Tag: professional

The Executive Mom

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Times are changing and so are moms. But do any of you have times where you wish that you could be a stay at home mom because you feel you are losing time with your baby (and we ever so wish they could stay teeny tiny)?

I’ll admit I’ve had that feeling. I tried staying home for a week and said, ok- this is not for me. I do believe, however,  that there needs to be a strong balance between both work and being a mother, as one or the other can easily consume. In my case, work was cosuming my life and I would bring it (and a crappy attitude) back home. I was not only managing two different products, but a very large group of people that reported directly to me. I had becomed accustomed to this as the Logistics and Customs Brokerage business can be pretty demanding and I managed like Sandra Bullock on The Proposal, but doing this with a new baby was a whole new dimension of crazy.

I missed my daughter and also hated the fact that I would come home tired, in a bad mood, and would only get to see for 30 minutes before she went to bed. I was also starting to thing, “Is this stress really worth it?” Suddenly two months ago and out of nowhere, a recruiter for a competitor reached out to me and asked if I was interested in an executive position as a subject matter expert for sales that focused on A level clients. She was looking for a hunter, but also mentioned that I could home office and plan my travel as I deemed necessary.

This sounded perfect. I bounced the idea off my family, friends, and also took a vast amount of time to contemplate the opportunity. I had been managing people, a regulatory environment, and a P&L for almost five years now and going back to sales and development (where I first started my career) was going to be a complete 180 degree turn. But the idea of having the mental space and time to organize my life and prioritize was extremely appealing. In short, I took the job and here I am. So far, this is my third day and I already feel a large weight has been lifted off. Not because the expectations are less (if anything, they are more), but because I can actually focus on the end goal and I am not being pulled in ten different directions.

So what is the point of this? If you are a new mom and have always been used to working, don’t stop for fear that you are going to miss out on your baby’s first couple of months. Yes, it does suck when you go back to work, but if you feel like you are spending more than you should in the office, do not immediately think you need to stop working. Go find something else that motivates you, makes you happy, and allows you to spend that time you want with baby and the family. There are opportunities out there, you just need to look (or maybe they will find you)!

Happy Hunting.

 

 

What are you feeding your baby?

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I have heard so many different schedules and parenting hacks for baby foods, from eating super-charged lactation cookies to increase breast-milk production and using the latest bottle warming technology (this thing takes forever, I prefer the old stove-top option), all the way to baby food processors and baby formula pod Keurig machines.

My method was pretty simple. I knew I wanted to breastfeed my daughter as long as I could and then introduce a natural diet full of fresh and nutritious ingredients. I breastfed Livia exclusively until she was five months old and then I noticed she started getting more demanding as my work hours got crazier. As committed as I was (I even took a manual breast pump on my ski trip when she was four months old, took my pumping breaks at the tops of the mountains in 10F weather, and  would store the milk in a little backpack until I made my way down the mountain), something had to give.

Taking my mother’s and grandmother’s advice, I started supplementing her breast-milk with evaporated milk and water (an old hack used by countless mothers back in the 60’s and 70’s). I was pretty apprehensive about the whole situation, but Livia sucked that first bottle down in lightning speed and did very well with the initial introduction. I asked several pediatricians what they thought, and I received the same feedback- as long as she is eating and gaining weight, you are gold. Why not formula (I have been asked this several times)? I felt her digestion was very similar to when she was only on breastmilk and she was handling it like a champ. Why change something when it works and is equally healthy?

A month after the fact, I started introducing solid foods because she kept staring longingly at me whenever I had a spoon in my hand. I was so excited to use my Beaba Babycook steamer and blender, so I armed myself with organic  bananas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and apples and started one new food each week. So far she is absolutely in love with her sweet potatoes. After I steam these, I mix a little bit of evaporated milk to get the consistency where I need it to be, and she is over the moon. As a working mother, it is hard to cook her fresh food on a daily basis. But what I do is simple- I cook once a week and store her food in baby freezer food trays and defrost them on the stove-top, never in the microwave.

So what is the right way? There really isn’t as long as you are raising a healthy and happy baby. There is only your way when it comes to your children. I felt “breast was best” to start off with (but I also was not planning on breastfeeding her into her toddler years), and I also think introducing them to a healthy diet to start off with is crucial. Not only because of their overall health, but because it develops babies into children that are willing to try new things and leaves them less prone to being picky eaters.

Now for those adventurous mamas that are still breastfeeding, but want to be able to go out on a little outdoor adventure like I did- I recommend the Evenflo Manual Breast Pump  , $16.99, Amazon. It worked like a charm and was easy to carry around.

Want to make your own baby’s food? BEABA Babycook 4 in 1 Steam Cooker and Blender, 4.5 cups, Dishwasher Safe, Latte Mint $149.95, Amazon

Need help storing food for the little one? Best Homemade Baby Food Storage Container Freezer Trays  , $18.95, Amazon (the little pods serve as the perfect baby serving and are also easy to take out)

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Homemade sweet potatoes made with the Beaba Babycook and stored in the baby food freezer trays

 

International Women’s Day

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I don’t think I could have picked a better time to start a blog, pursue my project, and make a life changing decision. Today is International Women’s Day and truly a good time to be alive. Before I had my daughter, I never really paid attention to true meaning of the day or its actual purpose- today is about empowerment, solidarity, and the hustle. Today is also the day I turned in my resignation from my current employer to take on a new challenge.

Going back to being a working woman and a new mother, I embrace the hustle, but now for a different purpose. The hustle is for my daughter, I am empowered to make decisions for our life to give her purpose and means to be a strong, independent woman for the future and make her proud.

Pretty soon I am going to be switching jobs again and unlike common thought, it is not for a higher paycheck or because I don’t like what I do. It is because I am pursuing an opportunity that will allow me to grow professionally and give me ground to do what I do best… hunt. Managing people and a P&L for the last five years has been a great and much welcomed experience as it is something that every person in management needs to have to truly understand the bottom line and the reason why we work towards what we do and why business decisions are made how they are.

But now it is time to go back to what got me started. I want to use what I have learned in the last five years, armed with the core understanding of what my industry is, to sell and develop large scale accounts. This is my next step and a venture that I truly embrace.

So I leave you with this nugget of information, do what you love and try everything once.

 

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Frida’s Nursery

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As a professional female executive, I’ve been wanting to write a blog for the longest time, except I would find excuse after excuse not to- I am too busy, I have too much work, I am too tired. To be honest, the problem was content. I had so many ideas and so many things I wanted to yell out to the world, but it was disorganized and really did not hold any true meaning to anyone, but myself.

Blogging is about relating, telling a story, organizing your thoughts into one clear message, something you want to say or express in a consistent basis. For the last three years, I have not been consistent in any way, shape, or form in my life. In the last three years, I have moved into three different homes, gone through a divorce, worked in two different companies, got engaged, found out I was pregnant, and gave birth to a beautiful red-headed daughter, Livia. For the first time in a very long time, I feel consistent.

I felt the need to start writing when Livia was born and I was on maternity leave. I thought, why not record my thoughts so she can read them, learn from them, or just have something to look back on when she is older? This time, content rushed through my head, but the message was clear. Using my daughter as my inspiration, I wanted to write about being a professional mother (cliche-sounding, I know), my experiences with my family, while including my Mexican heritage, and also find a way to relate to women like myself- ambitious and hard-working mothers who have gone through hardships, and want to be the best they can be for their family.

At this point, I needed a name for my blog, my product,  my message. My mother helped me come up with the name “Frida” while visiting her in Mexico. I could not have thought of a more perfect example of a strong, independent woman that portrayed my culture. I, however, felt like I still needed something else. Just today I came up with Frida’s Nursery. if you think about it, a nursery is a place where children are raised, a habitat for plants and animals, and a place of growth. Frida’s Nursery stuck and here we are, ready to take on a project I have been wanting to embark on for a long time.

To my daughter… “I love you more than my own skin.”
-Frida Khalo 

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