Hmph....
just when I thought all those lessons from the big competing corporate world (you guessed it, am playing diplomatic by leaving out the expletives), will definitely come in handy when I assume the C.O.O chair at home, I have been in for a few surprises:
well, why C.O.O and not C.E.O you may ask? Simple, the husband dons the C.E.O hat obviously and can choose to "be-in-control" of the situation without actually being hands on. And hands on is what I am all about and therefore C.O.O is a respectable title for a glorified housewife cum stay at home Mom.
Ok, now to the point.
The first month began with the charting out of an hour by hour schedule of how the days that unfold will be. everything was mapped - the activities, the diet, the budget, day to day expenses, targets (losing weight, optimal use of budget provided/resources etc; ) et al.
Well, a mini replica of the balanced score card, if you must. The KRA's were well set and the goals defined. The most daunting targets being - achieving the tipping point on the weighing scale. Mine would be on the lower end of the scale since the BMI calculators were pointing to the danger mark, while it had to be high, if not ZOOMING for the little one. After all, a "healthy" mama had to have a healthy (read oozing baby fat, mini sumo wrestler) right? Each of the targets were spilt and spread over a reasonable time frame.
And that was it. There ended my effort at trying to organize a seemingly simple mundane existence. As the weeks rolled by, the early morning jog became a mid morning walk....encountered stiff resistance at the dining table - little master put up a stiff upper lip (literally) to anything considered nutritive, refusing to stomach the varied vegetable soups, cereals, porridge etc; etc; How can you make something that will catch the fancy of an infant so much so that he laps it up without batting an eyelid? Needless to mention the experiments that followed and the failures that had to be overcome resulted in a broken heart, but widening mid riff. How could you have the heart to throw away a creation that was a labor of love? I ate and ate with a frenzy. Damn the diet and damn all those sexy yummy Mama's!!!
Other obstacles encountered -
Time management: Activities planned during baby's sleeping hours: Writing, reading, social networking, pursuing a new hobby.....sigh. Finish all chores when baby is sleeping.
Achieved: Slept away to glory. Don't the books say that you must get a few winks when he sleeps. And for a baby who sleeps like a log during the day and is a kick-ass livewire at night, Mama better be prepared.
Management of resoures :
Human resources : monitor househelp closely, without being too interfering. Ensure high productivity by encouraging multi-tasking.
There is no such thing as productivity in the household parlance. Each day is a different day, ofcourse the relationships you nurture are here to stay and will get you by. Not many Bhai's are conducive to a performance feedback and take it very personally. Simply put just keep the feedback sharing in your head and only within it.
And precisely after a month of battling the guilt of not being able to score even a "fair" forget a "Good", the schedules went onto a sleeping mode.
