A Mom's Life

I didn't take any drugs during either of my kids' deliveries, I swear. However, I must have been on drugs at some point in the hospital because I think I signed very important paperwork and I just don't recall when. It's a little scary and disconcerting, honestly, because I don't remember reading the fine print, or signing my name, but I clearly signed myself up for something- for life- and frankly, I'm not very happy about it. It was such a foolish thing to do but it must have been the post labor hormones and is definitely one of those parts of labor (like the burning and the delirium) that oddly, I can't recall. Yes, it must have been in the hospital that I signed myself up to be the "default parent." Like a responsible new parent, I gave their names for their social security numbers and birth certificates. I watched the video and signed that I understood shaking a baby can kill it, and signed that I understood how to properly install a car se...

To make peace with an enemy one must work with that enemy and that enemy becomes one’s partner. – Nelson Mandela Isn't it interesting that,often, our hormones dictate how we first determine life partners? We are attracted to a person- their looks, their smile, laugh, and yes, their personality, their values, their beliefs, and in many ways their lifestyle. In our culture today, we decide if we want to spend the rest of our lives with someone because they are attractive, they believe in what we believe in, value what we value, and our ideas of the future are similar. (This is not a comprehensive list, or a thesis paper, so you must give me a break. I give myself 60 minutes tops to power blog post and I do not research on anything before writing. I know, real quality here.)Anyway, I'm curious about this dude who is the founder of eharmony.com. I always see him on TV, touting the success of his online match making site. The company has a big assessment that you take that supp...

I have a big nose. People without a big nose think it gives me character. People who also have a big nose agree that my nose is big. For most of my childhood and teen years, I hated my nose. There it sat, right in the middle of my face, big and ugly and ruining my chances of modeling or getting a good date. As I have aged, and got that good date- for life-I've cared less about my big nose, except for those awkward moments because it always seems runny. My nose has become more to me that just a bulls eye on my face. It's become a memory generator. Given the fact that on many days I can't remember where my glasses are when they are on my face, or what someone said to me five minutes ago, I'm awed by how our senses can pull us back to remembering and to recalling so many specific details of the memory, or even how you react now about the overall feeling you had at the original moment. My big nose is good at connecting me to memories. I'm fascinated how many times,...

Having kids is a cool experiment. You mix your genes and out comes this person who is sorta like you, sorta like your partner and sorta like your great aunt Helen. Then, this is nuts- you have another kid and they are sorta like you, but not in the same way as the other kid, sorta like your partner, but again, not in the same way, and could basically be a carbon copy of your sibling. How does that happen?! I have no idea, and I'm not about to explain it to you. I was a history major, remember, I know nothing about the human genome except that it's some sort of project. So, my two genetic gifts are my salt and pepper. My Sugar and Spice. My Sugar is sweet and shy and very cuddly and rarely questions my authority. Except when my sugar OD's on the sweet stuff and then she goes haywire and is a tyrant who screams as loud as she possibly can, stomps her feet like she's trying out for the Blue Man Group, and waves her arms like she wants to fly to the moon. Mostly, though,...

I woke up this morning in the five o'clock hour, as I do several times each week. Trying my best to exert the least amount of energy as possible, I dressed, drank a glass of water, downed a piece of toast with peanut butter, and headed out the door. Pitbull thumped in my earphones as I shuffled in the cold, misty morning. As I crested a hill and caught a steady pace, I closed my eyes for a moment and considered keeping them closed. I wondered if I could master "sleep running". It is a great idea and a wonderful way to kill two birds with one stone. I could catch some z's and get in my weekly mileage quota, all at the same time. Then I thought of my mother-in-law and my promise to be a safe runner, and I opened my eyes and pushed harder, pushing my body and mind awake. As I trucked along I thought, "I wonder how much faster I could be if I wasn't so tired all of the time?" And then, I thought about all of the things I'd be better at if I wasn't s...

Ugh. I get sooo sick of people complaining about technology. They act like it is some sort of demon that is destroying the world. It's killing our social skills, making us more insular. It's causing us to have car accidents. It's making us bad parents. Blah. Blah. Blah. The internet, and our ability to access it anywhere, anytime, is the new TV; the new rock and roll and rap. It's the new cigarettes; new weed. It's big and bad and terrible and will be the demise of civilization. Not to call her out, but a personal example of the schism between the old guard and the new is illustrated during a conversation between me and my mom. While she does use the World Wide Web for work and did buy a Kindle last year, she is more or less fearful of technology. She's pretty much a ludite. When I'd send her a link, the lady used to re-type links into her Internet browser (you know, like wwww.blahblah.com/thiehriehru5858456u468945798&$%%&%&. She thinks someon...

I know three languages. Obviously, I've got English covered. For nine years I was a student of Spanish and studied abroad in Costs Rica. I've lost my Spanish language abilities over time because I don't read it or speak it very much any more besides counting to ten with the kids, watching some Dora the Explorer, and singing a Pitbull song. It's been years since I actively practiced but I can still speak it conversationally and can eavesdrop on conversations and understand every third or fourth words. It seems, with langauges, it's easier to read or understand than it is to speak. That's the case with my third language. In addition to my mastery of English and my conversational Spanish, I comprehend Andy as a Second Language. That's right ASL, the real language of love. It's best way to learn a langauge through immersion and that's what I have done for the last thirteen years. It was hard at first and I was often confused and misinterpreting what I...