Well, things have taken a strange turn around here. After a blast of traffic and orders to start off 2009, it looks like we will end the new year’s first month in an unexpected way. I am basically in a holding pattern thanks to a law (yes it is already a law - just hasn’t taken full effect yet) to take small indie sellers of children’s products {me} off the grid by February 10. The Act is so far fetched and overblown, I have to believe at some point, common sense will kick in and congress will drastically revise this law. However, holding my breath is not a very effective way to plan for the worst. Instead I (like many other retailers I would imagine) have halted all ads, promos and quit buying from wholesalers until I know how this plays out.

That being said, I will be cutting my prices on the items that I will be unableto carry come February 10th (if nothing changes this law before then). This is all I can do and I hope my loyal customers, newsletter subscribers and blog readers understand. My hands are tied and I cannot take the chance - there are steep penalties for selling ANYTHING that is not tested by both the manufacturer and myself for lead. That’s right, lead. So, the bedding, baby/children’s clothes, mohawks, baby/small child headbands & clips, lunchboxes, etc. will be unavailable past that date. Lead in the mohawks? onesies? headbands? That’s right, this Act covers it all - even 100% cotton onesies (oh, but it has been dyed green, so yeah - potentially toxic).

Unless my manufacturers and I find an affordable way to have every item tested by this date, that is what is going down. Sounds simple, but it isn’t. They would have to test all components of each item (button. zipper. ribbon trim. each side of the snap.) in each size offered and then once delivered to me, I would have to retest all over again. Lacking equipment, time and the general knowledge of lead testing is a problem for me. Outsourcing it to a lab is not an option for me or most of my manufacturers. This would erase any profit margin we had on our products. It would drive the price of these products up so high that I wouldn’t dare ask a customer to even consider buying it…I will still offer the Art (unless that is a problem too), things for mom and I will be adding things for older kids.

There are some Davids out there fighting this Goliath. None of this makes it easier to swallow…the fact that I have been building something for a couple of years, finally gotten it off the ground and rolling (just this past summer) and now, I am told it will become illegal to sell 2/3 of my inventory. The kicker? I can’t even GIVE this stash of overstocked awesomeness away. Not to needy children or as prizes at my son’s school - its illegal to hand out come Feb. 10 as well. Guess where the my untested inventory, the pallets of mass produced toys that an e-tailer can’t afford to test and the huge boxes of clothing the small designer can’t sell to stores because they canceled their order is going to go? Landfills. What happened to the Green Movement?

The upside? Eliminating things that could harm children. So, anyone who imports things from overseas will have to follow suit as well. Test and retest. Great. Less recalls. Awesome (not being smart ass). Can we stop there, though?

I bought this shirt for my son on etsy. It was an American Apparel brand toddler size tee that the artist screen-printed a design on. My toddler wore it twice before he chummed his nuggets on it and it got trashed. Pre-nugget chum this tee got compliments. People asked where I got it. The etsy seller got referral business from me. She probably got referral business from other customers too. She actually had a profitable Work At Home Mom operation going. Her kids probably really loved this because they were home with mom. I had plans to revisit her shop. But, now you are telling me that this American Apparel tee bearing a small screen-printed design on the front was potentially dangerous to my child and under this new law I would have no way of getting my hands on it anyway because this crafty, business-savvy mom had to shut her etsy shop down and she’s now joined the ‘jobless parents club’ and her children are back in an overpriced daycare facility while she looks for work? Okay, good. Thanks for looking out for us CPSC.

That micro-example describes what is happening to me, these fine shops, and them. Kiss those cute clothes you bought at the Trade Days Market goodbye, no more eBay stores selling handmade kids things, no more wide variety of online stores to shop at. Small and even mid-size designers of children’s clothing/items are shutting down. It is because of our lawmakers and not because of our economy - however, brace yourself because this will have one hell of a negative impact on that, too.

GREAT info/links at Threadbanger: http://www.threadbanger.com/post/11014/say-no-to-the-cpsia

FORBES Article (greatness): http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/16/cpsia-safety-toys-oped-cx_wo_0116olson.html

Etsy’s Open Letter to CPSC: http://www.etsy.com/storque/craftivism/handmade-childrens-items-unintended-consequences-consumer-pr-3056/

Take the Pledge to Buy Handmade - Help Us Amend the CPSIA: http://blog.buyhandmade.org/

Wikipedia’s entry on CPSIA (easier to understand than the actual link above on “Goliath”): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Protection_Safety_Improvement_Act

Valentine’s Day is my favorite excuse to wear pink + red. I love the way those colors look together! Right now, over on the shop’s Seasonal page - you can see what’s already been added. A couple of Oversized Personalized Valentines (11″ by 14″ prints of your child’s name) are ready to be ordered up and a few Personalized Valentines Cards are up. These designs are all retro inspired. Doilies pasted on construction paper was the inspiration.

Here it goes: the only long rambling post I will ever post on my shop’s blog. This time it’s a personal one. You won’t find me overusing the exclamation point or hyping a new product. This is me emptying my brain. So, I don’t blame you if this is the last word you read. For those that have decided to hear me out, I apologize in advance for the snoozefest. 

I have some things to say about the way my days have been playing themselves out.

I am a working-mom turned stay-at-home-working-mom. No thank you with the abbreviations. SAHM always immediately makes me think “son of sam”. i dont know why. And WAHM just conjures up ‘wake me up before you go go’ & i want to vomit. I have a toddler and a school age child. My 8 year old is as close to flawless as they come. The toddler is high maintenance. Aren’t they all?  I didn’t say he was bad, he’s just really easy to piss off. So, we’ll be zooming in on the toddler for this post. The little man and me and our day to day life. The dizzying ups and ridiculously deep, cavernous downs.   He & I are peanut butter & jelly Monday through Sunday. We stay home together during the week, and then on weekends we stay home together some more.  Him playing or crying or demanding those awful Cheetos that his father accidentally introduced him to recently. Me playing with him, working on the computer, prepping the cheetos (breaking them up into bite size pieces - what the hell happened to Cheese Balls!?! In the can!), wiping Cheetos dust off of his hands & mouth, etc. Sure we go here and there, but he he prefers downtime at home and I have found that removing him from his preferred environment for more than an hour has it’s terrifying consequences. 

So, to change things up slightly for the both of us, I enrolled him in the local Mother’s Day Out program. He goes 5 hours a day on Tuesdays & Thursdays. Its wonderful. The teachers are absolute saints. He loves to play with other children (and his cousin is in his class!) It is a win win because it allows me to focus 100% on the shop, housework, making one of the million post office runs I make weekly or doing the books.

So, this new found freedom has me wondering: what does this make me? I’m a stay at home mom that has 10 hours 20 hours {oops! i forgot he stays with my mother one day a week!} during the weekdays without her child.  It’s not 100% stay at home mothering going on here - especially taking into account the amount of time he plays by himself or with his brother (when he gets home from school) and you have even more time that I’m not diapering, feeding, teaching him funny words or guiding him through his young life. I definitely feel that my role in the family has morphed into one of a glorified babysitter. I used to be the life giver, source of nutrition and the go-to person for my boys. 

In the beginning (right after I brought the baby home from the hospital) the stay at home gig felt too good to be true. What’s not to love about laying around with your infant (albeit your boob is in his or her mouth 99.9% of the time), watching tv, and basically just loving every glorious minute that your child isn’t crying.  Cozy.

Granted, in the moment, these days are also stressful, sleepless and filled with ‘what do i do?’ panic attacks, but several months down the road, if you are like me, you look back and realize that this was the time your ’stay at home’ gig actually felt legit. These were the days you were irreplaceable to your child and needed to be strapped to him at all times.

Once the child enters toddlerhood they are able to play with toys and entertain themselves for longer & longer stretches of time. This is when you find yourself less and less glued to them. This is when your day becomes less and less about them and more and more about random tasks. Many times I find my days are more about random tasks with periodic breaks for one on one time with my son (versus the day being about my son with periodic breaks for random tasks). I don’t know… I just reread those sentences and now my brain hurts.

As for balance in my life - there is none - having a foot in both camps blurs the lines so badly between work and home life. Working at home is a blessing, I realize many people don’t have the option and would love to be able to do it. However, it presents a whole new array of challenges & problems. My husband is my best friend and we have one of those relationships that seems to get better and better (okay, thats as mushy as I’ll ever get) so when he gets home, its hard to pass the baby baton for him to run with while I retire to my office. Closing myself up is absolutely necessary (can’t have Cheetos stained onesies being shipped out!) So, there goes our time together. Weekends are the same thing - ‘Oh thank goodness you are here- now I can work’. I have to force myself to not work sometimes when he is home. I did a good job of this during the holidays. That was such a nice time and I hope I can slowly start injecting work back into my life now that they are over. (Rather than injecting my family time into my worklife.)

None of this makes me miss my previous job.  Both of my boys births came at pivotal times in my life. {Obviously} They guided me toward some of the best decisions I have made in my life. Things that, without a child to think of, might have been blown off & a bad choice made in their place. So, my big decision from the last birth was to quit my job during my maternity leave (like so many mothers do). Many things occurred during that time off - most important was my mental shift from ’need paycheck’ to ’need to do my thing NOW’. So I quit my job before I was to come back in May of ‘07. It wasn’t the greatest job. Not even close. It was actually a cake job and the money was good, but it was in an industry I cared nothing about and my co-workers (save a couple) were people I had barely a casual “hi hows it going” relationship with. I felt disconnected from the ‘real me’ (gag I know). I knew I was holding myself back from doing something better (and wasting a lot of time as well).

So, what do I do? I start up a .com. I had done eBay on the side for many years, I didn’t see how difficult doing online retail full-time would be. My timing could have been better. It could not have been worse. {Insert any tired old comment about the economy here}.  However, even with the current economic situation being less than great, the shop has definitely taken off. As much as that thrills me and fulfills one of my many dreams, I sometimes think of how nice it was to shut work off once I got in the car to drive home from my job. Here at the house, work is always 15 or so feet away in my office. The messiest room in the house.

So back to wondering what I am - all of the freedom I have now does allow me to tend to the ‘working’ part of my title, however that is supposed to be backburner stuff. Child first, right? Still, somehow the ratio of working/moming has been flipped. I find myself sneaking into the office while he’s knee deep in Noggin programming. I can’t be that mom. (By the way, the office is adjacent to the living room so its not like I’m leaving him alone 40 feet away in a closed room -sorry mom guilt has me always defending myself).  It is very hard to find balance in my current lifestyle. Thats all I’m saying.

To clarify, this post is in no way, shape or form a lamenting one about not having a ‘clock in/clock out’ j-o-b. It isn’t an argument for working or for staying home. I may not be making an arguable point at all. I just find that the grass is almost never greener & this I guess could be my point after all. Just eat the grass you have. wait, what?