I Can Finally Admit I’m Not Good At Being A Mom…Or At Least That’s The Story I Keep Hearing In My Head

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Now that it’s over I can finally let you in on my big secret.  I’m not a fan of Mother’s Day.  There could be a lot of reasons for that — I don’t love being “celebrated”, I don’t love being forced to do things in the name of being “celebrated” when I really just want to go to a yoga class, or maybe because I feel torn as a mother and a daughter.  Or it might be because I’m super lazy and lame.

But if I am being honest, I probably don’t love Mother’s Day because the journey to motherhood has been a rocky road for me.  I struggled to get pregnant the first time, I was in the hospital with the “Royal Disease” (hyperemesis gravidarium) during my second pregnancy, and I flat-out sucked as a new mother with my first.  I couldn’t get him on a schedule, I couldn’t get him to stop crying unless he was being pushed around in a stroller, and I couldn’t get him to sleep…ever.

But that has changed.  I hit a stride when Gavin turned one and then a year later, Chloe was born as one of those mythical “easy babies,” so I haven’t really had a tough time as a mother in years.  Yet I still identify most with those first really hard months.

Today I have a feature up at Mommyish talking more about this strange feeling I just can’t shake.

I’m Convinced There Is No Comfort Zone In Parenting

Since suffering through that impossibly difficult first year with a challenging baby, I have never really allowed myself to get into a groove as a mother.  This isn’t a sob story about how kids constantly change and ruin your perfectly laid plans. I gave up those expectations years ago. I have learned to really go with the flow in practice. Yet in my mind, I find myself always waiting for the other shoe to drop.  Four years and two kids later – despite many more good days than bad – I constantly wonder “when is it going to be like that again?”

Read more on Mommyish…

And don’t forget, I publish a news story with a parenting angle every weekday at 9:30am (today I’m jumping for joy over the fact that someone asked “that question” to a man).  Like the WTTM Facebook page here to get my newest news piece in your feed every morning.

More Truths About Pregnancy

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Recently a couple of celebrities have been talking about the not-so-wonderful aspects of pregnancy. And it made me want to puke. I know – that’s so shocking coming from me – the woman who reveals way too much about her prenatal and post-partum body. But it’s true. In the business of revealing “the truth”, some of them will be homeruns that everyone can understand and some of them will get you a face of disgust from the person across the table (or internet, as it may be).

I wrote a piece today at Mommyish revealing the “interesting” new truths from Drew Barrymore, Lisa Osbourne, and Snooki.

Do you relate or want to gag?

The Problem With Telling The Truth About Pregnancy

Where To Start…

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I have so much to tell you about, I’m really not sure where to start.  How about chronological order?

On Friday two of my favorite women, Christie of Outlaw Mama and Arnebya of What Now And Why acquiesced to my badgering and joined me in a Huffington Post Live conversation about the bizarre overpowering phenomenon to crave more babies (they were pretty darn vocal in my comments and on their own blogs so I dragged them in with me).  I’ve pasted the player for the segment at the end of the post, if you want to check us out.

On Saturday my family attended our first with-kids wedding.  It was beautiful, it was perfect, and it was so much fun.

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Continue reading →

The Holidays Are Out Of Control

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Last week when I read Kristin Howerton’s Can We Bring The Holidays Down A Notch? I laughed and cried.  I laughed because I didn’t have multiple school age children complaining to me about St. Patrick Day celebrations, but I cried because I know it’s coming.  As it is, I’ve already struggled with how to bring them down after insane birthday celebrations and the holiday festivities are creeping in right behind them as sugar-fueled, expectation-riddled greed-fests. Continue reading →

The Motherlode in Context: Blog Comments Validate Me, Make Me Think, and Rip Me To Shreds

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Even though she warned me, I didn’t listen to my editor and I read the comments on the essay published through the NYT Motherlode.  All 210 (and counting) of them.

Anyone who blogs, or even has ever read a blog, knows comments can get ugly.  It doesn’t matter how simple the subject or how much humor you inject into the piece, people hear and read what they want, not necessarily what you said.  Readers often attach to the line or thought that speaks to them and address only that.  I guess that is human nature.

This week I learned even the NYT comments get ugly.  Many of them were also very smart and true.  I had no choice but to dissect a topic I thought Ian and I had analyzed to death.  What I hadn’t looked at more closely was the context in which this fight came up. These are not excuses and they don’t negate any of the real issues set forth in the Motherlode piece, however they provide insight into why this divisive topic elicited particularly high stakes.  Continue reading →

Lessons From Procrastination

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In an effort to avoid writing the last 25,000 words of my first novel’s first draft, I was on Twitter, because Twitter is my favorite procrastination tool.  Though I have a love-hate relationship with that little blue bird/chip on my shoulder, I discover something almost every time I’m on it.  It’s how I found my internship at Mommyish.  It’s how I came to contribute to Huffington Post Live.  It’s how I learn things about myself. Continue reading →

Crunchy Mom Prevails

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Remember how happy I was that my son was SO not a spoiled little brat around Christmas time?  Two months later, he apparently outgrew that wide-eyed wonder as evidenced by an event I’ll call “birthday party-gate 2013.”  He opened all of his gifts in 7.2 seconds, he rudely discarded the ones he wasn’t excited about, and that night before bed he said he didn’t have any fun and wanted more presents.

What have I done? I cried.

And more important, what can I do about it? Continue reading →