Flair: The Mom Carrousel
Our fashion columnist switches gears and talks less fashion, and more mom-to-mom with our readers. Keep reading to get her advice for taking care of you, improving each day and maintaining your identity.

Unlike men, who primarily focus on providing for the family, investing for the future, staying attuned to local and national political changes and creating a legacy, women are constantly redefining their roles, and requesting back up support from family, friends and trusted babysitters. Why is this? Because a woman’s life exists on the Mom Carrousel. The speeding up and slowing down motions begin around twenty, once she leaves her own mom’s home and starts living her dreams. The carrousel continuum of life is then defined with titles such as: Single with career; the triumphant title of Engaged; Married with dual income no kids; Mommy with career or Mommy staying at home; Mom of older kids who wants to try a new career; Step-Mom, Mother of the bride/groom and Mother in Law; and at some point, we also mother our own parents.

Once a mommy, always a mom…with many roles, responsibilities and questions in between.

As an entrepreneur and mom of two, the ability to switch gears at a moment’s notice is necessary: to change my schedule on sick days and snow days, to be available to dole out additional mommy love and snuggles before and after business travel, plus working early hours so I can be available to my family during non-school hours. As women, we multitask everything: a coat of nail polish before a twenty minute car ride, scanning a book or newspaper while exercising, and schedule conference calls as you drive car pool. Sadly, multiple times a day I set my iPhone timer to make sure I get to school pick up, a tennis lesson or start prepping dinner on time.

But it’s all worth it, because from a kid’s perspective, mom is Superwoman. She is the most beautiful creature on earth that coddles them when they skin their knee, protects them during thunderstorms and from fast cars in parking lots. She feeds both their stomach and soul, as well as plays on the floor, at the playground and even eye-spy in the car. She recognizes the excitement in each discovery, the thrill to experience anything because everything to a child’s eye is new. Mom’s listen to the long, very important conversations, because at any moment it may be self-interrupted with “I love you Mommy” without any prompting. It’s one of the rare times love is wonderfully unconditional.

Yet through all the great unconditional love experiences and the pleading not to be seen together in public, the main struggle of the Mom Carrousel is how to take care of you, while keeping a strong and open relationship with your husband and friends.

Five Ways to Take Care of You and Improve Each Day:
• Getting Up Early - It’s a great sense of accomplishment to have a couple items checked off the to do list when kids are just getting up for school. I find waking up 1½ hours ahead of them gives me creative thinking time before a quick weight or cardio workout.
• Spending Time Being Thankful - There are so many wonderful people, experiences and opportunities in our lives. The more I thank God, the less desiring I am for material things and the more humbled I am toward the true gifts I receive.
• Phone calls with my Husband and at least One Good Friend a Day - As much as this world has gone to texting, tweeting, pinning, linking and emailing, my preference is a voice-to-voice conversation, only to be trumped by face-to-face conversations. It’s a great cleanser for the soul and allows me to really comprehend what is going on in their life.
• Eating Healthy All Day Long – Preparing healthy meals and drinking water are no brainers, but if you put some thought into packing snacks the night before, you are less apt to hit the vending machine or mall food court, this includes preparing healthy snacks for kids after school before homework or practice.
• Looking Good – Make a list of ten outfits you love wearing. Hang it inside you closet for those days nothing looks appealing. Another easy tip is to pick out five outfits on Sunday, arrange in closet to be worn that week. This is for career women through retirees. It’s amazing the compliments you receive when you look good on the outside, and the power clothes have on making you feel better on the inside. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy or what I like to call a victorious cycle of dressing better and feeling great!

My business of styling women has introduced me to amazing career women, executive’s wives and everyday wonderful women who desire assistance to look their best. Even though Flair’s services of personal shopping, closet audits and public speaking appear to focus solely on the outside, in actuality, every client has commented on how our services have allowed her to grow from the inside out. I receive the greatest sense of accomplishment when I see the changes and confidence that grows when working with my clients. Through our time together, much of our conversation is around the friends and family that are relevant in their lives. It’s fascinating the similarities that come to the surface. I want to share some of them with you.

Five Ways to Keep Your Identity, regardless of age and stage on the Mom Carrousel:
• Time for Self – Schedule a one-hour yoga class, gardening, reading a great novel or 10 minutes of deep breathing everyday just for you. • Self Improvement – Set goals. You may never run a marathon, but commit to yourself that you can walk 6 miles. Go compete in a local 10K race. The camaraderie may convince you to do more than one.
• Treat Yourself - Maybe it’s the perfume your favorite grandmother wore, a silk scarf to wear with your trench coat on rainy days or having your nails done professionally. A treat is something that makes you feel great. It can be a splurge on a big-ticket item or priceless permission to read a novel after spying on your napping baby.
• Your Space - My saving grace at home is a dedicated workspace that the rest of my family doesn’t touch. My office allows me to securely leave an article mid-sentence, a personal shopping project half illustrated and an area for flowers, books on textiles, and an accessorized mannequin, all providing creative inspiration.
• Journal – Keep track of what is going in your world on a day-to-day basis. I have friends who accomplish this in the form of a prayer request journal and others as a diary. What a great way to see how far you’ve come and all that you’ve overcome by having your thoughts written down as reference. Notice how all the items above are about You? As the matriarch of your family, there are times you need to be a little selfish and it might make you feel guilty, but you need to refill yourself so you can be a better wife, mom, friend, employee, and volunteer.

As a mom on the early part of the carrousel continuum, I’ve decided to make my life simpler by putting importance back on what our family values: home cooked meals, fun times playing goofy games, listening how a toddler relays stories of our adventures, and answering thousands (not an exaggeration) of questions with a truthful and hopefully thoughtful response – daily! By giving my children the best of me; my guidance, my love, my faith, my drive and discipline, I am also giving them my joie d’vivre, so that every day I can kiss them goodnight and know I was a Fun Mom and raising them to be great adults, because if we really think about it, we are raising the next generation of adults, not merely children.

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