How Tracy Mack-Askew, Chevrolet Vehicle Line Manager, Does It Thursday, March 14, 2013, Detroit Tracy Mack-Askew is the vehicle line manager responsible for working with the engineering and manufacturing groups for the Chevrolet Malibu sedan. She has two children, Grant, 5, and Hillary, 3, and is expecting her third child in August. She lives in Detroit with her husband (who is a sales director for Philips Healthcare). 12 a.m. On the phone with my husband, Thomas. Today starts at midnight, because I fell asleep on my son's bed last night, and the stuff I meant to get done at bedtime didn't get done. My husband is out of town on business, so we talked late. I've been traveling a lot, but my travel is going to slow down for a while, so he just moved into a new job where he will travel more. It's as if we're taking turns. 12:15 a.m. Look at potential nanny profiles. When I was traveling a lot, we had a nanny, but we're in between nannies right now. When we were on the phone, he reminded me that with the new baby on the way and him traveling more, I'm going to need the support - I have to find someone new. Our old nanny totaled her car (she's O.K.), so while she will still baby-sit, she doesn't have transportation any more unless she borrows her mother's car, and so that didn't work. 12:30 a.m. E-mail and prep for the day ahead. 1 a.m. I have an early meeting, so we have to be up and out of the house by 6:45 so I can drop the kids off for precare by 7. 5:15 a.m. Alarm goes off, hit snooze. I know I'm going to hit the snooze, so I have to allow for that. 5:30 a.m. Snooze. 5:45 a.m. 5:53 a.m. Wake up, iron kids" clothes. If I'm on my game, I iron the night before, or my husband will iron if he's home. They wear uniforms - I want them to look nice and neat and well kept. I love the uniform, though. It makes life so much easier. 6:05 a.m. Wake up kids, brush their teeth, get them dressed, do their hair - I do my daughter's hair the night before and put a hair cap on, to keep it nice. If it falls off, though, we just have to make do. 6:20 a.m. Kids eating breakfast (cereal). 6:35 a.m. Get self dressed, all coats on, get in car. I have a meeting before 8 a.m. at least twice a week, and twice a week I have an 8 a.m. meeting. Sometimes we have 6 a.m. meetings, but those I can do by phone from home. When my husband is in town, his schedule is more flexible, and he can take the kids to school. 6:45 a.m. Drive to school, kids talk about their dreams from last night in the car. Hillary says she dreamed about a dinosaur - no, a dragon! I told her she didn't have to worry about either, and Grant started telling her other things about dinosaurs. Worry gone (I hope). 6:58 a.m. Pray with kids and take them into school's precare. Kids at school, including precare and aftercare. 7:20 a.m. Arrive at General Motors" Vehicle Engineering Center and prepare for Chevrolet product meetings 7:30 a.m.-5 p.m. Work 5 p.m. Leave work to pick up kids. Take Chevy future product planning call through Bluetooth (hands-free calling integrated into the car radio) on the way to pick them up (I love Bluetooth, which is on all our car and truck models). 5:40 p.m. Pick up Grant and sign up for parent-teacher conferences; head next door to the other building to pick up Hillary. If we don't pick them up by 6, you get a five-minute grace period, then they start charging you $30 a minute, so some days my husband gets them, or I call my mom or mother-in-law. 5:53 p.m. Driving home. I called Thomas (Bluetooth again) so he could talk to the kids, and he reminded me that I need to sign in to the online class at Harvard Extension School we're taking together (we're both working on a Master of Arts in management). I didn't plan on that. 6:12 p.m. Arrive home, defrost ground turkey for dinner (tacos), kids feed the fish and wash hands, I run upstairs to change clothes, then join online session for class. 6:35 p.m. Cook dinner (while online for class). I let the kids play with the iPad, which they usually don't do during the week, so I could be online. I had the laptop with the speakers and microphone set up on the kitchen table, with the kids in the family room, where I can see them but not really hear what they're doing. Thursday is one of the two days a week that they don't get homework. 7:05 p.m. Make dinner plates. 7:14 p.m. Eat dinner, with class still going on. 7:30 p.m. Class ends; kids give daily speech at dinner. I want them to work on speaking skills, and I was having trouble getting out of them what they did all day, so we came up with this. They have to get up, stand still and look at us, and tell us who they played with, what they learned and what they ate for lunch. 7:40 p.m. Pass out daily vitamins and clean off table. Usually they'd go to bed by now, but because I spent so much time on the class, I let them stay up a little. We read books, played Uno and Guess Who, then I did tickle time to chase them upstairs, and one round of hide and seek. 8:15 p.m. Get ready for bed, brush teeth, wash up, pajamas, bible story, prayer, kiss good night and tuck in beds. 8:40 p.m. Finish straightening up downstairs, remember that cleaning lady is coming tomorrow, so I don't wash the dishes (YEAH!). I just make it so it doesn't look as if a tornado hit it, then start work e-mails. 9:15 p.m. E-mails and check schedule for tomorrow (no early meetings, so no need to get the kids up and out early, YEAH!). Talk to Thomas for about an hour (he'll be home tomorrow, another YEAH!). 11 p.m. Finish kids" school application (potential new school next year) while I'm on the phone. I have to look at the school's hours for precare and aftercare - that's very important for me. We're looking at public and private schools, and trying to decide if my son will do kindergarten again, or start first grade, but one of the things that will affect the decision is what the hours are. We're going full-on here at Chevy by 8 a.m., so I can't send them to a school that doesn't start before 8. I already know the summer camp doesn't start until 8, and that's one reason we have to hire a nanny soon. 11:30 p.m. Finish talking to Thomas. Time for bed, but - 11:40 p.m. Smoke detector starts beeping. It's in between the kids" rooms, and of course it woke up my daughter. I got her back to bed, then changed the battery. It took forever, because you can't take it all the way down, so I'm standing on a chair, trying to get the battery in and get the detector back on the ceiling, wishing I could just go to bed already.