Category Archives: motherhood

September 7, 2012 · 3:20 pm

Moved

For the past two days, I’ve been agonizing over a blog post about Michelle Obama’s speech at the Democratic National Convention.  Politics aside, I can’t imagine there was anyone who wasn’t affected by what she said about motherhood, family, opportunity, and the American dream.

Suffice it to say, I was moved.  I was moved to tears.  I was moved to give more of myself.  I was moved to accept people for who they are rather than what they do or don’t have.  I was moved to ensure that my boys grow up to be courageous, giving, compassionate, and kind men.  I was moved to be grateful for the lens of motherhood through which I see the world.  I was moved to tone my arms and be bold with fashion (rhubarb J. Crew pumps!), but I digress.

I was particularly moved by her line about motherhood toward the end:

You see, at the end of the day, my most important title is still mom-in-chief.

Then I became obsessed with an earlier passage in the speech that had nothing but everything to do with motherhood.  Read this paragraph and replace President with mother.  You’ll be floored.  Go on…

You see, I’ve gotten to see up close and personal what being president really looks like.  And I’ve seen how the issues that come across a President’s desk are always the hard ones – the problems where no amount of data or numbers will get you to the right answer…the judgment calls where the stakes are so high, and there is no margin for error.  And as President, you can get all kinds of advice from all kinds of people.  But at the end of the day, when it comes time to make that decision, as President, all you have to guide you are your values, and your vision, and the life experiences that make you who you are.

And this line:

 …I have seen firsthand that being president doesn’t change who you are – it reveals who you are.

See?  Amazing!  Then I moved into a severe case of writer’s block.  I was overcome with thoughts and ideas yet paralyzed at the keyboard. So, I did what any Anxious Mama would do under that kind of stress.  I went shopping.

I’m running a 5K tomorrow morning.  It’s the first one I’ve done in almost two years.  I’m not really nervous about finishing the race (well, maybe a little bit), but I’m shaking in my boots about the course, which includes a really big hill.  Years ago, when I lived in Brooklyn, I ran in Prospect Park, which also had an enormous hill.  Every time I ran up that damn hill, I chanted “sweet potato fries, sweet potato fries” over and over again.  That was always my culinary reward for finishing that beast of a run every Saturday morning.  My retail reward for finishing a race was always a pair of new shoes (prelude to a Shopaholic Mama).

Today, I put the cart before the horse.  I bought a new pair of running shoes when I picked up my race packet.  That’s right.  I bought a new pair of shoes before I finished the race.  I’m not a superstitious person, but I admit I’m a little bit concerned that a sinkhole will open up on the course tomorrow and swallow me whole because of this premature shoe purchase.

But aren’t they beautiful!  My reasoning (besides the Shopaholic Mama defense) is that my current sneakers are almost a year old and my knees ache when I run longer distances.  Shouldn’t I have the best shot possible to run this race and get up that monster hill?

In any case, anyone who runs near me tomorrow morning will no doubt hear my Crazy Mama sweet potato mantra.  Let’s just hope it moves me – like Michelle Obama’s speech – up that bleeping hill.

Wish me luck!

p.s. You can read a full transcript of Michelle Obama’s speech here.

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Filed under Anxious Mama, motherhood, running, Shopaholic Mama

August 31, 2012 · 4:19 pm

What I Remember

I read a book this summer called “What Alice Forgot” by Liane Moriarty.  It’s about a woman, Alice, who hits her head and wakes up with ten years of her memory gone.  In the present, she’s 39 years old, has three children, and is in the middle of a nasty divorce.  She’s also a control freak, exercise and coffee obsessed, uber-busy with her kids, their schools, and their activities, and generally unhappy.  When she wakes up, she thinks she’s 29 years old, a time when she was an easy-going, tea drinking, happy woman, newly pregnant with her first child, and blissfully in love with her husband.  While she waits for her memory to return, she examines the circus her life has become and tries to put the pieces of her marriage back together with the perspective of her 29-year-old self.

The book was paperback and pink, and I thought it was going to be an easy, summery, perhaps forgettable, “chick-lit” kind of a read.  On the contrary, it rocked the ground on which I stood.  It put me deep in thought about how my 26-year-old self would deal with stay-at-home motherhood, the chaos and insanity of parenting, a husband who works long hours, the fear and loathing of colonoscopies and varicose veins, and everything else that goes along with marriage, motherhood, and aging.

Whereas 39-year-old Alice was mired down in the muck of the small stuff, 29-year-old Alice was far better at seeing the forest from the trees, especially with her children.  Since finishing the book, I’ve tried (tried is the key word) to keep this forest from the trees concept in mind as I navigate the challenges of parenthood each day without the fresh perspective of my younger self.  (My 26-year-old self is currently unavailable.  She’s probably at Bumble & Bumble in New York City getting a haircut she can’t afford.)

I won’t spoil the ending of the book about what ultimately happens with Alice’s marriage, but I’ll tell you this: it sure made me think about mine. Tomorrow is my tenth wedding anniversary.  I’ve been married for ten years.  How, in the course of these years filled with so much Life, have we not unraveled?

Of course, I’m flooded with gorgeous memories – first kisses, proposals, new jobs, births, and more – but I’m also reminded of the experiences that tested us – the circumstances that exposed our compatibility at the deepest level because the only other option would have been to come undone.  Today, parenthood seems to pull us in every direction except toward each other, but we’re getting through it with the lesson we’ve learned throughout all of our time together – that nothing can disentangle us unless we let it.

Forgetting helped Alice put the pieces her life back together.  As enticing as it would be to let go of all hard bits and live in the present through the eyes of my younger (and less wrinkled) self, I’ll stick with the memories because some of them are totally, completely, and deliciously unforgettable.

(This is a picture of a picture.  Come on over and I’ll show you the whole album.)

Happy anniversary eve, MT.

p.s. Read this book!

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Filed under anniversary, book, marriage, motherhood