A Secret to Success This Back to School Season: Make Everyone Feel Loved

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Family in Chautauqua   Greetings from Chaton's World in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania! In my world, my days often start with laundry, early-morning emails, and making my kids a hot breakfast. They often end with late-night homework checks, making Instagram reels, and appearing on Celebrity Court of Public Opinion. Somewhere in between, I’m navigating boardrooms, working towards deadlines, and immersed in the good, bad, and ugly chaos of motherhood and household management. As a working mom of three and a professional carving out space in corporate environments, I share my journey of balancing leadership with loving my family, and I sprinkle it with self-care tips. Here, you’ll find honest reflections, hard-earned lessons, and practical strategies for creating an authentic life that you enjoy. If you’re trying to do it all without losing yourself in the process, you have found your sister in the struggle! Continue reading to discover some thoughts, hacks, and/or lessons that I have l...
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Time Management and the “Toddler” mom (Part I)

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There are three kinds of people. Those who are always early. Those who are always on time. And those who are always late. Then there is me. I float between all three.
I recognize that there are times when being late is just too expensive—when meeting airplanes, at the pediatrician, interviews, when I am the keynote speaker. Those are times when I tend to be early. Sometimes I am so early that it is laughable. I know that’s not a good use of my time, but I am terrified that my bad habits will derail my productivity. So, I overcompensate.

In the interest of full disclosure I am late a lot for most other things. Too much. If I’m not careful it has the potential to be my Shakespearean fatal flaw. I get that. So I try really hard to be on time. I really make a concerted effort. Sometimes though life intervenes. I won’t write too much about “life” though. You all know it. You’re deep in it up to your eyeballs. For moms “Life” shows up as traffic, dirty diapers, crying babies, stockings with runs in them. For guys it may be a pile of dirty underwear that you meant to wash and now you’re forced to wear basketball shorts or go commando, the dilemma of a failed alarm, a meeting in 30 minutes and a five o’clock shadow, or you just want to do one more thing before you leave work and that thing absorbed you for an hour and you were supposed to be at a dinner reservation 10 minutes ago.

I used to think that I was special, but now I know that I am just living like everyone else and have to figure out how to manage all of my demands and make it on time. It remains a struggle though. It was a struggle before I had my baby. Now that I have become a mom, and a working mom, the struggle is more intense. Let's be real. Having children is an enormous blessing that keeps on giving, but being a parent is a time sucker and an exercise in creative scheduling!


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Comments

anthony stemke said…
Don't worry, you're special. You are trying to be the best parent you can be and you write about it to help others.
Okay?
1:08 PM
Diane - It's All Good Until You Burn Dinner said…
Hi Chaton! I used to ALWAYS be late. ALWAYS. Then as I got a bit older I was actually able to get to things on time...or sometimes even 5 minutes early. But for some reason, I'm falling back into my old ways of lateness, always trying to do "one more thing" before I head out the door to go somewhere. It's good to know know I'm not alone!
9:07 PM
The New Modern Momma said…
Hi Chaton! I am a floater too. I use to always and I mean always be early for every thing I did then I had my daughter and well things got crazy and now I am occasionally late or just barely on time. But it's life and I wouldn't change a thing.

New follower from bloggy moms/ Dots & Doilies events.
8:08 PM
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