When my son was in Kindergarten, he grew curious about me. I think around 5 is when kids start to realize that their parents are people and that they were kids too once. I'm no expert, but my daughter started to make inquiries around that time too. They would ask me what my room looked like and if played with Legos and if I fought with my sister. You would see in their faces, trying to imagine me as a little kid doing the things I shared with them; jumping rope for hours, bugging my older sister, making mud pies, getting in trouble. Then my son asked me, where my dad was. I told him simply, that my dad died when I was 9. 

I've always dreaded and looked forward to this conversation with him. I wanted to tell him of his Grandpa that he will never know and I only knew for a short while. I wanted to tell him that my dad was a jokester and a brilliant writer and Ad man. How he made bad jokes and snorted when in a good laugh and was adored by everyone and anyone that crossed paths with him during his life. I wanted to tell him that he shared his middle name with my dad and his penchant for sarcasm. 

But, I also knew that by me telling him my dad died when I was young, would put in his young mind the knowledge that, something like that could happen. That losing a parent was possible. And I didn't want him to know that yet. I feel that a part of my childhood was stolen, not for the loss of my father, but for the fear after, that I could also lose my mother. 

I spoke of my dad's death in a matter-of-fact kind of way. I built it up that he ate a lot of red meat, drank his share of booze, smoked cigarettes and didn't exercise. And then I casually reminded him, that's why we have well-checks and eat fruit and I go to the gym. And even though, he never straight out asked, could that happen to you, I knew it was in there somewhere, and I wanted to answer the question before he could ask it. More Here...

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A few times a year we take the 8 hour road trip to see my family. Every road trip, I begin with such great intentions; I'm organized, the car is methodically packed, well oiled and filled up with gas. The kids are in comfortable clothes, have used the potty, have their pillows, games systems and DVD choices. I almost hate myself with HOW prepared I actually am for them, attempting to ensure that they don't have a single moment of boredom. When as a kid I remember taking a road trip and we switched off who had to sit on the bump in the backseat and whose turn it was to have the walkman. Staring out the window was the extent of our entertainment, and I didn't know to complain and being bored was just something you deal with. 

But times are different. And in all honesty, all of these things they are equipped with are not really for them, but for me... So that I can relax and enjoy the road and listen to my own music. And the first 3 hours always go pretty well, then we stop for lunch and potty break, re-position their area for round 2... or 3... and we are good for an hour'ish... and then it begins... the restlessness kicks in, the organized state of the floor area is becoming wrecked from use, their pillows are scrunched and are just in the way now and the dvd player needs to be charged, but the charger has fallen to the bottom of the bag which is now at the bottom of ALL the bags on the floor of the car, just out of reach enough that all of our finger tips can't grab it and it doesn't matter anyway because I've forgotten whose turn it is to choose a movie and they swear it's both their turn and just as I'm about to pull this car over and add a good 30 more minutes to this trip as I re-organize, mediate and begin again, only for something else to come up and some bickering to begin... But NOT this time kiddos... More Here...

*SYNDICATED*

You know those “rules” we say even before having kids? One of mine was that my child will NEVER sleep in my bed.

Bella’s first night earth side and she slept in the arms of her gramma rather than her momma’s. At some point, my mom woke me saying I needed to feed her. I did and then I went back to bed, leaving my daughter with my mom. Looking back, it hurts both physically and emotionally that I did that. I didn’t know any better, and thought I was doing the “right” thing. After gramma left we tried the whole crib thing, but it never worked out. Bella had her days and nights mixed up and exhausted, I relinquished control and began co-sleeping. She did well in her pack-n-play next to our bed. I got up to feed her and when our breastfeeding relationship ended at 4 months (another story, for another post) I kept formula and bottles right next to us to easily make a bottle in the middle of the night. It was easy, and worked well.

As she grew we tried the crib thing again, and even the CIO thing (shudder). It left me with a pain so deep I can’t quite bring it to words, a hollow and desperate feeling. Finally, I just took the crib railing off and lay with her as she fell asleep. We had a routine that we followed religiously, but bedtime was still a walking nightmare. It took, sometimes, hours to get her to sleep and she still ended up in our bed midway through the night. This is where our bed-sharing relationship began; because I gave up. I let my daughter be the little girl she was. My husband loved bed-sharing! It took 15 minutes max to put her to sleep and she began sleeping through the night. Waking up to either a sleeping angel or a glowing awake princess melted our hearts each and every morning. My relationship with my husband grew stronger as I wasn’t nearly as stressed, and when bed-sharing couples say it doesn’t affect their sex life, they are soooo right (TMI, sorry).More Here...

The title implies that I'm uppity in some way. I'm not. Or it implies that my own kids don't embarrass me at times. They do. I'm certainly not in line for the Mother of The Year award and my kids are certainly not in the top ten for the Perfect children award, but I do, even in my worst days demand and expect a certain amount of discipline, manners and respect to go on. I'm often playfully jostled by my close friends that my kids are not allowed to behave as what they call "kids." But I smile and hold my ground and my kids never whine at me about it or act out in spite. They do what they're expected to do and if they don't, there are swift and quick consequences. I'll find parents who will say,"Oh, kids will be kids, let them". To that, I say, "Kids will be assholes, if YOU let them." But again, not a perfect parent here, but there are times, when we're out in public with my friends children, when the way that their kids behave, embarrasses me.

The other day, one of my good friends, (whom I adore by the way and love dearly and whose kids I adore and would care for at any moment of the day) and I met at Target. We both needed to get some things done, both with our children and thought we'd make a "trip" out of it. Our kids are the same age; our son's are both 8 and my daughter and her other son, 6. We have been good friends for a few years now and have spent countless weekend days playing at the pool and in her backyard. Her boys are great, but they are rambunctious boys; often found kicking each other and wrestling each other to the ground both in fun and in anger. I KNOW that her kids disposition is just naturally different from my kids and that's okay. In fact, I often wonder, if my second were a boy, if I would allow more physical altercations to take place than I do, but not sure. Her boys are 'boys"... they are rough and tough and aggressive, but not always in a physical or negative manner, they're just ... um... louder (?), their movements... bigger(?). I also need to tell you, that my friend is a phenomenal mother. She's one hundred percent there for them, is affectionate and does show a great amount of discipline. We both exercise the same angle of discipline... or rather, we both follow through with our warnings..

However, when in public... in any public arena, we differ. Greatly. As we made our way through Target's aisles, the kids were playful with each other, picking things up and tossing beach balls and laughing and poking fun at each other. Fine. However, her boys were extremely loud, yelling, blowing whistles and running up and down the aisles, sometimes finding themselves in the way of other shoppers and quite frankly, knocking things off the shelves and not putting them back. I didn't say anything and would pick up random things to place them back onto the shelves and we would move along. A few times, I called out to my kids to remind them to "slow down" or "no running" or "put it back please", and they would. When I saw that they started to follow the enticing lead that was more frenzied than I thought was okay for Target, I called them to my cart and firmly reminded them of where we were and how I expected them to behave and that they would walk near me the rest of the way. It was then that we found ourselves observing our friends behavior; we watched them run around, almost run into an elderly lady, continue to pull things off the shelves, play with them and then leave them in the aisles and kick at each other unaware of who was near. My friend, well... she let them and occasionally would throw out a weak, "watch out for other people" as I noticed looks from the other shoppers and it was then, that my kids and I fell back a bit, making a detour to another aisle, and to be honest, maybe I'm a bad person, but I did not want anyone to think that we were a part of their group or that her kids were my responsibility. More Here...