What’s your favorite zoo?

And Now For A Balancing Act

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Like many moms out there, I’m a working mom.  Well, all moms work, so I guess I mean I also have a job that pays me! Outside of my The Harried Mom duties, I work full time outside the home.  It’s a career I’ve spent almost 20 years building, one that I think I’m good at and enjoy-most of the time.  For me, there was no question as to whether I would go back to work after having my kids.  Growing up I’d always been told that I could have it all: husband, family & career.  Well, I finally did have it all, but now how the heck was I going to manage it?

When I returned to work after my first child, everything felt like a race.  Running to get him to daycare, running to catch the train to get to work, running to the new mother’s room to pump, running out of work to catch the train and get my son from daycare…you get the idea.  I was literally running myself ragged to be “the perfect working mom,” a mix of Lois Lane career gal with a splash of Mrs. Cleaver and a dash of Martha Stewart homemaker, all rolled into one.  It had me doubting myself as a mother, wife and career woman.

I thought I was alone and a failure-until I started talking to other moms in the exact same boat I was in.  Once I shared with and listened to other career-minded moms, I was finally able to put things into perspective and get a picture of what work/life balance meant to me.

For me, that meant working with my boss to create a flexible work schedule so I can pick the kidlets up from Pre-K/daycare, make dinner and still have some quality time with them before they go to bed (FYI – my husband has his own work/life balance that he’s figured out, taking over mornings, making breakfast and spending time with the kidlets before heading out for the day!).  I try not to “sweat the small stuff” and instead focus on what my kids and husband really need-which is me. I’ve learned no matter what, the laundry will eventually get washed and the groceries will somehow magically appear in my kitchen!

Best of all, talking to other working moms has definitely kept me from turning into “Mommie Dearest!” What it comes down to is that we, as moms, are our own best resources.  It’s all about us sharing what we know.

I took part as a panelist in a Tweet chat with Mom Corps NYC for working parents.  The chat will focused on resources, inspiration and networking for working parents and will be the first of an evolving conversation series for NYC area working moms.

Click here for a recap of the chat.