You Know You’re a Momgineer When …

You know you’re a Momgineer when …

Are you apart of the Facebook closed group, Engineering Working Moms? If not, seek them out and join! Our FY17 President Elect, Jonna Gerken, shared this great conversation thread with HQ. She asked the Engineering Working Moms to finish this sentence, “You know you’re a Momgineer when … ” and the response was overwhelming!

1. Your daughter fills out a kindergarten Mother’s Day card this way:
   “My mom likes… doing experiments.”
2. You look at your office wall and see process flow diagrams next to the daycare calendar.
3. When you are fixing the inefficiencies of soccer tryouts!
4. When you give a presentation on Project Management to your son working on his Eagle Scout Project!!!
5. On the way from the onsite daycare room to the car your son stops each day at the poster of the planets in the hallway and points to each and recites them. Such a fond memory.
6. When your playroom is set up in work stations with labels and outlines.
7. You roll your eyes when day care calls to report, for the third time this month, that your teething infant has a fever: they measured it once using a temporal thermometer at 101.1, then again and got 101.3, “so it got worse.”
8. …you are working on a house project and make a boneheaded mistake and kids and hubby chime in to say “It’s not Rocket Science!” to which you reply “I know. If it was, I would nail it.”
9. Your daughter wants to dress like an engineer for career day, says she has the perfect outfit…”those ugly pants I hate.” AKA khakis.
10. When the second most frequently used phrase at your house (after “I love you”) is “fix the problem!” To be fair, this was initiated by the Dadgineer, but he has the Momgineer’s full backing.
11. When you turn off the radio mid-song to explain the lyrics and then the fault in the science, while the 10y yells “stop talking sciencey .”
12. When you’re enjoying a rare Moms’ Night Out to celebrate a friend’s birthday and someone comes out with a gorgeous, tall, chocolate ganache cake and serving plates and you comment (with genuine concern), “the height of that cake is bigger than the diameter of those plates.”
13. When your kid finds the O ring pick in the car that fell out of your work bag from the vendor and covers her mouth because you use them to check teeth.
14. When you read them PCIe Specifications as a bed time story because you have to memorize it and let’s face it – it will put anyone to sleep; toddlers included.
15. When you start explaining what Power is to your 20 month old because of a power outage at home, and he’s just nodding and throwing his hands around to mimic your body moments.
16. You look at a pattern for sewing your daughter a cape and know there is an easier way and a better way to make this.
17. Your 9 year old rolls his eyes at you as you’re explaining how to use trigonometry to make a cone for the neck of a Bender the Robot Halloween costume you’re building for him as an ideal teachable moment opportunity.
18. When you teach your 17 month year old how to build block towers with a wide base for stability…and sheer in turn tries to show dad how to”fix” his towers.
19. When day care tells you your daughter is quite the problem solver and you feel it’s the best compliment she can get.
20. When your paper airplanes have flaps and ailerons.
21. When your 3 year old’s fav song is “ground control to major Tom” performed by Chris Hatfield.
22. When you are simultaneously annoyed and impressed when your 18 month old pushes her little chair, next to a dining chair next to a bar height chair and easily climbs onto the counter.
23. When you look forward to seeing what experiment your daughter did during the weekly preschool science lab you signed her up for.
24. When you go to give an important client a presentation on their high- tech treatment plant design, and you forget to clear the desktop pic of your kiddos in Halloween costumes off of it for the whole room to see.
25. Your kids own every single engineering and science toy on the market.
26. When your kids know that thin film interference is why bubbles are so pretty.
27. When you’re dinner conversations include detailed explanations of the engineering principles that go into the products your 7 and 9 year old kids are excited about — and they already know what you’re talking about because they’ve heard about them so many times.
28. When your kid gets into engineering school and is excited that he will be walking the same hallways and may even have the same professors!!
29. You go on a field trip with your daughter’s class and take pictures of the Engineering Landmark plaque instead of taking pictures of the kids. Happened today.
30. Your daughter’s favorite dress is a rocket dress … that you made.
31. When you call the parent check of brushing your teeth ‘quality control’ you know you have two engineering parents.
32. When you ask your 4 year old if he wants to do art, science, or cooking and he answers “cooking, cooking is science.”
33. When your son says his favorite thing to do with mom is “science”. Also that from about 18mo on they try to fix everything that isn’t doing what it should, and the normal solution is batteries.
34. When your daughter first favorite toy is a plastic screwdriver and hammer and she attempts to use them on everything in the house.
35. When almost all of the exhausting strings of “why” questions end up with “because science is cool” and your child finally says “okay”! (Again this morning…)
36. When the same two pictures show up on your time hop for the same day 1 year ago.
37. When look forward to the day when your toddler is old enough to understand your Arduino and make cool projects!
38. … your Father’s Day gift for the second year in a row are donations to Wikipedia and NPR/Radiolab, cuz that’s what Dadgineer wants 🙂
39. You get a leatherman for Mother’s Day.
40. When you and your daughter prefer pretending to be dump trucks instead of princesses, lol.
41. When the dinner conversation is about the difference of Ferrous vs feral and you point to your shirt to explain the element.
42. When you make Schroedinger onsies for the baby shower.
43. When your daughter is trying to convince her brother that something will be fun by saying, “but it’s all about engineering!!”
44.  When your kids try to stump you with “How is X made?” questions…and haven’t succeeded yet.

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