The First 45 Days

It's been 45 days in the year 2025. And in many ways, it feels like an eternity. Even the past seven days feels like a year. I looked back this morning at the events of January and February trying to recall, what exactly just happened? 

Here goes ... 

Day 1. Made the New Years Pretzel. Must have burned the yeast because it didn't rise properly. Played tennis badly. Went to the Oyster Bar. Drank my last glass of wine for a while. 

Day 2-4. Relished time with the kids. Skied with them. Played tennis better. Really wanted a glass of wine but stuck to my word. 

Days 5-17. After making a New Years resolution to travel less, I went to Chicago, Knoxville and Greenville TN, Cincinatti and Columbus, OH and Orlando in the period of 12 days.  

Day 10 - 21. A slow roll of norovirus descended upon our house. Peter moved garbage cans around and around and washed sheets over and over again until the Norovirus finally caught him. Because of my aforementioned travel schedule, I avoided the January cleanse. 

Day 11. I made a nice dinner. Nice dinners are situated in the dining room. The kids finished and went upstairs with explicit instructions to stay away from the kid du jour with the virus. With relative silence at our nice dinner table, Peter's ears perked up and he asked me what that sound was? The fire crackling, I don't know, I responded. Oh, there's no fire going. I get up and start walking into the living room. Sounds like a drip, said Peter. Oh ... oh .... no .... it is a drip. Lots of drips, Peter! Cue the ceiling to start raining and then pouring water into the living room. Fear, unrest, and Caroline in panic mode commences. We find the culprit - a broken toilet, running and running without the ability to drain. Broken by a twin who must have been frustrated flushing her norovirus. Peter turns off the water and fixes it. He explains to me how to do it in the future. I don't recall what he's said because I'm calculating what fixing the living room will cost.  

Dawn of Day 12. Peter falls asleep in the living room still cleaning up the mess. 

Day 13. Peter gets bids on fixing everything. 

Day 20. Notre Dame plays Ohio State in the National Championship. I cheer. The kids cheer. A fly buzzes around the screen, then another one. The flies are cheering for the Irish too, huh? I go to the bathroom and there are one, no two, no three more flies. Or maybe the ones from the office followed me into the bathroom. Bobby says, nope there are flies in my bathroom too. What? Were you going to tell anyone that? I run upstairs and see more flies. I nudge Peter, halfway through getting the twins to sleep. We have a problem. Third floor bathroom. His ears perk up. What, you're kidding me ... another bathroom issue? Not the same as the last one - this one is flies. Flies? Yes, flies. He investigates after another nudge. I close the door to the office and resume watching the Irish, while swatting flies. Peter comes back down. I got him. What ... Got the flies? No, the flying squirrel. What? Yes, critter control couldn't get it. But I did. He's dead. The flies were attracted to the smell. It smelled awful. He's gone now. Flies will follow. 

Day 21. Kill flies. Trump takes office. Caroline won't go to sleep.   

Day 22. Kill less flies. Trump. Caroline won't go to sleep again. 

Day 23. Kill the last fly. Already too much Trump. Bobby's birthday. Kind of feels like an afterthought and I feel bad about that.  

Day 24. Bobby's National Parks Play at school. I cried. It was perfect.  

Day 25- 45. Deep Trump anxiety sets in, set off by a bad habit of bathing myself in NPR and the Daily every morning. 

Day 28. Peter decides to add a lighting renovation to the scope of the living room reconstruction. 

Day 30 - 37. Back to Chicago. Back and forth. Back and forth.   

Day 32. Construction starts on living room. Wine. Yum. 

Day 34. RSV hits home. 

Day 37. I get home, Jacqueline has a high fever. 

Day 38. RSV complications for Jacqueline. Peter and I don't sleep. 

Day 39. No sleep again. 

Day 40. RSV complications get even more complicated. Peter takes Jacqueline to the Children's Hospital clinic. I fill in for Peter as the kids' squash coach, telling Bobby to focus mid match. Post match, I get a call from Peter saying Jacqueline was sent to the emergency room. I'm crying. Our friends keep the kids and feed them at the club. I run home and pack stuff for Peter and Jacqueline. I run to the hospital. And start crying. But Dr. Cramer is there. Dr. Cramer from Canada is amazing. Like seriously amazing. He rescues Jacqueline with oxygen, an IV, antibiotics and her pneumonia diagnosis. I breathe easier too. Peter stays the night and I go home to provide normalcy to the kids. I make myself a homemade Egg McMuffin for dinner. It's as good as the ones my restaurants make. 

Day 41. Healthy kids go to school. I relieve Peter from the hospital to stay with Jacqueline. She is doing much better and by midday is stable, without oxygen. That evening we go home. 

Day 42. Caroline gets RSV. Margaret gets an ear infection. No sleep again. 

Day 43. Caroline is better from RSV. She's always been the bulkier one. Paid off for her. 

Day 44. I get 8 hours of sleep and wake up a new woman. 

Day 45. Still Trump. And my period. 

It was on Day 39 though, where time stood still. Further drawing out just how long the past 45 days has felt. I was in the emergency room looking at Peter, Jacqueline on his lap, saying goodbye for the night, not totally sure if she would be okay. And I said to Peter, 'thank you for being such a good dad.' We both teared up. Maybe because of how painful it was to see Jacqueline in such torment. But maybe more because it took me 39 days of crazy to say that. 

Peter and I run a unique operation. It's a lot. And during flu season, it can become too much. So much, that I reached a breaking point this week. I told the President of my business that I couldn't be there for his visit to my region. Instead, he was in good hands with my team. And he was. My team killed it. And with it, I showed up as a leader who has her priorities straight, who has a well-trained team, and who has confidence in her people. It was the most leaderly decision I've made in this position. 

On Day 44 we celebrated Valentine's Day. I got Peter some really good shoes. Because sometimes, I'm sure he gets tired of walking in the shoes of a stay-at-home Dad. But my man, there is no one that can clean up puke, swat flies, fix plumbing, trap critters, find the best workman for the job, pack lunches and snacks, administer antibiotics, ease my Trump anxiety, read bedtime stories, navigate a hospital system and drive a minivan like you. 

I'll say it again, thank you for being such a good Dad, Peter. 

Lo. 

Art Therapy

In a well-timed, therapy-like conversation last week, an executive coach asked me to rank the most important things in my life. I hardly hesitated. 

- My faith 

- My family 

- My work 

- Athletics (which is very different from exercise)

I don't think I got to the fifth one before the coach jumped in with a damning question, 'so, which one are serving most right now?' 

I hardly hesitated. 

#3. 

Work. 

Hmm. 

That, right there, has been the pull on my heart and mind for months. The conflict between ambition and everything else I hold dear. But the more I have these conversations, the more I can verbalize not only the imbalance but how to right the ship.

After therapy (coaching) and equipped with my 2025 resolutions to do and be better, I felt like my compass was heading in the right direction. Every month I would mature into a different, more emboldening leader, who was able to keep her world order in order. Maybe I'd even be on time.  

Although ... I kept thinking about #5. 

What was my #5? 

This morning, while running in the dark, while staring at the start of a pink morning, it came to me. 

#5 is Art. 

I snapped a photo of the color in the sky and sent it to my brother in law, knowing he would be photographing the light in all its glory. I see you, I said. 

#5 is Art! 

It's creativity and creation in all of its unique forms. Visual, written, dramatic, melodic, culinary, performing and expressive art. I was getting more and more excited. My pace was picking up. 

That's why I majored in art history. It wasn't a degree without worth - one that I should belittle as I tell my leadership story to mentees. It was a degree baked in passion. MY passion. For years, Art was my work. Art was my #3. 

As I turned the corner to head home, this aha! explained something that's been happening over the past couple months. Art has quite literally been making me cry. Examples: 

- In the theater watching Wicked with my kids, I bawled. (Come to think of it, I cried watching it on Broadway with my girls last year as well.) 

- Meandering through the Carnegie Museum of Art to show my kids the Principio after Christmas, my eyes started tearing. 

- Bobby's curiosity lighting up in the Hall of Architecture, prompted a couple more tears. 

- Exposing the kids to With One Look from Sunset Boulevard as we made the quick drive home, many more tears. 

'You're crying Mom,' they say. They stare because it never. ever. happens. 

It's as if my brain is deprived of artistry, so anything - any little glimmer of beauty upsets my emotional stability. One prompt, and I'm mush.  

A couple weeks ago, after three weeks of travel around the country, colds and flus and norovirus, a flying squirrel dying in our house, the fly fiasco that followed, the toilet that overflowed on the second floor into the first floor, the corresponding construction, and a bout of 4-year old constipation, I found myself sitting in an auditorium where I grew up. This was the space where I discovered my love of the performing arts. Center stage was my home. But on this day, it was Bobby's and his fourth grade classmates.  

Together, they read poetry and sang songs that begged the audience / me and the other parents to get outdoors and visit our National Parks. 'We're going to the park to the park to the park,' they sang as Bobby held up a big sign for Yellowstone. 

About mid-way through the production, Bobby introduced the song Fireless with composure and confidence. He talked about a sense of optimism and stress release and how the song invited you to look deeper at the magic around us. As he finished up, the lights went down and the kids popped out and sparked up their glow sticks. The boys ran up the aisles, and into the audience so the auditorium was blanketed in light. They swung their glow sticks in the air, danced, sang, and yes, made me cry. It was the music - the musical effect that lightened the burden of one thing after the next at the start of the year. It was the perspective of magic making right here at school. It was the simplicity of all of these wonderful kids carefreely belting their hearts out. It was beautiful. 

It was a textbook example of why I needed more Art in my life. Doing #1-#4 on my priority list demands a ton of focus. Onlookers might argue, there isn't a second of downtime in my day. But when I let my mind go, escape, and empathize, I find a release that's clearly need. 

Bobby turned 10 the week of his play. Ten means he's bigger, stronger, tougher, more calculated in how he presents himself. But he is absolutely an artist. He is always looking deeper under the surface. He spends hours sketching at his desk, trying to represent how he experiences the world. He's watched old black and white movies with me, debating who is the better dancer - Fred or Gene? And when I write, he listens to the words I choose, storing them for a time he might need to pen them himself. 

Seeing Bobby mature into a well-rounded young man is a good reflection for me. I've gotten too pragmatic in my priorities, and I'm not making time or finding the channels to honor something that was always at my core. Studying the ways of a fourth grader is a lesson in how to infuse creativity into my faith, family, and work life. With Art, Faith becomes less of a routine, family becomes less of a schedule, work becomes less of a chore. And each priority can embody more beauty, joy and emotion (which I will always argue is just fine to show at work.) 

So coach, Art is #5. And I wish more of it on myself. And more of it on a nation that could use a little softening. 

Lo.