Dana’s Story, Part 4

Dana and Kathy are settling in to married life, and opportunities abound for Dana’s CD.

Coffee Club Wives

The impending birth of our daughter also brought another significant change. We decided to buy a fairly big colonial home with a built-in pool in a nice school district. It was at the end of a cul de sac in a nice western suburb close to the airport and two major malls. Our neighbors were typical traditional nuclear families. It was comfortable for us as newlyweds to be near like-minded people. Not that we were all the same faith, or color or political persuasion, but by and large, we were all trying to establish our own family roots. We soon found out there was an epidemic in the neighborhood that we unknowingly stumbled into. There were currently three other wives that were all due to deliver within several weeks of Kathy.

While Kathy was off her feet, she was busy directing the final touches for our nursery. It was a wonderful time with Kathy and I starting a family together. Finally, the big day arrived, and Kathy safely delivered Emily. What an amazing event. At recovery, Emily was given to Kathy to start her nursing. It was a beautiful sight watching mother and child bonding. I could only imagine myself in Kathy’s shoes with our newborn. Unfortunately, nursing didn’t work out for Kathy and Emily. Kathy stopped after a few weeks because of her cracked and infected nipples (ouchie, ouchie).

However, that wasn’t the end of the world (at least my nipples were ok). It even allowed Kathy to return to work. I actually think that me taking over Emily’s day to day care and Kathy ending her breastfeeding routine helped her more easily get over the post partem blues that some women experience. Since I was working from home, I adjusted my schedule so that I could work time blocks that alternated around Emily’s schedule. The pregnancy epidemic had left our little neighborhood with multiple babies. That meant it made sense for us “wives” to get together for coffee. This was the scenario Kathy and I were hoping for and we enjoyed time together with our new friends for potlucks and bar-b-q’s over the weekends.

After recovering from her pregnancy and delivery, Kathy and I resumed our workout routine. We changed to different aerobic workout tapes and Kathy gradually worked back into her pre-pregnancy figure. I decide I would support her fully and our workouts got a little competitive. As we worked out every other day to start our mornings, both of our figures were lithe and healthy. After fully recovering from the breastfeeding fiasco, I did my personal best to restore the vitality to Kathy’s nipples. She liked to reciprocate on mine and we had some passionate time together (between feedings for Emily).

I quickly insisted that Kathy sleep through the night, since there was no sense in both of us getting up for late night feedings. This was my absolutely favorite time of the day with our little girl. I didn’t mind getting up in the middle of the night to answer my little girl’s cries. I would first wipe her clean, change her diaper and smooth the lotion over her bottom. Then we would make our way to the kitchen to warm up her bottle. Emily had such a sweet look on her face. She was tired and hungry and looked at me with her big brown eyes that would just melt butter. I cherished these times that would never come again. After her milk was ready, I would take her to our recliner/rocking chair, and we would just mellow out together while she drank her bottle. More than once Kathy had to wake me to put Emily to bed when Kathy got up in the morning.

My fellow neighbor’s wives with children were immensely helpful when I needed to run out for a couple of hours for client meetings. In return I organized many of our neighborhood activities. I wanted to keep in shape, so we started out with a stroller brigade. We were pretty imposing as we fast-walked our strollers around the surrounding area. This in turn gave way to a mother/child yoga class. The other women in our group were dynamic non-trophy wives who had a bit of a competitive streak in them as well. Our activities started to look like some high-end exercise video because of the outfits the other wives kept showing up in. I jumped on this obvious opportunity to expand my feminine wardrobe further by appealing to Kathy’s sense of fashion. I told her that I was having trouble keeping up with the coffee club lady’s fashions and I didn’t want Emily to feel bad about it. Kathy again came to my rescue and the next day brought home five new workout outfits for me as well as a couple of cute leotards for little Emily. As soon as Kathy got home from work, Emily and I had dinner for her and afterwards, we took an evening walk so that Kathy could hold and talk to Emily. “Dana, thanks for taking care of everything, you don’t know how much it means to me.” Kathy, I love you. I would do anything for you and Emily.”

Kathy continued to keep her eyes open for new suits to add to my professional woman’s wardrobe and I felt that was a huge edge for me. I explained my new model to potential clients as Laura and I met with them together. Spring had arrived early, and Easter was a family tradition on both sides. Kathy bought mother and daughter dresses for her and Emily and we had a great brunch with the neighbors afterwards. We both felt I should just go with an androgynous look. Both grandparents were over the moon with us and Emily. I was glad we were over an hour’s drive from both sets of grandparents, so we had very few unannounced guests.

Butterfly Consulting continued to grow and prosper. I had hired three women over the last four months. I met them through my networking, and they were a godsend. They all worked remotely (from home) to do research after we had a clear definition of issues. We all got together at my house for lunch every Friday to review our activity. These women were awesome. But they didn’t want to work outside the home, so our arrangement was a win-win. Two of the three women had young daughters, similar in age to Emily, so our get togethers also turned into play dates for the girls.

I wanted to figure out a way to include Cori, Laura, and Kim into the success our business was experiencing. I initially paid each of them whatever they thought was reasonable and shortly thereafter I brought them all up to the same, fairly high salary level. Although I paid them a salary, their combined efforts helped me triple my business while keeping the service level high to our clients. I told Kathy of my dilemma and asked her opinion.

“Why don’t you give them a bonus or profit sharing?”

“How much do you think is fair?”

“My last quarterly bonus was $2,500, I’m sure they would appreciate that.”

“I looked at her a little sheepishly and replied: “I was thinking more like $25,000?”

“What are you talking about, that’s like giving them a new car!” I looked down and shuffled my feet a little and fluttered my eyelashes, adding, “I did consider giving them all company cars. Do you think that’s too much?” “What! Dana! That’s a lot of money to give away, can we even afford that?”

“Kathy, I’ve always gone over our monthly expenses as well as our annual tax returns with you. We- you, me, our company, just delivered a grand slam on our biggest project yet. Three C-level executives to revamp the manufacturing process for one of the largest companies in the world. Our fee was $1.5 million. I think we can afford it.”

I wondered what I said wrong when Kathy gave me this puzzled look and said: “Then why am I still working Dana?”

End of Part 4