Applicant #54: Micheline Lopez

Micheline Lopez is a mom from Renton.

My video application:

A bit about me:

Hi, I’m Micheline and I would love to be the next Verity Mom! I’m married to a great guy and we have two fantastic daughters, ages 11 and 5. I worked as a librarian for nearly seven years, and one of my favorite things about that job was doing story times. I got to read great books, sing and dance, and put puppets on my head. But more importantly, I got to connect with moms, talk about the developmental stages their kids were going through, help them find great books, and just hear about what was going on in their lives.

There’s a lot going on in my family, too! Our girls keep us busy with sports, music, dance, and robotics practices. I’m spending the entire year with our youngest daughter, soaking up every moment, before she heads off to full-day school next year. My husband works in IT, makes amazing nachos, and coaches our oldest daughter’s basketball team in the winter.

We recently switched to a gluten-free diet to try to remedy our oldest daughter’s eczema, which seems to be triggered by wheat. Recipe experimentation led me to start a blog, http://phogirlandnachoman.wordpress.com, as a way to share meal ideas, but it’s also become a way to talk about all the wild and wacky stuff we’re up to.

Moms are busy, but we need an outlet for self-expression and we need ways to grow relationships with other moms. As a mom, I also welcome lots of opportunities to laugh with other moms, learn ideas for simple, cost-effective, and fun things to do with my family, and share stories. That’s what I’ll try to offer if I’m the next Verity Mom.

My blog post:

Do you ever have moments when you admit to yourself that something about your kid drives you crazy? And then you realize that your kid is just like you? Which means that you drive yourself crazy?

My eleven-year-old almost turned down a chance to ride a dirt bike.

My husband and I weren’t surprised by this. Risk taker? No. Risk management officer-in-training? Maybe.

As a parent, it’s frustrating to watch your child shy away from opportunities to try new things. Especially when that child used to plunge headfirst into activities. Back then, I’d have given anything to have a more cautious child.

Her reluctance to meet new challenges has left me scratching my head, pulling out my hair, and taking a good, hard look at my own choices.

Do I model how to be a risk taker?

I think I used to, although she wouldn’t remember. As young parents, my husband and I decided to leave Tucson, Arizona, for the hope of better opportunities in Seattle. We had about two thousand bucks in the bank and each other.

Did we have job prospects in Seattle? Nope.

Did we have a plan? Yes. And we had lots of family support, which was a big, fat safety net beneath our risk-taking bodies.

Were we stressed out? You bet. Did I ever wonder if I’d made a mistake? Of course. Did it all work out? Yes.

My husband landed a job in IT, which was a huge blessing in light of the fact that the economy was still recovering from the dot-com bubble. And I had a wonderful year of fun with my little girl before I started graduate school so I could become a librarian.

And that was the last major risk I took until about last week, when I left a job as a children’s librarian to stay at home full-time with our two daughters. That’s right, I left a job. A job that I loved, no less. In this economy.

Just call me Evel Knievel.

There’s no rational way to explain such a decision. It was driven by a love so intense that it makes me crazy. It’s the love for that first daughter, who is now in sixth grade and nearly as tall as I am, and her five-year-old sister. It’s the yearning to spend as much time as possible watching them grow up, even when I’m bored, even when they’re driving me crazy, even when I feel jealous of the moms who get to dress up and interact with grownups for pay.

So I left my job, in spite of all the risks involved, because otherwise I risked missing out on some important parts of my girls’ childhood.

Some opportunities are worth the risk.

That’s what I told her when she said she’d pass on the dirt bike. And the next thing I knew, she went for it. At about fives miles an hour. But whatever.

Micheline