MamaBlogger365 - Take Me to the River by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

I am feeling regimented and controlled to within an inch of my life. It’s coming at me from every angle and I’m feeling a distinct desire to run. Or drive, anyway.

What I really need is a mountaintop, solitude, and a cool breeze. Or maybe a nice sunny spot at a river. Or… wait. A river running through a mountain range and no one but me and a thermos of coffee. Plus some water because coffee dehydrates... click here to read more!

BIO: Dr. Mama (Amber Kinser) is a writer, feminist mother, professor, and speaker who lives in Tennessee. Check her out on Facebook, follow her on Twitter @DrMamaWit, and see her webpage. Kinser writes for the MamaBlogger365 series each Thursday at the Museum Of Motherhood, Mamapalooza and Mamazina Magazine.

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today! Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

MamaBlogger365 - Spring, Motherhood & Friendships by Stacey Battat

We are so pleased to welcome regular excerpts from Stacey Battat and Kiwi Publishing, home of the Thin Threads series of books. Want to know more? Visit www.thinthreads.com for more story samples or to buy the book!

There are days when we are truly present, and can breathe deeply and take in the beauty of the moment. We must seek out more of those moments to enrich our lives as well as all of our relationships! We have been given that “spring-like” gift this week in the North East (little though do we truly know about long-term repercussions).

Our Thin Threads of Moms & Grandma books are stories about drinking in the moments we love and recognize the small connections that ARE fresh and beautiful about motherhood!

Click here to read more!

Submitted by Stacey Battat, Creator of the Thin Threads Book Series, www.thinthreads.com.

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

MamaBlogger365 - March 5 is Day of Maternal Activism at M.O.M.

Join us Monday March 5th for an All-Day Conference! Come for as much (or as little as you can), in anticipation of International Women's Day at the Museum Of Motherhood:

9:00 AM – Registration ($55 suggested daytime fee, includes tee shirt & light fare)

9:15AM - Museum Tour

9:30-10:00AM - Social Action in the Momosphere & Hyper Local Activism, Global Activism (featuring Saving Mothers) with Joy Rose, Executive Director Museum Of Motherhood, President MAMAPALOOZA Inc., & Janae Shields, MSW, Goodwill Industries.

10-10:40AM Lucinda Cross and Panel; Social Activism through Social Media, “Mom-entrepreneur” and Business Midwife Lucinda Cross is a speaker motivator & author.

11:00-11:45AM Moms for the Planet - Air, Water, Food: Acting out on Behalf of our Children. Join Harriet Shugarman, Katie Carpenter, Rachel Dawn, and Rosemary Dreger Carey as they share stories about their outreach, campaigns, actions and arrests, as they fight for the right for access to clean air, clean water and for truth and understanding about the food we eat and prepare for our children.

Noon–Lunch & Petition Signing; Working Mother Magazine, Paid Paternal Leave

Meet The Artist, Award-winning, 'Young Icon' Dylan Bocanegra; Tribute to Mothers; His own, The Homeless and The Famous (Special loan of portrait of Maria Shriver)

1:00PM Poem Charlotte Ghiorse

1:15-1:45PM Monifa, Moms Rising, working to bring together millions of people who share a common concern about the need to build a more family-friendly America.

2PM - Tee Shirts and Sign Creation

3:00PM - Photo Opportunity

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More Business of Being Born Special Film Screening and Expert Panel Discussion

Monday, March 5, 2012

6-8pm EST

The Museum of Motherhood - 401 E. 84th St., NY, NY 10028

Ticket purchases: http://urbanitybaby.eventbrite.com/

Event information: info@urbanitybaby.com or 212.787.4736

GET A FREE TICKET and RECEIVE a FREE BOOK!

(Hurry, this is a limited time offer)Join us MONDAY, MARCH 5th from 6-8pm EST in NYC for executive Producer Ricki Lake and Filmmaker Abby Epstein's riveting film More Business of Being Born: Special Deliveries, Celebrity Mothers Talk Straight on Birthat The Museum of Motherhood hosted by UrbanityBaby Maternity Concierge and Choices In Childbirth.Hear from celeb moms Laila Ali, Gisele Bündchen, Cindy Crawford, Alyson Hannigan, Melissa Joan Hart, Kellie Martin, Alanis Morissette, Christy Turlington-Burns and Kimberly Williams-Paisley and a panel of industry experts as they talk straight about pregnancy and today's modern choices in childbirth.

Meet the experts who are on-hand at the event for a meet-and-greet, moderated panel discussion, and audience Q&A. The expert panelists include Terry Richmond (Co-founder of Birth Day Presence), Brooke Alpert (Founder/Owner of B Nutritious), Debra Flashenberg (Founder/Owner of Prenatal Yoga Center), and Leah Keller (Founder/Owner of Expect to be Fit).

DON'T MISS THIS POWERFUL AND ENLIGHTENING EVENT!

GET YOUR FREE TICKET! "Like" us on Facebook at www.facebook.com/urbanitybabynyc and get a FREE ticket when you purchase 2.

Discounts also offered on purchases of 5 tickets or more! Each ticket purchase enters you to win one of several wonderful prizes instantly! Free prenatal massages from Maternal Massage and More, Liz Lange Diaper bag, Luxury spa basket and more.

WHAT MORE? Be one of the first 30 ticketholders to arrive at the event and receive a FREE copy of the touted book HOW TO RAISE EMOTIONALLY HEALTHY CHILDREN by Gerald Newmark, Ph.D from The Children's Project - How to Raise Emotionally Healthy Children which focuses on the 5 Critical Emotional Needs of children. This is a limited time offer.

ADVANCE TICKETS REQUIRED. Tickets can be purchased at http://urbanitybaby.eventbrite.com/ or by contacting us at info@urbanitybaby.com. We look forward to hearing from you and seeing you on March 5th!

For more information or ticketing please email info@urbanitybaby.com.

MamaBlogger365 - Getting Rid of “The Talk” by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

I find it strange to still be hearing adults refer to “the talk” when they mention discussing sex with their kids, as if there were only one. As if you could possibly cover anything significant about the human body and desire and maturity and emotion and the entanglements of these in sexuality. Not to mention STDs, pregnancy, parenthood, sexual identity. And forget about constricting gender binaries. Or the problems of the notion of “virgin.” Or broken hearts. These are all critical elements in communicating about sex and they certainly can’t be covered in something as momentary and isolated and awkward as “the talk.”

Click here to read more.

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

Photo courtesy kfjmiller | MorgueFile

MamaBlogger365 - It’s Simply Complicated by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

Mothering is both harder and easier than we make it out to be. It’s tricky trying to figure out, in a given moment, whether this moment is the kind where you should lean toward: this is really not that complicated… breathe… just move forward with purpose and trust what you already know. Or whether this moment is the kind where you should lean toward: not all answers are evident, get some input from people you trust… it feels hard because it IS hard… you are going to make mistakes and this is OK but search beneath the surface to find what isn’t volunteering itself to you. Most moments are probably the kind where we should do a little of both, and this bothness is the great intellectual puzzle of parenting, through and through.

Our children are not going to turn out the way we thought they would. It’s exactly that simple. Even if you are a solid planner and executer of the plan, even if you’re one of the incredibly hip and open-minded parents who thought your plans or hopes for them were loose and totally open to their interpretation, even if you’re otherwise really good at “letting go” and “releasing it.” And, admit it, this fact is pretty disappointing.

And then that other fact—that you have the gall to be disappointed (it’s so some other generation)—is disappointing. You worked so hard to avoid “disappointment” in your mothering practice. It sounds so trite when you hear someone say your children will go their own way that it’s nearly impossible to grasp that you haven’t already accepted it. (I mean look how YOU turned out, relative to what your parents had imagined for you, for heaven’s sake).

Click here to read more...


The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

Photo credit: Ducks in A Row by beglib |MorgueFile

MamaBlogger365 - Fine; I'm Flawed by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

OK, so fine. I’m a flawed human being. I don’t always act in my own best interests. I don’t always act in my children’s best interests. But I do try. Sometimes this mother in me comes out who is more like what I think my own mother was like. Resolute. Directed. Consistent. Grownup. And other times, well. Let’s just say less so.

I’ll grant, for example, that shooting whipped cream into my mouth directly from the can is one of those things you do when you’re, say, nine. And I’ll grant that teaching my children this uncouth habit by poor example, to my partner’s complete and total dismay and probably disgust, is something that… well something my mother wouldn’t do for one thing. And OK, yes, me walking through the grocery store with my two children when they were younger, all of us trying to not be seen spraying whipped cream into our mouths is, it could be argued, less than stellar mothering practice. But I’d like to say in my own defense that… well, I don’t actually have a defense for that one.

Click here to read more!

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

Photo credit: vilhelm | MorgueFile

MamaBlogger365 - Resolving to Remember Potato Chips by Karrie McAllister

My mom has been hobbling around on her bum knee for years. If the weather was colder or if she spent an exceptionally long day chasing after grandkids, it was pretty obvious in the cockeyed shuffle she perfected. But enough had finally been enough, and she recently went in for knee replacement surgery.

The procedure itself went well. Her recovery in the hospital was as it should be, long, painful physical therapy, and mediocre (at best) food. None of this was new to her, because she had her other knee replaced just a few years ago so she knew exactly what she was getting herself into.

On her third day in the hospital, I went to visit her for the first time since the operation. I walked in and when our eyes met, I immediately saw that quiver in her chin, that automatic response that somehow keeps our eyes from turning into water faucets. No mother ever wants to break down in front of her children. We instinctively want them to always see us as strong, unbreakable, and the care-givers, not the ones who need the care. Having faced a number of heath hurdles myself in the past year, I know this feeling all too well. But here I was, staring my mom in her watery eyes.

Click here to read more!

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

Photo credit: Crisps In Bowl by Petr Kratochvil

MamaBlogger365 - How to Do Nothing for 31 Days by Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller

While individuals vary in their levels of ambition, I am pretty certain that most mothers are unaware of the overambitious manner in which they approach their normal day. Wake up, get the kids off to school (or set on their homeschooling curriculum), and survey the house. Set to work on the part that needs the most tending to, while reviewing the day’s calendar in your head and mentally tackling the first chore on your to-do list for the day. Delegate to tomorrow’s – or next week’s – to-do list that pile of papers sitting on your desk, unless there is something in there with a looming deadline.

My New Year’s Resolution this year was very different from my normal list of ten areas in which I can improve. I decided I needed to “reclaim my time”. I had to limit how much of my valuable time I gave away outside the home, so that I had something left over to give to my family. There is nothing really pressing to do once Christmas is over, so why not give myself a period of rest during the month of January? So I set about to do as little as possible for 31 days.

My husband is permanently like-minded, seeing the home as his haven for rest after his long work day. If he is home, he is most likely on the couch. I joined him on New Year’s Day, resting and napping and watching television with the children. In the middle, I made homemade pizzas and cookies with the kids. Then we went back to resting. That was a great start to the year.

I had also given myself a week off from taking writing assignments in between Christmas and New Year’s so that I could be fully present to the kids. So when they started school, I started working again. But I restrained myself in bidding on work, so that I would not be overwhelmed with overlapping deadlines, nor would I have to work past the time the kids got home from school.

This strategy worked out great. I was able to go through my days at a normal pace, get my work done plus the basic housework, and be sitting in the window with newspaper in hand by the time the school bus arrived. I could be completely present to the children, helping with homework, and making dinner while they worked in the next room. I left some chores for them to help with, such as carrying the laundry downstairs and setting the table. My two younger children had a re-awakened interest in playing the piano, so I pulled out my beginner’s book (which is 30 years old) and started from Middle C.

Over the Christmas vacation the DVD player had ceased reading disks, but the VCR still worked. So we reorganized all our old VHS cassettes and reacquainted ourselves with some really good old children’s movies. Some of the original Walt Disney movies, such as Dumbo, my littlest one had never seen. She would pick one out and we would cuddle up on the couch for two hours.

During high school testing week, my teenage daughter accompanied me to the Catholic school to help me in my volunteer hour overseeing the kindergarten lunch period. Afterwards, we stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant. We were great friends for a couple of hours – until I reminded her she needed to clean her room. I also got to go to one of her track meets.

After each day, I was completely happy with how I had chosen to spend my time that day. At the end of this month, I am feeling rested and ready to prepare for tackling my busy spring season. My family is happy and secure. Can the job of Mommy be done while doing next-to-nothing? I think my month-long experiment has proven that it can be.


Bio: Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller is a regular contributor to Mamazina Magazine. She blogs at The Divine Gift of Motherhood.

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

Photo credit: Single Cup by Petr Kratochvil

MamaBlogger365 - With Relish (please) by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

I’ve written before about the importance of not being too invested in the “highs” of mothering, about how mothers clinging steadfast (or frantically) to the feelings of “success” is unwise, not fruitful, not empowering. It’s an unkind thing to do to yourself, really, to let your sense of self-worth hang on standards that are dictated by absurd mothering standards at one end, or your children’s ridiculous and naïve standards at the other, or false but no less sensationalized images of motherhood that surround us at the other (and yes, this continuum has three ends -- just go with it). I do think that this is so very important, and so very very difficult. So I want to write today without losing sight of this.

I’d like to invoke the memory and/or recognition of how sometimes, it just works. Sometimes, it’s easy. Sometimes, it just flows. I want to sit down to that, chew on that, taste that. With a little relish, and for just a few moments. I mean look, I’ve been dragged through it as a mother. Slammed doors, cops, crushed morale, total disregard, collusion, lies, eye rolls, hospitals, perceived judgment from my peers, actual judgment from my peers, insensitive demands from the people I work for, taxing demands from the people I live with, dinners dinners dinners, the relentlessness of it all.

But then every once in a while....

Click here to read more.


The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

Photo credit: sideshowmom | MorgueFile

MamaBlogger365 - You're Not the Boss of Us by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

If we had a nickel, collectively, every time someone told a mother what to do, we’d have enough money to really change things. Because there simply is no shortage of such people, no absence of such advice or admonishment, no end in sight to the ways that others get all up in our business.

Take for example something as seemingly simple as that totally unhelpful charge to “enjoy every minute” because it “goes by so fast” that Glennon Melton wrote about in her blog at the Huffington Post this week*. Of course “every minute” is far from simple in motherhood, and enjoying each and every one of those is even farther. So now I can feel inadequate not only about how I mother but also about how my day is full of moments I am not enjoying, Melton suggests. Nice. That’s helpful. Thanks. You know what, I’m going to invoke a retort I’ve heard my kids and lots of other ones deploy in one form or another over the years: Quit bossing me around!

And then there’s the family dinner example....  click here to read more!


The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today! Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30

Photo credit: alvimann|MorgueFile

MamaBlogger365 - New Year, New Mom, New Lexicon by Tania Elfersy

It is a small gentle move, the first touch between a new mom and her baby, but it is a giant leap for each and every woman; so giant, it deserves its own lexicon.

If you have recently become a mom, congratulations and welcome; you have landed in a new milky world that will change your life forever. If you are a thoroughly modern woman, the chances are this new world is about as foreign and familiar as the moon.

Luckily, when it comes to baby care, a fine selection of books, the internet, and sometimes even our parents bring us up to speed. Parenting has an extensive lexicon to help us find our way – attachment parenting, controlled crying, co-sleeping, baby wearing, helicopter parenting, potty training, weaning... no doubt you will soon become familiar with many of these terms.

But as we bounce our babies, we moms are also bouncing around in the new world, often without essential tools to describe our adventure. Motherhood, the classic untold herstory, is accompanied by a pitiful lexicon. Not being able to easily define the “stuff’ that happens to us moms is disempowering and can leave us feeling lonely.

Here, I would like to introduce five useful terms for new and expectant moms; terms that through their very existence remind women that motherhood is a more collective experience than it often feels at 3am.

I would like to start with defining the "stuff" that happens to us. I like to call this collection of "stuff" Disruptive Wonder.

Disruptive Wonder

The unique mix of elation, fear, love, uncertainty, serenity, exhaustion, utter exhaustion, happiness, confusion, joy, frustration that is motherhood. Duration: the rest of your life, redefining itself every few years or every five minutes.

Expectation Paradise

The place where every mom’s expectations are realized; it is just not in this universe. Membership is free and there is unlimited storage.

It is a perfect location to send the expectations a woman may have held regarding her pregnancy and labor, her ability to breastfeed, calm her baby, the help she was going to receive, weaning, the new dish she just slaved over believing her child would eat it, the party she was excited to go to until her baby got sick, and it goes on, and on. Membership gift: the understanding that our happiness is not dependent on the things that happen to us (and on those things that our baby does or doesn’t do, is or isn’t) but on our reaction to them.

Relationship Rattle

The realignment of relationships that occurs between a new mom and everyone else in her life. “Everyone” may include her partner, parents, in-laws, friends with children, friends without, neighbors, her employer, store owners and anyone the mom will meet while with her baby. The Relationship Rattle will tend to calm down after a year but can reach extreme peaks within that period and even beyond.

The Relationship Rattle is comprised of many parts, unique to each woman and those who surround her. The most challenging part of the Relationship Rattle will often be with a new mom’s partner (if she has one) and work and communication will be required to calm the two-became-three scene.

The outcome of a Relationship Rattle may be positive – a woman may find herself closer to members of her family than before – or negative – a woman may find herself more distant from her childfree girlfriend who can no longer relate to her; or from her girlfriend, who is also a mom and believes all moms should practice her preferred theories of childcare.

Mommy Shield

Sounds like birth control but it is a defensive armor protecting moms from unsolicited baby care suggestions that arrive at inappropriate moments. Suggestions may include: She is hungry. She is tired. Lay her like this. Hold her like that. They may continue: Feed her this. Sit her up. Don’t sit her up. Why is she in a stroller? She should be walking by now!

Moms who do not use their Mommy Shield may find themselves wasting precious energy on anger. In a family setting, the Mommy Shield allows us to smile while thinking “I know your comment comes from love but I will choose to ignore it.” With strangers, the Mommy Shield allows us to smile while thinking “I don’t know you and I don’t want to!” Or quite simply, “Asshole!”

And then walk away.

Don’t leave home without it!

Working Wonder Mom

Both describes the mom and the acts she carries out while often single-handedly caring for her baby and beyond, throughout the day.

A more honest description than “Stay-at-Home Mom” and one that recognizes the fact that if she wasn’t doing this job, it would be outsourced and paid.

The output of a Working Wonder Mom is generally invisible and undervalued. When asked in honesty, most men will admit they could not carry out this work, day in, day out, for an extended period of time.

Please ease a new or expectant mom’s entry into motherhood by sharing this post with her and by adding your suggestions to the motherhood lexicon.
Illustration credit: ”Turn” by Nomi Melul Ohad (all rights reserved)

Tania Elfersy is co-author of the book Purple Leaves, Red Cherries: A Gift for Mothers with Short Stories, Journal & Toolkit. In 2004, Tania left her career in corporate marketing to become a Working Wonder Mom. Three children later, Tania had the idea for an inspiring book for new moms. Together with her good friend, Andrea Katzman, they created Purple Leaves, Red Cherries. Seeking a mom-friendly return to the workforce, Tania established Flower Cap Press and self-published their book. Click here for more.

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today! Visit the Museum of Motherhood - NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30

MamaBlogger365 - 2012~A New Year for Mothers by Patti Ashley, Ph.D.

My youngest daughter is expecting her first baby in April of 2012. As I reflect on how things have changed since her grandmother was born in 1914, I realize how far women have come in less than one hundred years.

Click here to read more!

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today! Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

MamaBlogger365 - Sticking to the Issues by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

Last January, inspired by the Jewish Near Year tradition, or more specifically that of Yom Kippur’s solemn day of atonement that follows the new year, I wrote several posts, beginning with a piece on food, and followed by pieces on work and time, in which I plotted out what I saw to be my “wrongs” of the year previous. My goal, of course, was to then right them in 2011.

I had thought this post was going to be about how I was rather unsuccessful; I think these will always be core points of struggle for me. But after writing out the post, I’ve had to come up here to its beginning to say that I’ve not done a bad job of working on some of my “issues” overall, though I do have some work to do on them in 2012. I feel uplifted, and sort of caught by surprise, by the realization that I did, in fact, make progress last year. I think I’ll turn my focus toward celebrating that and away from critiquing myself for the areas where I’ve seen less success. So hooray for that (my friend Lori Ann tells me she appreciates my participation in bringing ‘hooray’ back.)

Click here to read more!

The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today! Visit the Museum of Motherhood, NOW OPEN in NYC - Tues.-Sun., 10:45-6:30.

MamaBlogger365 - Reclaiming Time by Elizabeth Kathryn Gerold-Miller

I must reclaim my time. That is my first resolution for the New Year.

Every year, I think things will get so much easier. Then I am shocked when I feel busier than ever. “After I stop homeschooling..." Nope: our life filled up with extra-curricular activities. “After the little one goes to Kindergarten...” Nope: my life filled up with coaching and volunteer activities at school. “After the cross country season..." Nope: I took on so many freelance assignments I barely had time to floss my teeth. Not to mention travel softball which never stops, and Little League planning that goes on year-round.

Now that my Christmas preparations are done and I decided not to take on any more work during the vacation, I am feeling so much more like myself. I hate rushing around! I hate crowds, I hate traffic, and I really hate having my life scheduled to the second. I really love just hanging around the house in comfortable clothes, letting it get a little messy, baking and enjoying my kids.

Click here to read more!


Photo credit: earl53|MorgueFile

Our Year-End Giving Campaign is going on NOW! The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!

Visit the Museum of Motherhood
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MamaBlogger365 - My Girlfriend, Cooking by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

Cooking and I, well, let’s just say we have a complicated relationship. I mean I do love her, I do. But when calling up descriptors of us as a couple, clichés like absence makes the heart grow fonder and familiarity breeds contempt seem to fit better than, say, you’re the light of my life or you make everything make sense when you’re near me.

What I like, as I’ve noted in a previous post about good intentions, is planning. I like thinking about Cooking and planning what our time together will be like, but once the day finally arrives to actually DO something with her, well, I have a harder time with that. We work better long distance, I think. Do you know a couple like that? They’re fine as long as they’re not together all that much? Maybe you ARE part of a couple like that, so maybe you know exactly what I’m talking about. I mean there are occasions, when we’re together, and especially when we’re alone, that I can really get into her. And it’s those occasions that I try to keep in mind on days when a meal I’ve prepared rather tanks, or days when everyone in the house is suffering from some spat of sorts she and I have had. I feel like defending our relationship by saying, Hey, it’s not always like this! Sometimes we’re really good together! You don’t know her like I do!

We spent a very sexy evening together before the holidays, making gifts for some friends, mixing it up, rolling it out, you know, things were getting pretty hot. Lots of attention to the details, if you know what I mean, not rushing anything. My hands all up in that business, taking the temperature of things, taking a taste now and again. A little sweet stuff, a little instrumental holiday music playing in the background—some Celtic and some jazz, and boy was I ever in the mood. We just stretched it out like that for hours. Not a single thing on my mind but Cooking and whatever she needed to make things work, you know?

Click here to read more!

Our Year-End Giving Campaign is going on NOW! The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!

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MamaBlogger365 - Little is the New Big by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

I’ve been struck, many times and especially lately, by the way that the feelings of childhood stick with you. It could be argued, I suppose, that this isn’t all that striking, since we’ve long known that the early years of anyone’s life profoundly shape the later years. We know from studies of the psychology and sociology of family life and from studies of human interaction in family contexts that what we process as children sticks with us in some way for many many years, maybe even all the ones we have.

Click here to read more...

Our Year-End Giving Campaign is going on NOW! The Museum Of Motherhood is the first and only facility of its kind, celebrating the “her”story of mothers around the world. We need your help -- please make your tax-deductible contribution today!

MamaBlogger365 - Kachooz Ka-What? by Loren Christie

Imagine you blow your nose and someone puts a plastic face on the tissue and sells it as a toy. The next thing you know, your 6 year-old daughter wants one for Christmas. This year, the “elves” (toy manufacturers located somewhere in China) are laughing their Kachooz off at American parents. What’s a Kachooz, you ask? That’s the name of a new species of dysfunctional pencil toppers, described above, that just happen to be one of the most requested toys this holiday season.

“But Mommy, Kachooz are separated from their moops. You have to collect them all so they can be together,” my daughter told me, completely unaware of the marketing “cookie” lodged in her brain, a result of television exposure.

“What's a moop?” I asked.

“Don’t worry about that, Mama. Santa knows. Just give him my list,” she said, stuffing it in my purse.

Click here to read more...

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MamaBlogger365 - Believe in Yourself and Your Passions by Kim Jennings

All of the feelings that go along with this are completely 100% normal. Fear, doubt, questioning, guilt. All normal. So what can we do with them?

A great mentor once told me to just notice them and let them go. Lots of people give this advice. Why bother spending time on these emotions – worrying about them, worrying about what they might do, worrying about if they are “right”? The thing is, all of the time spent worrying about emotions is much better spent on the REASON for the emotions in the first place. The passion. The fire that burns within.

The emotions of fear, doubt and guilt are there precisely because you’re onto something. Something real. You’re hitting a chord within yourself.

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MamaBlogger365 - The Road to My House is Paved with Good Intentions (Part 2) by *Dr Mama* Amber Kinser

In last week’s post, I sang a song of respectful melancholy about intentions that never made it to the execution stage, having lingered in the idea stage so long that they just ended up taking up valuable psychological and physical space and were better served abandoned. Most of those were about meals that never got cooked but for fear of misleading my readers into thinking that a single post could possibly represent this issue of unspoken but no less broken promises to my self and my family, I offer up another one.

My problem, in part, is that I am a planner. I’ve always been weak in classroom math (though I was awesome in geometry, so much so that when I got my first exam back from my teacher in tenth grade I got up to hand it back to him thinking he’d given me someone else’s. Oh sorry, you gave me the wrong… hey, how’d my name get… oh… wait… this is mine? Anyway, I think of planning as my math. It feels like math to me anyway, except that I like it and enjoy the mental workout—more geometry-ish than math-ish for me I guess.

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MamaBlogger365 - Motherhood by Dorothy (Sue) Laqua

When the lights went out, it was always mom who was the last one that climbed into bed.

She had to wash the last dish or two, and scrub the floor from the day's dirt that had come in. When the sun began to peek over the hill behind our house, mother was already boiling the water to make the oatmeal or malt o' meal. She had the bacon sizzling in the pan before we ran down the stairs trying to beat the other children to the bathroom.

Being mom meant working longer hours then anyone else in the house....

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Support MamaBlogger365 and help the Museum of Motherhood secure a permanent home in 2011! Your tax-deductible donation in ANY amount will help us make our autumn POP-UP exhibit in NYC a permanent reality - visit our Members page to learn more.

Visit the Museum of Motherhood
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Photo credit: oven by seemann|MorgueFile