Tag Archive: Motherhood

On one of my early dates with my now husband I remember him talking about how some of his friends didn’t really understand his commitments to his daughter as he ‘only’ saw her every other weekend. I said to him, “You’re her dad everyday regardless of if you see her or not”. Reflecting on this now,...  

My second child cried as he boarded the bus six years ago for his first summer of sleep away camp. He wrote letters home about the pain and torment of sleep away camp, telling us he wasn’t “manly enough for this,” and that we must come and get him. And then, the second he came...  

One recent Wednesday afternoon my 3rd grade daughter – I’ll just call her M – came off the bus visibly upset.  She’s a moody one, so sometimes she comes off the bus cranky and kvetchy, but this was full on misery. She proceeded to break down in tears as soon as she got in our car. M...  

This Yiddisheh mama has a major confession to make. I’ve been holding this one in, so bear with me. It comes from a lifetime ago. You SAHM’s, like my Mrs., oh how I want to be you. Let me schmear (spread) some broad, sweeping caveats, loudly and clearly, that you, by far, have the single hardest job...  

My Mum is disappointed. In me. She’s disappointed in me. If you have ever been on the receiving end of anyone’s disappointment then you will know…it sucks! It’s a million times worse than anger, or the silent treatment. Give me a screaming argument any day – let’s get it all out in the open, cards...  

I have an irrational fear of toilets. Mostly because when toilets act up, one of two things usually ends up happening: you open the lid and there’s NO water, or you flush and the water overflows. (I think I can attribute this to a scarring event early in my childhood.) So you can imagine my...  

There certain expectation of women, especially mothers, which exist in our society. A picture-perfect home, a home-cooked meal, and presentable kids in ironed clothing, sans chocolate face … Many of us have been bucking the system out of downright necessity. We’ve been doing things that prime time television would look down on us for and...  

My daughter recently came home from school and told me that a little boy on the playground was pushing her around. Not so much physically, she reported, but more verbally. Telling her she couldn’t be friends with so-and-so, that she wasn’t allowed to play the game, and that she was stupid. That sort of thing....  

Why Can’t I Be Like Other People?   Someone overheard you say these words.  And that someone relayed that to me.  My heart has been sitting in my throat ever since and there are tears in my eyes that won’t dry. If you could see what I see; know what I know; sense what I sense….you would...  

You know what I like? I like waking up in the morning and still seeing the white scape of the moon in the morning sky. And it’s imprinted in the blue just like it was the night before when I saw it, driving home from a movie. It’s like a clear white snowy version of...  

Last weekend, I attended my first day-long meditation retreat. We’d done several sits, heard several talks, taken several breaks. But then came the retreat leader’s question, Who would you be if you stopped believing there was something wrong with you? The question smacked me in my head like a wet washcloth of realty. My eyes...  

Dear fifth grade boy, Let me start out by saying how happy I am for you. You’ve made it this far in life without being murdered by your parents – and that is a feat in and of itself. You haven’t contracted an incurable disease from eating weird shit off the ground, and you haven’t...  

Once upon a time I made my parents spend thousands of dollars on a wedding, then seven years and one toddler later, I was divorced. The process was a lot cheaper and a lot less messy than the actual wedding ceremony, if I’m being honest. After the divorce I started doing what all “good” women...  

Mom guilt. Work guilt. Wife guilt. Me guilt. Guilt guilt. Guilt comes in many gut-wrenching shapes and sizes. And it’s always lurking and hovering, like a horrible threatening rain cloud on a bright, sunny day. And I know I don’t suffer alone. Guilt ruins your day. It gets in the way of productivity. It causes...  

My kids are both tucked into their beds, sweaty hairs on the pillow, small warm bodies snuggled into fresh sheets with their overhead fans whirring and white noise all around. Like most other days, I snuck out from my son’s room and closed his door (wondering yet again if it was a good idea to...  

By Jen Schwartz (The Medicated Mommy) & Rachel Sobel (Whine & Cheez – its) Early fall is Jewish holiday season. That means going to temple, eating apples and honey in hopes of a sweet year ahead, family dinners filled with equal parts kvelling & kvetching, and a day of starvation fasting that culminates in the...  

I read a lot these days. I read a lot of blogs, a lot of online articles and a lot of social media posts.  I am reading oodles of articles regarding female empowerment.  Specifically I am seeing a lot of written pieces regarding mothers embracing their post baby bodies.  Millions of women are banding together...  

“Were those vaginal babies?” No joke.  This was an actual question regarding my tiny newborn twins. We were spending a warm summery day at the local zoo.  The twins could not have been more than two months old and my older girls were 4 and 6 at the time.  Four tiny ladies and their tiny mama...  

I just gave birth to my second child. Writing it down doesn’t make it seem any more real. I do have all the warmfuzzies that new moms experience; but mostly, I find myself wondering how I ended up here. Not logistically, of course – I know how unprotected sex works. But if some soothsaying future-dweller had come to...  

My son is a strapping young man. He’s handsome. He’s confident. He’s burly. He’s a jokester with a soft heart. He’s got a mess of wispy blonde curls and bright blue eyes. He’s like the prankster you grow to love (and excuse from all his pranks.) He kisses and hugs with wild abandon, and speaks...  

Oh, those great Landscapes that wonder through my world, winding and telling my story:I became a Fertile Crescent and the depths descended upon the face of my being, that is to say: My Face The crevasses are deep, wide, unimaginable: Are they filled with clay? Or rock? Or water? Or Mommy Brain? I speak of...  

A year ago this week, my husband was staffed in Brooklyn. We live in Florida. He’s a consultant and gets staffed here and there; I work from home, so I can go here and there with him. To me, this looked like a prime opportunity to pick up out Floridian existence and live amidst the...  

When I first had my baby, my sense of humor went on hiatus. Sure, sometimes I felt amazed and content, but often I was a weeping, cranky mess who couldn’t believe my perfect child was going to be in our apartment, needing me, all the time. A few months in, while nursing my infant for the millionth time...  

My daughter has a peanut allergy. We found it totally by accident while doing some testing for another suspected food allergy. That one came back clear and then the doctor said, “Oh, but she IS allergic to peanuts.” It might be hard for some to imagine how we couldn’t have had an inkling since she...  

“Never do for your kids, what they can do for themselves,” said some wise parent somewhere. I emailed my daughter’s teacher about her paper because she’d pilfered points from her essay citing a comma shortage. The teacher thought my daughter had left out commas where she should’ve put them. Now, as far as my daughter’s...  

I’ve always been a social butterfly.  As far back as I can remember, I had a planner.  Often neglecting to write in the tests and quizzes of high school, I loved the sight of an exciting event written in perfect script on any given day.  Moving to the ‘burbs and becoming a mom happened almost...  

I love Washington, DC. I love walking around, partly because I know the city like the back of my hand. I love people watching, and the personalities and styles and cultures that co-exist. I love the restaurants spilling out into the streets, friends and families and lovers having great food and wine. I’ve never met...  

I really wanted to write a post about a disastrous date Saturday on my personal blog, but then I faltered – what if my kid’s teacher read it? What about his friend’s moms? In the age of social media nothing is really that private anymore, so I got all fickle and changed my mind. I...  

I just finished watering the bushes in our yard with a garden hose, holding a beer. I was wearing a sports bra and Umbros. Yep, I still have Umbros. I may have been muttering to myself and making overly-dramatic facial expressions, which only heightens the kind of woman I might have appeared to be. Furthermore,...  

I will never raise my daughter to be a homemaker. Now, before all the SAHMs (that’s “stay-at-home-moms” for those who don’t live in the world of acronyms and text-speak) freak out and start hurling insults my way, let me assert that I have absolutely zero problem with those who choose to forgo a career in...  

No, it’s not that you’re beautiful, nor is it that you’re the hottest POA in here although these are both very nice things to hear in their own personalized ways of course. Just in general, food for thought, these are nice things to hear on any day or well everyday (okay, realistically, bi-monthly or at...  

A couple weeks ago, this text exchange between me and my babysitter, “A”, occurred: Me: Hey A, how was your weekend? Might you be available this Saturday evening? 🙂 Babysitter: HI!! awwww thx – it was awesome sauce lolzzz (happy face emoji, check mark emoji). Me and my group rolled deep, killing the game! (photo...  

It all started innocently enough. I was having a casual conversation with a friend who lamented that since her husband rarely made it home before 8PM each night, she was pretty much “like a single mom.” The relationship between my child’s father and I had fallen apart months earlier, and I had been single handedly...  

As I wandered the grocery store this morning, my eyes focused on a stunning woman accompanied by her preschool son. In passing, I caught snippets of their conversation, with the boy asking his mom for something and then her reply: “But Honey, every time I buy you something you think you’ll like you never eat...  

Some people have a hard time understanding exactly what I do. They can’t wrap their head around the life of a momblogger. Particularly people who spend their time chained to a cubicle, drinking subpar coffee and eating pastries left over from the 9am sales meeting (Been there, done that). So, I decided to paint a...  

When did “superbusy” turn into something that women are supposed to be? It’s almost a competition: if you aren’t busy then you’re not doing a good job at your life as a mother, a wife, an employee, and a person in general. And that’s bullshit. I remember when I was growing up (and I’m not...  

At a certain point in your parenting experience, you stop dreading snow days. You no longer have to spend every snow day entertaining your children with sledding, art projects, and your very own circus acts. Your kids stop screaming at each other. And you. No one is going stir crazy. Instead, you relish the opportunity...  

Some may say I spoil my child. And you know what? I’ll own it. I absolutely do. And guess what…I’m not sorry. Most times she comes with me to run errands, I let her pick out a little something wherever we are – Target, Publix, whatever. It’s equal parts spoiling and hush money to keep...  

My mother always wanted a little boy, and said she would have named me Adam Eugene had I have come out with the right parts. Thankfully I didn’t, because you can never be too cool with a name like Eugene. My sister also disappointed her with her lady bits, and paid the price by being...  

Yep, you read that headline right, and I didn’t stutter. In the past few months there have been two kids in my general neck of the woods who have killed themselves because of bullying. I know people who homeschooled their kids because they were made fun of at school. My 7-year-old son has heard about bullying at school...  

If you were a teenager in 1985 it’s likely you could have recited just about every line from John Hughes’ hit film The Breakfast Club. When Mr. Vernon asked the group to write an essay on ‘Who They Think They Are’ Brian, the Brain, sat back in his chair and asked himself aloud, “Who are you?...  

Even some of the most fashion forward women will admit that somewhere deeply buried (but 100% accessible) in their dresser is a pair of her favorite sweatpants. What is it about these folded (let’s be honest—wadded), wrinkled, old, likely college sweatpants that makes them stick around? Is it the cozy factor? Is it the elastic...  

When I first had my child I subscribed to several parenting magazines. I read books about how to raise a child without raising your voice, and how the French parented correctly. I attempted to implement these things, to feed my son those “child-friendly” recipes and make the crafts out of bits of leaves and twigs....  

Let’s be real…nobody goes into a marriage thinking they will one day be divorced. And while my pre-marriage relationship certainly had some bumps and hurdles, I never thought it would happen to me. But it did. And it effing SUCKED. When we landed back home after more than a decade of moving around, it was...  

  HEY YOU…. Yeah, you….the girl in the Lululemon, with your venti-soy-skinny-macchiato-with-two-Splendas in the car cup holder. You’re probably reading this article during car line…. in between responding to the PTA emails, confirming next week’s sleepover, and rescheduling the orthodontist appointment you double booked. I bet you’re psyched for your idyllic planned-down-to-the-minute winter break trip, am...  

I am 35 years old. I have three children. I love my husband, I work full time, I take care of most of my wifely duties each day. Some days are much harder than others (wink). Some days are wonderful. I have been working on establishing a writing career for a year. It has been...