listen to your mother

Posts Tagged ‘listen to your mother’

Bad, bad mommy (but also good mommy!)

Wednesday, June 29th, 2011

Apparently, I’ve been a bad, bad mommy.

Exhibit A

That’s right. I let my kid get a mohawk. He wanted one, it’s summer, he’s a boy – and he LOVES it. And guess what? So do I. I think he looks adorable. He’s 7. It’s only hair. It’ll grow back.

My neighbor, whose 10 year-old son gets a mohawk every year for the week of Boy Scout camp, told me he gets it shaved off at the end of the week. Because she’d never let him go out and public like that.

Me? I’m THAT mom.

Exhibit B

That adorable little boy holding his new puzzle is none other than my two year-old. Yes, he’s in a movie theater for the first time. Yes, he’s about to see Cars 2. Yes, he watched the entire movie. No, it never occurred to me AT ALL that it was violent – until I got a few tweets asking about it. Including one tweet where the woman’s preschoolers were scared of the movie because of all the violence.

So I thought back and yeah, I guess there was a lot of shooting and explosions. It didn’t faze X. Or any of my kids. They’ve seen Star Wars. They have water guns and light sabers and swords. And X is a third child. He’s seen a lot of stuff the older two didn’t at his age. Nothing awful, we’re not watching stuff with monsters or rated R violence. Frankly, I think the voodoo stuff in Princess and the Frog was much scarier than Cars 2.

But that’s just me.

I’m THAT mom.

And now for something completely different.

A time when I was a good Mommy. The video from my Listen To Your Mother reading is up. Actually, they are all available, and I encourage you to listen to these amazing women as we lift our voices on behalf of motherhood. It remains one of the proudest and most inspiring moments of my life. I hope you think so, too.

Tags: i am a bad mommy, i am a good mommy, listen to your mother, my toddler just really likes Mater, say cheese, that is my kid with the crazy hair
Posted in Just me, Parenting | 45 Comments »

I’m proud, dammit!

Tuesday, May 3rd, 2011

Today’s RemembeRED prompt from The Red Dress Club asks us to write something about ourselves of which we are proud. There are many things I could choose from: moments from my career, having two home births, running two marathons…

It’s not always been easy to say, “I’m proud of myself.” I don’t remember my parents saying they were proud of me when I was growing up. So feeling proud of myself is an uncomfortable feeling. But as I’ve gotten older, it’s become easier. Healthier, too.

Sunday I left my house at 4:45 in the morning and drove to Newport Beach to run a half-marathon for which I didn’t train. It was a cloudless day and the sky melted into the ocean. Perfection. And since we didn’t train, we took our time. In the last mile when a young woman collapsed right next to us – my friend’s sister who had just come out to run us in helped her, and we found a medic. Then we continued on and finished together in the slowest half we’ve ever run. But we were proud, because not everyone can roll out of bed and run 13.1 miles without training – and we did just that.

I was home for only an hour, barely enough time to shower and change and drive up to LA for the Listen To Your Mother show, of which I was a cast member. I got to sit on stage at the Rosenthal Theater for Inner City Arts with 14 other amazing women and listened as they read stories they’d written about motherhood. I was truly humbled by the incredible talent – and proud, INCREDIBLY proud, to be part of this group.

Here is the piece I read. (more…)

Tags: half-marathon, I'm so proud, it was a crazy day, listen to your mother, Remembe(red), the red dress club
Posted in Just me, Remembe(red) | 54 Comments »

Who am I, anyway?

Tuesday, April 19th, 2011

All she wanted was a bio.

You know, a few paragraphs about myself.

So I sat there. And sat. Sat some more. Got up, grabbed some Cadbury mini eggs, sat again. Crunched. Sat.

This shouldn’t be so hard.

I mean, I blog, which by definition makes me a bit of a narcissist, right? I talk about myself, my family, my viewpoint. And I do it so other people can read it.

But to have to sum up my life, to crow about my accomplishments…this leaves me tongue-tied. Or finger-tied. Whatever.

Makes me wonder if this is a woman thing. A mom thing, even. (more…)

Tags: bio, I could really go all existential on y'all, listen to your mother, who knew it was this tough to talk about myself
Posted in Just me | 47 Comments »