[while megan is my latest “mother of invention,” i am the subject of her weekly blogger interview. we’re a mutual adoration society. check us out!] 

first name: Megan

age: 32 (ugg…)

current city: Montclair, VA

living situation: I’m married with two young children. My daughter Sage, is almost four. My son Phoenix, is 14 months.

occupation: Stay-At-Home Mom (SAHM) and Managing Director of Modern Bird Studios (http://www.modernbirdstudios.com).

how do you structure your time and space? Wow. I was hoping you could help me structure my time and space. I barely structure it all! I dabble in some mommy-ing, and then I dabble in the Modern Bird stuff, and I switch back and forth throughout the day. I work from home along with my husband, so my office consists of a couch and a laptop. There are toys strewn about, an overly emotional three-year-old at one ear, and a teething14-month-old tugging on my leg. Peace comes at nap time and bedtime, which is when I get most of my marketing duties done. 

We have a pretty set schedule with the kids. I get ‘em up at 8:00 a.m., feed them breakfast, play, put the baby down for a morning nap, hang with Sage, get the baby up, feed the kids lunch, play, put everyone down for the afternoon nap/quiet time, and do dinner, bath, and finally bed (for the kids) by 7:30 p.m. 

I don’t have much personal time now. The hub would prefer me to take more time for me, but I simply don’t. I probably should. I get up at 5:30 a.m. (did I mention that I abhor waking up early?) three times a week for my workouts so that I can still fit into my clothes while I neglect every other need that I have. That, and I shower everyday. And do my hair and makeup. I can’t stomach not being put together. I just don’t do much else.  If I’m feeling overwhelmed with the Modern Bird stuff, I step away and get outside. Home making?  I used to be so much more on top of it, but the house is still in good order. I clean it once a week, and I force my children to clean up their toys everyday so they don’t choke the rest of the house. Anyway, to answer your question, I’m basically a disaster.

using the metaphor of seasons to describe the phases of women’s lives, 

-what are the particular challenges and highlights of your current season? This season brings with it financial challenges and the task of balancing the business with the kiddos. Modern Bird Studios was launched almost four months ago after my husband and I got tired of his sending resumes to every stinking company out there. He was laid off from his job in September of 2009, and I have been a SAHM since June of 2006, when our daughter was born. We’ve been scraping by on his freelance gigs. The guy has mad skills! Have you seen a Modern Bird Studios piece?  We decided to take control in our fate instead of waiting on the job market to improve — something that we couldn’t do anything about.  Luckily, I had a career in business development for seven years before baby number one came along, so I have experience in doing things similar to what I do now. 

The highlights of our current situation are many. We get to work together, and we work well together. Our kids get to see my husband throughout the day when I let him out of his studio to take breaks from creating the pieces to have a few sips of water here and there. Neither one of us has to commute in that crap DC metro traffic. We love what we are doing. It is crazysauce fun! We’ve met so many amazing and generous people, and we have had some great success in both exposure and sales in such a short amount of time. We’ve built lasting relationships, and we’ve even had the opportunity to pay it forward. We feel so blessed about our little company, and we can’t wait to see where it takes us. Plus, our kids are with us as we build it; they will be the heirs of the Modern Bird fortune.  

-What season(s) preceded this one? I would characterize the previous season as one where I played the traditional role of SAHM to two kids and ran around to play dates here and there. I still do that, but I organize a whole lot less of them nowadays. I did have some of those moments where I wondered if I wasted all that time in college since I wasn’t using my education/career experience in my real day-to-day life. This has been one of those internal struggles I’ve been trying to wrap my head around. I am not tempted to re-enter the work force and stop being a SAHM though because for me, being a SAHM is something I highly value. Still, I find myself trying to justify the point of my higher education and former career experience and how these things relate to my current situation.  

-What season(s) might your future hold? My guess is that my future will be highly successful and full of fun, laughter, and joy. I have about five friends who are pregnant right now, and every time I think about it, my womb aches a little, so I’m quite certain we will be adding on one or two more to the Modern Bird under-aged work force. Other than that, I try not to speculate too much. My life has been full of curve balls, so I don’t put too many concrete expectations out there because so much of my life is beyond my control.

Favorite family activity/activities: I think anything that includes sugar is up there on my list of favorite things to do with the family, specifically going for ice cream! I also love the seasonal things we do—pumpkin patch in the fall, hot cocoa in the winter, looking at flowers and playing outside in the spring, and going to the beach in the summer. Oh, and the big family wrestling and tickle fights bring out the big, belly giggles, which I adore.

favorite solo activities: Is this a trick question? I have so little time to myself! I do love to scrapbook. I was so anti-scrapbooking, and then I had kids, and all of sudden, I wanted to do scrapbooking! It’s my own fault for having such cute kids that I love taking pictures of.

sources of inspiration: the beautiful things around me, including my husband and my kids; the beautiful creations of this world; my faith.

best MakeShift moment: Day to-day life with young children is full of makeshift moments, or what I like to refer to as hardcore boardroom negotiations. My MakeShift moments include giving my 14-month-old a toy to get the TV remote from him, and letting my three-year-old rearrange her stuffed animal “friends” for the millionth time if it means she will settle down and take her nap.

find megan on the web:

• modern bird studios: http://www.modernbirdstudios.com/
• blog: http://www.modernbirdstudios.com/blog
• twitter: modern_bird

one afternoon last week, during an unusually silent kids’ nap time, i found myself wondering why i could not hear the monkey’s usual sounds of upturned rocking chair leaps onto the big-boy-bed or his customary transfer of water by cup from sink to tub in his adjoining bathroom. for the life of me, i could not fathom what he could possibly be up to. (notice that it did not once occur to me that he could actually be SLEEPING during his nap time.)

i went on about my business, and an hour later, i opened my door to this:

a small portion of the gigantic play-doh mess AFTER my husband worked on it for an hour.

“lily pads” of blue play-doh, expertly caked on to the unforgiving white carpet. excellent.

after googling “removal of play-doh from carpet,” (which, incidentally, pops right up in that google toolbar as soon as you type “removal of pl…”) and visiting the manufacturer’s website, i have discerned that what i need is a wire brush. i have also discovered that there are entire websites dedicated to the removal of play-doh from carpet, each one providing step-by-step instructions comparable in detail to those that NASA uses to launch spacecrafts. see:

http://www.ehow.com/how_4854864_clean-playdoh-out-carpet.html

http://ask.yahoo.com/20070111.html

should i be worried that the last step in these instructions is often “call a professional carpet cleaner?”

i’ll keep you posted. any tips you have would be much appreciated.