I'm Being Published!

My short story, 'Conference Call Cupcakes', will be published in the book, "Stories of Motherhood" due out in March of 2013.  The original story was a fiction based on a true event.  But the published version below required the true story.

Margaret Eileen Burke, Virginia

Conference Call Cupcakes

Being a working Mom presents its own set of challenges. My life revolves around a meticulous schedule of business meetings, deadlines, social functions and our children’s activities. Yet there are still occasions when an interruption in the schedule can cause my two worlds to collide.

Take September 30th, for instance.

It was my son’s eighth birthday and my Mommy duty to take cupcakes to school for the 11 a.m. snack time. There, I would spend twenty quality minutes making my son feel special, and then proceed to a 1 p.m. meeting, which was approximately forty-five minutes from the school.

Remember those word problems we all did in math class? If a train leaves New York at 7 a.m. traveling at 70 mph, and another leaves Chicago at 10 a.m.... Well, it turns out that these seemingly useless calculations really do have a practical application.

Here’s how that day went.

8:40 a.m. The last of my three children leaves for school. Most days I would already be dressed, but I don’t want to run the risk of spilling anything on my suit. I’m not exactly Betty Crocker in the kitchen. I grab a quick bite of breakfast and clean up the family breakfast dishes. It’s time to start the cupcakes. Most moms would have made them the night before, but I worked late last night and utter exhaustion overtook me. Just as I rip open the Pillsbury cake box, the phone rings. It’s a sales rep, one of the forty I support in my region. He has a rush print job and needs my assistance to put it into production.

8:45 a.m. Several minutes into the conversation, I can’t wait any longer. I prop the phone between my shoulder and chin and set the oven to 325 degrees. The sales rep is still explaining the job specifications while I pour the mix into a bowl, add two eggs, and a quarter cup of oil and water. Using a noisy electric mixer is out of the question, so I hand stir the batter, listening intently to every painstaking detail of the rep’s job.

9:35 a.m. The cupcakes need to bake for thirty-five minutes and cool for another twenty minutes before I can ice them and start off for the school. It’s going to be close, but the school is a short two-minute drive up the street.

9:36 a.m. Suddenly, the rep asks a question I can’t answer. “Hold on,” I say, “I have to conference in the vendor.” I put the rep on hold, dial the vendor, find the cupcake wrappers, distribute them and begin to spoon the batter into the cups. The phone slips off my shoulder and nearly lands in the batter. Fortunately, the call doesn’t get dropped along with the phone.

9:52 a.m. We arrive at a course of action for the print job. I hang up the phone and pop the cupcakes into the oven. I throw on my business casual, paint on a face, and even manage to accessorize.

10:19 a.m. The oven timer and the doorbell buzz simultaneously. The dog barks his head off at the friendly alert from the UPS guy that my package has arrived just in time for my 1 p.m. meeting. “Hush up!” I holler to the dog, while I take the cupcakes out of the oven. They look fabulous.

10:20 a.m. I respond to a few emails while I wait for the cupcakes to cool.

10:35 a.m. They’re still warm, but time is running out. I carefully ice each one and place them into the cupcake carriers. My cupcake carriers were one of those impulse buys that give our husbands ammunition to complain about our spending habits. But buying these carriers turned out to be a stroke of pure genius.

10:46 a.m. Done! I load the cupcakes, my briefcase, and the UPS package in the car and I’m off. A few hundred yards from the house it hits me: no napkins. Showing up at school with a messy snack and no napkins is a major Mommy faux pas. I turn the car around and charge back into the house to grab the napkins left over from my daughter’s birthday party that I’d put in a baggie. I feel something hard in the bag and discover the number eight candle. I’m grateful for this small victory of forethought. “Matches!” I blurt out loud. Fumbling around in my junk drawers, I finally find them, and I’m off for the second time.

10:59 a.m. I’m almost there. I’m walking—no, running!—across the school parking lot. But if you think I make it with a minute to spare, guess again. Things have changed since we were in school. There are security procedures to follow, forms to sign, and a mandatory self-adhesive visitor’s pass to affix.

11:05 a.m. From the main office I break into a jog to the classroom.

11:06 a.m. Arriving at the door, a cupcake carrier in each hand and a baggie of napkins under my arm, I see my son’s face light up. I also see the teacher trying to force a smile as she sneaks a look at the clock. To make matters worse, the Diva of all Room Mothers is volunteering in the classroom today. She and the teacher exchange a pained “She’s finally here” look.

11:10 a.m. Despite my tardiness, we have time to sing Happy Birthday to my beaming boy and eat our cupcakes. Still, I can’t help feeling remorseful. Having twenty-four second graders squirming in their seats for six long minutes must have felt like a punishment—for the teacher, at least, if not for the kids. “Maybe I should have settled for store-bought cupcakes,” I think, regretfully. But I had promised my son I would make his favorite flavor—vanilla flecked with colored sprinkles—and you can’t buy those off the shelf.

11:25 a.m. We clean up the mess, and by the end of snack time I’m out the door and on my way to my meeting.

I know there are moms who choose to work for the challenge or satisfaction of working, but I’m not one of them. My income is an absolute necessity for our family. My husband is a self-employed contractor who works long hours. The honest truth is that we are only one broken bone away from serious financial difficulty.

Our children have to make some significant allowances because their parents both work. Our 15-year-old son watches our two younger children in the summer when we cannot. I leave a list of chores on the kitchen counter every morning for them to complete.  My children know how to empty the dishwasher, pick up after themselves, and run the vacuum.

Most of the working moms I know don’t strive to be the best at what they do; they simply try to do the best the best they can for their families. Keeping up with a job, a home, and children is a juggling act, and some things simply fall through the cracks. These transgressions, no matter how small, heap a load of guilt on our heads.

I’m proud of myself for putting my children first despite the occasional inconvenience. As a mom, I’ve learned that it’s my smallest accomplishments that give me the greatest joy. So when you get home from work, put down the guilt and pick up your child. Because at the end of the day, it’s all about the cupcakes.

Margaret Eileen worked as a Print Development Manager for five years before joining her husband, Brian, as Marketing Manager of his kitchen and bath renovation company in 2011. She and Brian are the parents of two boys and a girl. She writes short stories and has published a screenplay titled “Trusting Faith,” the story of a woman grieving the tragic deaths of her husband and children and what transpires at a house she rents on a solitary vacation.  Margaret Eileen is a regular contributor to Faithwriters.com and Christianwriters.com.  She blogs at www.maggiemoments.blogspot.com and her website can be found at www.margareteileen.com.