Happy Father’s Day!!

My babies & their Daddy

Growing up, I was never one of those girls who always dreamed of having kids.  I didn’t have my kids names picked out by the time I was 20 and I was never really into babysitting, aside from the occasional money I got out of it!  I was the girl always telling her friends “I’ll never have kids”.  Coming out of college I was very career oriented and thought I would be the CEO of some big company some day…NOTTTT! 

Then, one spring nite, in beautiful Atlantic City (sense the sarcasm?), at a club inside the Trump Taj Mahal, I met the man who is now the love of my life and the father of my children.  Drunk and delusional, I agreed to go to lunch with this man, before I knew it we were exclusively dating, going on lots of vacations and partying it up till the wee hours of the morning at the bars in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.  Somewhere in the middle of all this, I fell completely in love with him and knew at that moment that I wanted kids…with him!  Never had I had such feelings!  What the hell is wrong with me?!  When I would tell my friends that I was now considering having kids, they all laughed and reminded me of how I said I would NEVER have kids!  Funny how life decides to throw you curve balls!

Me & My Daddy :)

Words can’t describe how madly in love I am with him, how lucky I feel that he chose me to be his wife, how proud I am of him for the work he does and how he works so hard to support us, and most of all for the two beautiful children he has given me and for the wonderful father he has become and continues to be!  He has the patience of a saint (which I do not!) and always knows how to put a smile on the kids faces when they are having a meltdown.  When I’ve had a bad day with the kids and just can’t take anymore, he swoops in and helps out, takes the kids to the park, whatever.  He’s a hands-on dad, he’s not one of those dads who sits back and lets the mom handle it all.  He is truly my partner in life and I love him for that!

I also wouldn’t be who I am today without my Dad!  I am his clone and have always been “Daddy’s little girl”.  My dad was a firefighter for 27 years and I’ve always been so proud of him for that!  I am so grateful that he is the “Papa” to my kids and will never be able to repay him for all the babysitting time he’s put in, always with a smile on of course!

So to my husband, dad, grandfather and all the dads out there, Happy Father’s Day!  Thank you for all you’ve done and continue to do!

Quite A Hero

By Anonymous

My Hero is the quiet type,
No marching bands, no media hype,
But through my eyes it's plain to see,
A hero, God has sent to me.

With gentle strength and quiet pride,
All self concern is set aside,
To reach out to our fellow man,
And be there with a helping hand.

Heroes are a rarity,
With all they give and all they do,
I'll bet the thing you never knew,
My quiet hero has always been you.

Blogging, Potty Training & Social Media…All In a Days Work!

Aside from only one of my previous jobs, which kept me busy with clients ringing my phone all day and the urgency of getting work in before the Market closed at 4pm, I can honestly say I was BORED with all of my other jobs.  So bored that I would be on the Internet for most of the day and I know I’m not alone!  Personal emails, surfing the net, MySpace (at the time), planning my wedding, checking my baby registry, even a news site that had live chat is what I would consume my day with.

Memorial Day Parade - Diaper Free!

Now, after almost 3 years of being home, I am now seeing how big all this Social Media “stuff” has become!  Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc – who can keep up with all of this?  Looks like I do now!  I’ve always used Facebook (duh, who hasn’t?), but prior to working at CLS, I never “tweeted” a day in my life.  Of course I knew what Twitter was/is but I had no use for it, who cares that my kid just pooped on the potty?  A couple of months ago, I signed up for Pinterest, the funny thing is I have people following me and I haven’t “pinned” anything to my board!  LinkedIn, haven’t even touched it yet, aside from reading Coleen’s bio on it!

So now, after about 4 weeks of being a part of the CLS team, I can say that I’m a tweeting fool and blogging away for CLS and a few other clients.  Still need to get a handle on these hashtag things and the cool lingo, but I’m getting there!  So there is clearly no room for boredom now! I have plenty to do and quite frankly, I don’t even want to be on the computer anymore once Friday hits and I’ve completed my hours for the week!

Picking Strawberries on Mother's Day - Once again Diaper Free!

And just so you know, my kid did poop!! In the midst of all this blogging, tweeting and Facebooking…I’ve managed to potty train my son all in a days work!  TRIUMPH! (Gaspard & Lisa reference, Disney jr show) 




How do I do it, you ask?  I don’t know!  I just keep bobbing & weaving until I hit my bed at nite!  But that’s what we moms do…right?!

Wow! My very own blog! Where to begin?

First things first I guess, let me introduce myself.  My name is Michelle Ballentine and I’ve recently been hired as Coleen’s Virtual Assistant!  Sounds fancy doesn’t it?  I think so!  But really it just means I get the luxury, or lack thereof, of working from home.  I say “lack thereof” because I have 2 children under the age of 3 who don’t let me accomplish anything when they are awake!   So the only luxuries I get are when the monsters… uh, I mean kids, are down for the count!  

My son, Sean, will be 3 soon and my daughter, Cara, is 16 months old.  Do the math, that’s right, they are 17 months apart!  What was I thinking?  Actually, aside from marrying my wonderful husband, they have been the greatest, most amazing thing to happen to me!  

My husband (god bless him!) has to travel for work and has a rotating schedule which keeps him away from home 5 days a week.  So I’m kind of like a single parent and his schedule makes it impossible for me to commit to a work schedule and be able to afford daycare.

Enter Coleen!  Coleen has made it possible for me to do it all!  Kids, husband AND work!  It is her mission and passion, as she was once a stay-at-home mom to 3 young children, to employ other stay-at-home moms and give them the opportunity to succeed in the workforce while still being able to enjoy their families.  ALLELUIA!!

Stay tuned for my future blogs, I’ll be showing you CLS through my eyes and everything I’m learning along the way!  Thanks for visiting!