Some pictures from this summer.....

LFM Kids having fun at the LFM, SDM, Sloan Fellows BBQ Party!

Audrey and I at a LFM social event.

Being a mom at LFM

So one of the main reasons i want to blog is to share my experiences as a mother while being an LFM student. My intent is to be available to other moms, as well as to non-moms, that are considering attending LFM and have questions or just want to chat.

When I was considering applying to LFM, my daughter was just turning 2 years old. At my previous job I had the pleasure of getting to know an LFM06 mom who was doing her LFM internship at the site I worked. It was very powerful for me to meet and talk to a mom that was attending LFM while raising a child, and if I hadn't met her and her family maybe I wouldn't have thought of LFM as a program you could attend while raising a family.

Not everyone has the luxury of meeting LFM alumni or interns before they apply, which is the reason for me taking time to write this blog. If there are other moms out there right now in a similar situation to the one I was in; hesitating to apply to LFM because of the fear of jeopardizing the quality with which she will be able to raise her family, I feel it is my call to be there for her to tell her about my experience and give her my perspective. I'm not trying to convince anyone to attend, but merely provide some more data to enable other moms and their families to make the right decision for them, regardless of the outcome.

So what is it like? Well' I wish I could say that it is easy, but it's not. I wish I could tell you I have perfect balance in my life, but I don't. I definitely haven't figured it all out, but I'm working on it, every day, every hour. One thing I have learned is that it would be much worse if I didn't have full support from my LFM "family". The support I have from my classmates and the LFM program is tremendous, and has helped me very much. My LFM summer teammates have been absolutely fantastic and I have countless examples of how my teammates have adapted to allow me to take care of my daughter or provide me some extra time to spend with her. For example, we have on several occasions had team meetings at my apartment instead of in the LFM office to do homework. At one point my daughter, Julia, was spending several hours per week with us in our LFM conference room while we were working on group projects, and I have gotten nothing but kindness from my teammates. I truly feel my teammates now include Julia as part of our team, it's really cool!


Another essential thing I have learned is to prioritize, prioritize, prioritize, and be creative in how you prioritize. I knew before I came here that I wouldn't have time to do all of the stuff I wanted to do. At the same time getting the full LFM experience was (and is) very important to me, as you only go though this program once. So I have tried to achieve some balance between all the different things there is to do while in LFM, and the things I participate in to allow me to spend quality time with my family. I decided to try and take part in all the different types of LFM activities, but not do as much of it as others may be. For example, I am involved in LFM committees, but not as many as I would have liked to. I do homework, but not all of it (I try to do all of it, but sometimes enough is enough). I read my e-mail once per day (my classmates will tell me if there is something important I need to read). I work out, but not as much as I used to (this is really not OK, but it's just so difficult to get up an hour early to go running). I go out and socialize with my LFM classmates, but definitely not as much as some, and I don't go until Julia is already sleeping. I eat food, I just don't take time to cook long meals. I sleep, just not as much as I used to (there is always a tradeoff). I don't watch TV.

Another thing that has allowed both me and my husband to get the full LFM experience is to take turns participating in LFM sports and social activities (while one of us participates, the other watches Julia). For example, my husband is coaching the LFM Softball team this summer, and I will be playing ice hockey this winter. My husband usually goes to the Muddy (MIT's on campus pub) after softball games, and I will go out and socialize on one of the weekend nights instead.

Finally, the most important lesson I have learned is to be honest and real. There are always going to be trade offs and I can't beat myself up for not being able to do everything. As long as I do what is important to me and my family, and as long as I have no regrets, I will be fine.

See you next time!

Mom visit, simulation game, plant tours....and lots of homework

It's late on Tuesday night, and I feel like this week has already been very, very long. I really need to go to bed. I should be reading the rest of the ops case, and the two articles that are due for tomorrow, but if I don't take the time now to jot down some notes of what has been going on this week, it will never get done.

Needless to say, this week has been very busy. Saturday was spent going through my distributed leadership assessment (this is an assessment of my strengths and weaknesses that my direct reports, managers, and co-workers completed before I left for LFM). I went through all the data to prepare for the Leadership paper that was due on Sunday - yes we had homework due on a Sunday! In the evening Mark, Julia, and I went to Dinner at D&D's house. It was fun and the food was excellent!

Sunday morning Julia and I went to the airport to pick my mom up, she is visiting from Sweden. I have been looking forward to seeing my mom again, and Julia was also really excited that "mormor" was coming to visit us. When we got to the airport Julia was first dissapointed to find out that we weren't going to fly on the airplanes today. But when i reminded her that mormor was coming, she got happy again. After a long wait my mom finally arrived with big hugs, especially for Julia. We drove back to the apartment. This is only the fourth time I have driven since we moved to Cambridge. Thanks to the Tomtom it has actually been surprisingly easy to drive here. Although, I still prefer the T and walking over driving! We got home and opened presents! My mom gave me some inflatable clothes hangers and toiletries that I had "ordered". Mark got "Dumle" chocolates, and Julia got an Astrid Lindgren songbook and CD, a Pippi Langstrump DVD, and a Karlson pa taket DVD. Julia was really excited and didn't realize that my dad had already recorded many of the same episodes for her and that she had been watching them for the past 2 months.

At 4:30pm it was time to meet Miguel at the LFM office to prepare for the start of the 5day Littlefield factory simulation game. This is part of our Operations management class where we get divided into teams of 3 and compete in running a simulated factory with the goal to make the most money. Our group had already met earlier in the week to forecast the demand, set up our inventory management plan, and calculate capacity utilization to set up our strategy for how to run our factory. Now it was time to put our plan in place. It was pretty simple, just purchase some machines, change the batch size, and set the inventory reorder policy. Then the waiting game started...we were curious to see if our calculations were correct so we decided to hang out in the LFM office until the first factory day had passed (1 factory day = 1 actual hr). The hour passed quickly as we were busy talking about the leadership paper and our personal goals and definitions. We were delighted to find that our calculations were correct. Sweet! I rushed back home to have dinner with mom, Mark and Julia and then spent the rest of the Sunday writing my leadership paper and reading articles for Ops class.

Monday was filled with classes after which we watched the movie Copenhagen to prepare for today's leadership class discussion. I'm glad we watched the movie since I hadn't had time to read the play yet, and with all the other reading due I wasn't going to have enough time. I came home to find that Julia was sick, she had a fever and was just laying on the couch watching TV. I sat down next to her and we snuggled for a few hours while I read the Leadership articles due today. It was awesome to cuddle with Julia, I just wish she would have felt better. The Simulation game was going well, we were in 2nd place!

Today after classes we went to Raytheon on a plant tour. They did a really good job with the tour and the information. very enjoyable! After the tour we went straight back to the LFM office to work on Statistics homework. I was really tired, it was hard to focus. Luckily the homework due date was extended 1 day, which is why I cam home at 12:30am instead of 2:30am, and why I'm able to write this blog for a while. The rest of the week will be equally busy, we have to complete a front line worker interview for our Lean class, complete the rest of the Stats HW, read more, and we have another Plant tour on Thursday, this time to Genzyme.
This weekend I'm taking my mom and Julia to the beach, I can't wait

.....Oh, and as for the simulation game, after 76 factory days we are in 5th place....