Entries Tagged 'Mothers' ↓

If you’re a mother, busy with kids and work and married and have very little time for making new friends, you might have a good idea of what I am talking about when I refer to “Mom Dating”. And this weekend, as I was moving out one of my dearest friends and neighbors down the street – entirely too aware of the enormous void she would leave in my life – I knew it was time for me to get back in the game. I need to wipe the grape jelly off my kids faces, put something not so wrinkled on, buck up and start “Mom Dating” again.

As an overly eager college grad years ago, finding new friends was never hard to do. School and then work handed over heaps of new friends to sort through and bond with. But as I became (er… I guess it’s categorized as) a “grown-up”, those school and work friends and I have all dispersed, married and created lives of our own. Sure we call, we facebook, we skype. But we don’t have each other right here. For the spontaneous “bring the kids over for movie night, don’t forget the wine” kind of thing. For the “can you watch my kids so I can have the minimum number of eyes on my parts during my annual” times. For even the “if you let me borrow a stick of butter, I’ll share this raw cookie dough with you” moments.

So, to fill this particular empty void in our lives, we “grown ups” have to on-purpose, fully on the prowl, get out and start Mom Dating. It’s actually no different than regular dating except that it’s done on playgrounds and there is no fretting over how long you hold each other afterwards.

Ugh, but I cringe at the idea. Why? Like real dating, there are always some hurdles we must leap before finding “the one”. Like real dating, we have to put ourselves out there and risk rejection. Certainly trial and error has to be a part of the process but, when it comes to Mom Dating, I know what I am up against.

Finding Moms

When I’m scoping for moms, I keep my eyes open all the time for thirty something-ish mothers that kind of seem a little bit like me, trailing a pack of kids who seem no more or less wild than my own. I often find them in bookstores, grocery stores, Target. But really the best places to troll for moms are: playgrounds (it is the ultimate common ground), school or playgroup (your kids know each other, you see each other regularly, its kind of perfect), kid’s extracurriculars (didn’t you know Little League and karate were really all about YOU?), and libraries. One time I totally exchanged digits with a very cool mom at the library. Before she moved away (grumble grumble, Florida can be so transient sometimes) we were even kind of BFFs for awhile.

Giving the Right Impression

So now you’ve spotted a mom. But before she might allow her children to be anywhere near yours, you really need to give the right impression.  Firstly, always have your kids with you. A hassle (I know) but really, like the chick magnet cute dog my husband had in college, its the perfect ice breaker and establishes you as a 100%, genuine mom – just like her. You want to immediately portray that “Hi there! I’m a normal, regular mom too. See all of my screaming monsters that I’m trying reeeally hard not to yell too much at so I don’t scare to you off?”

Don’t Come on Too Strong

So I can usually break the ice and get this far ok. I’ll have my kids with me (check) and am usually not afraid to say something to another mom (er… check.) But, I’m warning you, be very careful at this very initial stage of friendship. When you first talk to another mom, (please, whatever you do) don’t come on too strong. While I’m not afraid to say hi, I am often too quick to try to relate, get comfortable and then (*cringe*) overshare. And that probably comes off kind of stalkerish and weird when I’m all “Hey, howya doin’, I sooo have cramps today, don’t they suck? I think my kid just pooped his pants, I gave him too many raisins, do raisins make your kids poop too much? My name is Caroline by the way, here’s my blogger business card, wanna email me?…” Shocking, isn’t it, when they don’t respond and then quickly shoo their kids away. Don’t come on too strong, ladies. Eeeeasy does it.

Find Something (Anything) Other than Kids in Common

This is the tough part. You’ve found that you’re both past the initial niceties and have launched into the next level of chat about where your children go to school, where you live, what your partners do. But then the real stuff starts to creep in, as it should. And the real stuff is what makes your friendship something… well, real. Where you’re from, how you raise your kids, what kind of values you have and then (*red lights flashing* warning, warning) in come your politics, religion, status stuff (if you even care) and the rest of it. This is about when you’ll learn whether the other mom is a just a ” ‘Hi, how are you?’ when you pass in Target” kind of mom, or a “regular playdates and lets friend each other on facebook” kind of mom, or a for real “pour your heart out late night over bottles of wine, BFF” kind of mom.

Please take note however. You don’t have to have absolutely everything in common. My dear friend who I just packed out of her house was not of the same political “persuasion” as me. And that’s a big one. While we had a couple rocky conversations, our friendship truly superseded that and it was, to the core, at the BFF level. Diversity and difference can make a friendship go round if you’re honest and accepting of one another.

You’re Friends but What About the Rest of the Family?

And now for one final and very important hurdle. While you and this mom chat regularly and truly seem to be connecting – do your children? Do THEY have anything in common with each other? And even if they do, what about your husbands or partners? Can your significant others hang out and enjoy each other’s company on a regular basis too? Because THAT’S the golden ticket friendship right there. If your family and your new friend’s family connect and enjoy watching the game on Sunday over a couple beers and a few burgers on the grill, hold on and don’t let go. That is a rare and important treasure to be sure.

So. Here I go. If you are a mom that happened to get my blogger business card (*smacking head* why can’t I just write my number on a Publix receipt with a crayon like every other mom), please know I mean no harm. I swear, I’m not a weird stalker chick. I’m just a regular mom who is sick of herding cats kids all day, looking for other moms who get it.

Maybe I need to put an ad in the paper. Maybe there is an online mom dating service. Maybe there is speed mom dating up at the local neighborhood clubhouse. If I can, I’ll try it – because taking the risk and finding a one of a kind kindered spirit is always ALWAYS worth the hassles of Mom Dating. Wish me luck.

So I should be blogging about something funny about my kids. Or some political issue that’s got my panties in a bunch. Or whatever new beastie has been spotted in my backyard.

But. I don’t feel like it.

I’m having a bad day. Yep. ANOTHER one.

It’s a strange thing, this grieving business. I used to think that when you lost someone in your life, it was like some horrible sickness. And in the beginning its very bad, and you need to tend to it and care for yourself and heal. But – given enough time – you get over it and come out well again, on the other side.

I was very wrong. Grief, who I’ve come to know very well, apparently sticks around. In fact, while it may stay out of the way more and more often, it never ever leaves. So I am working on making room for this very unwelcome newcomer in my life. The “new normal” I hear it’s called.

And still, grief springs from the shadows daily, like some over-served, sweaty, far too grabby guy in a bar forcing himself on me, grabbing my wrists and spinning me through some sorrowful dance when I least expect it. I am overwhelmed, I hold back tears – and then push it back and storm away. I don’t want to dance. I don’t have time for that. Cripes. Leave me alone already.

I know I should expect to be sad. I know I know, my mom died only a month ago. A month ago today exactly in fact.

(One entire month, impossible to believe, I wish it hadn’t been so long since she passed, I wish her life was more recent, I wish so much hadn’t happened since that I want to tell her about. And thus the explanation for my bad day.)

But I am sick of thinking about it. I’m sick of being so bummed out all the time, I am sick of being broken hearted, I am sick of making people sad around me, I am sick of not being myself and forgetful and not as functional. And unmotivated, and so damn tired, and guilty.

Did I mention the guilt by the way? Guilt is grief’s BFF. They hang in the corner together and cackle away about how miserable they make me. But guilt is a little smoother than grief I think. She saunters up innocently, leans into my ear and whispers questions. “So. Your mother drove you a little crazy didn’t she? What kind of daughter were you anyway to her? You could have come and visited her more often, right? She was alone when she died, wasn’t she? Do you even remember the last time you saw her?”

But if I ask these questions out loud, my loved ones balk and huff back at me that I was a wonderful daughter and I should not be feeling that way and insist that my mother would want me at peace right now.

I know I know. Guilt never makes any sense. But its very very real. She has made herself at home, carefully putting ideas in my head and slipping away while I crumple to floor. I hate her.

So yeah. Here I am. On a bad day. Missing my mother who I lost a month ago today. Wishing I could call her. Wishing her remains weren’t neatly sealed in some wooden box back in her bedroom – doing nothing, saying nothing, being nothing.

Yeah, oh this blog is AWESOME now. Woo hoo! So fun to read! I am so depressing I bet I make depressed people run screaming in the other direction. That’s me. A regular Debbie Downer blogger. (Insert trumpet sound effect: wah, waaaahhh….)

My new name? Mourningside Mom. Heh.

At least I have my sense of humor, right? And I have my family. And my wonderful boys who force the square peg of normalcy into my round hole of a day. And my husband who lets me put my ear to his chest to hear his heart beat and affirm that he is alive and loving and here.

All will be well. All will be well. All will be well.

My three year old is asleep. My six year old is tossing a baseball to himself in my parent’s living room, side stepping baskets of dying flowers. My father is away, following up with the tasks of an executor. And I am sitting at the dining room table, surrounded by recently printed off pictures of my mother.

But there is one new addition to our family here too. It has slipped suddenly into our lives while the reality of my mother’s passing sinks in. This new member is grief.

When I first stepped back into my parent’s house, only a day after my mother was found here, grief was looming and effusive, filling every space. While I sat on her bed, it wrapped itself around me and held on tightly. Breathing seemed impossible.

But then the tasks of death pushed grief into the shadows for a time. Tasks almost as horrendous as grasping the concept that my mother is gone. Grief waited though and wound itself back around my heart during the most unexpected moments until I was able to beat it back again. We all had so much to do.

I was asked how I found the strength to speak at my mother’s funeral. Well. All of it, everything we’ve had to do has been horrifying and equally difficult to do. Finding an appropriate funeral home. Picking out an urn. Picking out a cremation casket. Discussing the process of embalming. Picking out her last outfit. Slipping on her wedding ring. Doing her last load of laundry, washing away her scent from her clothes. Cleaning her last dishes in the sink. Searching through her pictures, looking for her face before I forget any of it. Writing her obituary. Informing her friends and neighbors. And speaking besides her open casket at her funeral.

All of it. Equally horrifying. And equally impossible – however absolutely necessary – to do.

Grief slinks back into the corner more often as the days go by. But it is always there. Waiting for a peaceful moment. Waiting for me to find some trinket of hers or for some memory to come rushing back. Waiting for me to drive her car and see her hands – my hands – on the steering wheel. Grief finds its opening. It slips back over my shoulders, holding me close, muffling out the world, overwhelming my senses, until sadness flows through my soul, oozes back out of my body and ebbs again.

I’m getting used to it being there. As I am getting used to her death.  I have become familiar with the cycle grief assumes in my day to day life. It must process through. I can’t do much else other than brace myself, wait for it make it’s mark and move along. It always does.

However we are desperately grateful for our best booster against grief – my mother’s greatest acheivement: her grandchildren. Their laughter, their games, their wonder, their constant expectation of regularity push grief further away and into a very small place where we can all watch it from the corner of our eyes. Children allow us to cope and move forward. Children officially prove to us that the world keeps spinning and her love lives on through them.

While my three year old continues to nap, I am off to start the process of clean up. We certainly don’t want to scour this place of my mother’s presense (we will never be ready for that), but its time to throw away her toothbrush, her recently purchased make-up, pack her hair brushes, toss out that last cigarette butt of hers and wash her ashtray, put away her bedside items, discard her overly worn slippers and store her clothes. All of it is equally horrifying, with grief nipping at my heels and my son tossing his ball in the air amoungst the flowers and pictures in the living room. Onward.

These are the words I wrote and spoke at my mother’s funeral today. May she rest in peace.

Children never fully appreciate their mothers. We arrive on the scene squawking and hungry, we toddle about expecting arms to catch us, we throw bears from moving cars and scream until our mothers turn around the car, we whine about talking dolls until they magically appear under Christmas trees, we want our own phones, our own identities, our own jobs. But our mothers better have our backs when we don’t know how to apply to college or open a checking account. We expect it all from this unwavering constant in our lives – our mothers.

I suppose that is how nature intends it. I suppose that is the essence of parenting: a selfless, unconditional, buffer – there through it all, no matter how much a growing child demands otherwise, rarely looking back over their shoulders.

But here’s where Mother Nature – yes, clearly a mother also – chuckles to herself with great satisfaction. These selflessly raised children become parents too. That daughter in the backseat who demanded her ejected bear – becomes a mother also. And it is not until THEY hold a squawking child of their own in their arms that they ever conceive of just how much their own mothers have done for them. Without fanfare, without ticker tape parades, without sky writers and accolades and acknowledgment.

My mother was certainly far from the ticker tape parade type. While she had her opinions and was unapologetic about any of them, she quietly gave. All the time. And while her thoughts on most topics were to the point and plainly apparent, she never ever drew much attention to her selfless, heartfelt, generous nature.

There is so much about my mother that I don’t think I ever truly recognized or appreciated enough. I loved her, I understood her, but I saw her as a constant. Even once my children were born, and I was able to find real understanding and empathy from my mother (and for my mother), I still just thought she would always just be there. If I couldn’t get anyone else on the phone, she’d be there. If I needed child care for an important event, she’d fly down. If I couldn’t find the right frame for my pictures, she would write it on her list and search endlessly, 5 or 6 stores in one afternoon, and then research it on her computer until that certain frame was found. I knew she would though. She always had before. She was my mother. She was always there.

It has been 5 days since my mother has passed. And now I am finally looking back over my shoulder to say thank you. But my constant – my mom – is gone. She’s not in her garden planting a zillion bulbs. She’s not lost down the aisle of a store tracking down some random item on her list (while we search for her). She’s not upstairs napping in her bed with the television on and a book resting on her stomach. She’s not holed up in her computer room, playing endless games of solitaire. I keep looking for her, expecting her to be there, but she’s not.

But. She is here today. And right now, this is my moment to finally truly say it. To say thank you for everything. For teaching me to drive on first encounter beach. For dropping me off in front of First National with my first pay check and telling me to go open a checking account. For buying me a huge sundae from sonic the night before my three year old was born. For the tough love and the soft love and the quirky awkward love and the most heartfelt, determined love. Mom. I thank you for it all. Thank you.

I found out this morning that my mother has passed away.

It was not expected. She was far too young. Writing these words seem shocking. The world around me has just came to a screeching, violent, shuddering halt.

We were supposed to drive up to see her today in fact. And when I got the call from the house, I expected her voice on the line, asking if we were on the road yet.

It wasn’t her. It was someone else. My mother was gone.

And all day I have hidden myself in a hotel room, making calls, sharing news, calming people, trying to calm myself, at times shaking too much to dial the phone, at times numb - my fingers only vaguely tingling, at times laboring to breathe, at times gripped throughout with such unexpected surprising pain, I cry out.

Grief.

It’s odd. I feel like I am watching myself from the outside in. Watching the shadows of this loss pass over me again and again. I mean, how are people supposed to act when they find out their mothers have died? Whats the norm for this sort of thing? I look around, wondering what emotions come next, what guilt, what anger, what wonder.

And then the “what ifs”. They come a lot too.

My mother. I pray for her peace. For her inner joy to beam through where ever she is. Who knows. Maybe she’s actually just sitting here on the bed next to me. Or maybe she’s swimming in some heavenly ocean, the way she used to, with her enormous glasses still on, hair somehow still dry, floating, belly up and toes up, rocking and bobbing away, free, happy, peaceful.

Honestly? I really hope she’s there and not here. This bed covered in kleenex and haphazard notes about funeral details and phone numbers is really not such a party.

This is really no place to spend your first day in heaven.

My mother. Rest, feel peace, enjoy your ocean. I miss you. I love you. I am without you.

So I had a moms night out a week ago. We were all getting gifted pedicures – a special occasion indeed. Anyhoo. The folks at the salon said we could bring wine if we’d like – but nothing could be in glass containers. So what to do? Somehow, impossibly, I retrieved a fuzzy memory from the depths of my brain, probably in a box at the back labeled “cool idea, don’t forget this one”. Maybe I read about them in a magazine or heard of them on Twitter, or something. No idea how I knew about them – but I knew. And after some hunting around, we found them at our local Publix. The most brilliant mommy invention ever. What are they?

Mommy “juice” boxes.

No, they don’t come with straws but each box offers a mom at her wits end a healthy glass and a half worth of wine. And no it’s nothing high end but its in my budget. And it can slip right into any cooler bag along side the Capri Suns. Because nothing spells responsible parenting on the go like wine in a juice box.

Love it. Sign me up. I’ll get the Sam’s Club value pack. For real. Viva the Mommy “Juice” Box.

I get an adult night out tonight. That’s right. Stop the presses. Morningside Mom is actually going to be child free for an evening. And its going to be all about fun and games. What game specifically? Well, my bad ass sister (in law technically, but shes my girl, my sister) has hooked us up with some tickets to game five of Magic – Lakers finals game!

Lets all take a moment and do the running man. Oh yeah. And now the cabbage patch. Ok, bust out the sprinkler.

I am fired up!

Ok, I’ll fess up. I am no massive, crazy basketball fan. It was my brother who had all the Jordan and Pipen posters on his wall growing up. It’s my brother who seems near weeping when he calls me with reports of seeing Magic Johnson at a Magic game or getting a picture with Rashard Lewis.

But now, with my sister working for the Magic and both she and my brother going to every game, and us finally watching from home – our family is officially a Magic family.

And now we get to go to the game.

BECAUSE LET ME TELL YOU, I need this night out. My three year old has driven me to the edge of insanity this weekend. We’re talking 1 1/2 hour screaming rages and time outs. Stubborn refusals to share. Blatant toy taking and train track smashing. Hitting. Screeeaming. Flipping the frock out.

Even sitting at the edge of my seat during a nail biting finals game (which, if it ends badly, could mean the Lakers winning the finals) is nothing compared to the frustration of corralling my three year old. Nothing I tell you.

So in a couple hours, my Magic Superman Dwight Howard shirt is getting slipped on and I’ll wave giddily to the sitter as we peel out of here for a parents night out. At game five of the Magic Laker’s. Not too shabby.

Oh and I almost forgot. While my sister and I were out buying our Magic gear, we ran into a rock star mom. And who would that be? None other than Dwight Howard’s mother walking through the Magic store checking out the gear. I spoke to her briefly, she was so nice, a lovely woman. A very cool moment indeed.

But I also took it as a sign. I mean, this mother didn’t have Superman as her son always. I am thinking Dwight was once three years old too and I bet Dwight had his fair share of time outs. And now here she is, walking through a store displaying racks of shirts with her son’s name on them, beaming with pride. I take it as a sign that my son will get through three someday too. Whether his name is on the back of a t-shirt or not, I think I will find myself beaming with pride at his accomplishments – and these groundhog days of timeouts and tantrums will be long forgotten.

I take seeing her as another sign too. That mother’s need nights out with the Magic too. Moms can rock Magic pride. So. I am.

Go Magic.

I have this amazing group of friends. There are about twenty of us. We live all over, our backgrounds are varied, but from the beginning our hopes were the same. We all wanted to be mothers. And while we all began trying to conceive our children, we found one another online on a message board. That was almost 4 years ago. In that time, we have shared some of our most intimate details, we have been in touch with one another daily, we have become a sisterhood of sorts. We seek each other out whenever we’re near, some go on vacation together, some talk on the phone everyday. We’ve celebrated the births of many babies, we’ve stood by fertility heartbreaks, we’ve shared the routine and mundane.

Yesterday I found out one of my dear friends from this group tragically lost her 9 month old baby daughter. At this point, they suspect something related to SIDS took her life. She passed away during her nap. And so my dear wonderful friend is currently living her worst nightmare. Tomorrow, she buries her baby girl.

Since hearing this news, my life initially halted. I broke down repeatedly. But it seemed in a vaccuum, with no one around me feeling the depth of such a loss. And then, because her death doesn’t directly affect my daily life here, I was forced to continue hiccuping along. Her daughter is gone but I still have to get milk for tomorrow, my 5 year old still needs to be picked up from school and we are still actually having people over for dinner.

But really, I have wanted to hop on the next plane out of here. My heart isn’t here right now. It’s in a million pieces surrounding my friend in Iowa. While she sits in her home, staring at an empty crib.

This little girl leaves such beautiful memories behind. She gave my friend 9 amazing months of sweet smiles and happy blue eyes. She always said she was the best baby in the world. And I agreed with her. She slept so well. She never fussed. She adored her older sister. She laughed, she smiled, she carried on gladly. My friend’s daily updates on facebook would read something like this: “I’m watching my girl naw on a carrot in her high chair and laugh. She is just so cute!” That baby girl was simply a happy, happy child. And I know that happiness had everything to do with her very wonderful mother.

Thank God for the rest of my friends, however. Some of them are able to fly to Iowa for the funeral. Some of us will be there for her. I am forever grateful. Because we should be there. We have shared ovulating, seven week old heartbeats, ultrasound pictures, and finally, joyfully we’ve ushered so many babies into this world. When my two year old was born, they were told immediately – and they posted his picture and celebrated in their respective corners of the world. They were the first to call or send things. These women love their babies.

And now one of these babies has died. Its unbearable. And so part of our group is flying into Iowa from New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Maryland, they are driving from far corners of the Midwest, they are leaving their babies with husbands to group together in a potentially sketchy Comfort Inn they found on priceline. These women, my friends, will be there to surround my dear friend and hold on to her grief as she buries her girl. One of the babies has died.

Oh my heart is broken. I wish I could be there. I am so sorry I can not be. My friend. Her loss. Its horrible.

But the sun keeps coming up and my kids need me to help me with their homework. Life goes on. And it should. And it will for my friend too. She is strong and will move through this pain. One day it won’t hurt as much to breathe. I hope I can help her enough from where I sit here, so far away, in Florida.

Usually I have a point to my posts. Some sort of bottom line or moral to the story. But I don’t have one today. This post is simply my public profession that I am mourning the life of a beautiful 9 month old girl. So no words of wisdom today. There is simply no point to the death of a child. None.

Jumping right out of bed at 5:45am with verve and vigor is usually not my thing. But I did this morning. Blurry eyed but fired up, I went straight to my closet and pulled out my purple. Today was the Tampa March for Babies walk. I had been looking forward to this for a long time. Go wake up the kids, we’ve got some walking to do.

We arrived early and made our way through the already gathering crowd. As we passed the registration desk, I saw two women sitting nearby with T-shirts that simply read “Friends of Maddie“. Ok. Here we are.

Our group gathered, bloggers chatted, kids played with freebie bubbles, babies nursed and the sun began to peek up over the buildings. Anissa Mayhew, our fearless team leader, and I chatted. How was Maddie’s funeral? How is Heather? How is she handling all of this new found (er, not sure what else to call it but) fame? Is she finding privacy to grieve? But our kids distracted us often, climbing up onto the wall, jumping off tree limbs, giggling and carrying on.

I was taken by a pic I snapped of Anissa’s Peyton and my five year old. Both had survived time in children’s hospitals. Peyton may be the more decorated veteran of the two – but both were there today: climbing, laughing, alive and wonderful.

And while watching the mothers around us, many had taped signs to their strollers for children who were not there but tucked carefully away in varying NICUs, fighting. Of course, I thought back to my own child’s limited time in the NICU. The hissing and lights, the various beeping counting off seconds, minutes and hours, the days that melted into one another. I remember the mothers in my NICU rocking their babies with cupped hands. Their baby’s chests raising up for air, their mothers whispering encouragement, their futures entirely unknown. Their hours entirely unknown. I remember. My heart knows. And this was a world I only shared for 11 days. Nothing, comparatively.

So there we were. My family: healthy and ready to go. For me, today was as much about celebrating life as it was remembering life lost. Time to breathe air and walk forward for all of those children who never could or – with help from the March of Dimes and fantastic NICU staffs – finally did.

Before the walk began, we took a quick group picture. Here we are. Bloggers and friends alike. All there in Maddie’s honor. In a mere 17 months, Maddie has reached thousands of people and has made an enormous impact on the March of Dimes. I wonder if I could ever do half of what she’s done in my entire lifetime.

And so we got underway. The sun warmed up the day, the palm trees swayed, the traffic was stopped for us and we mosied along, chatting, connecting and enjoying.

Before we knew it, the walk was over. We arrived back at the University of Tampa to James Brown’s “I Feel Good”, free meals from the Olive Garden, Popsicles from Blue Bonnet, a bounce house and people everywhere. A positive, good moment. There is life even after death. Parents march on. Hope continues. The sun shines down on all of it. What a privilege to participate in this moment.

And with that, we got into the car and went to find breakfast. After all, it was still only the beginning of our day.

A Big Unintentionally Forgotten P.S.:

I was a little caught up in the emotion of that day while writing this post that I forgot to actually mention and link up to the fabulous bloggers I walked with. (I know… doh!) I was thrilled to share this day with:

• Mommy Melee

• Dashoff

• Diary of a Crazed Mommy

• The Caffeinatrix

• Laurin and Kelley Talk

• Hope 4 Peyton

It was also wonderful to meet the many friends of Maddie and blogger husbands too!

Picture from Bootle Times.

I used to be such a good liberal American. Years ago, I was passionate about every issue, outraged, engaged and pro-active. Ok, so predictably – yes - I was my most progressive back in my college days. But now, on the verge of 36 and home raising two young boys – what’s happened to me? Do I care enough anymore? Especially now that I have children and should be more invested in the future of our country, am I staying informed enough? Am I a good liberal mom?

Yes, back in college – the glory days – I enjoyed debate in the classroom, sought out political speaking events (and fondly remember when Alec Baldwin came to speak for the College Democrats), marched to Take Back the Night, protested all kinds of good stuff (don’t ask me what, but it was good stuff), was a proud member of a feminist A Capella group (Ani DiFranco was wonderful, required listening), and my dorm room was covered in pro-chick, anti-discriminatory, peace loving posters. Oh yeah. And I didn’t ALWAYS shave my legs. (…What? So!?)

Now fast forward fifteen (cough, sputter) years, and I ask you: when was the last time I went to a political rally?

College.

For someone who gets all uppity about political issues, this is shameful. Even during one of the most exciting elections of my lifetime, did I stand in line with the masses to go see Obama when he was in my area?

Nope.

You see, I have to keep my two year old on his nap schedule and I have to use these coupons up before they expire during a grocery trip before said nap and that nap has to happen before its time to leave and drive a half hour to get my five year old from school who is always hungry when I get there so I better have snacks packed too. …And who wants to juggle a 40 lb. two year old and a hungry five year old at a political rally anyway? Well. I don’t. Yup. I’m just not hard core enough anymore.

It bothers me that I have let my edge go. I have let my immediate life seep in and block out a lot of the larger context. Because for me, my child’s well balanced lunch and nap are ultimately, above all else, my priority.

But its not as if daily pedicures, appointments with my tennis coach (I swear I don’t have a tennis coach) and coffee dates with my girlfriends trump my interest in political issues either. Caring for my children just trumps everything. I don’t do the pedicures and coffee dates either. Well, once in awhile. In a great while. But bottom line, its about the kids right now.

Is that a cop out though? I mean, mom’s bring their kids to see politicians speak all the time. They drag them along to rallies and meetings and community organizations. Moms multi-task, they figure it out, the kids get used to it and know how they are expected to behave. Having children doesn’t mean cutting down the person you are, does it? No. So whats my problem?

Do I care less now?

No, I care more I think. So what is it?

It goes back to my previous point. It’s not really about me right now. I mean, it can be sometimes. But my full time, around the clock priority is maintaining my children’s routine, happiness, education and daily normalcy. And you know what? It’s exhausting. The air gets let out of my political sails and by the time they are asleep, my brain is simply fried. Yes, and as I sink into the couch with remote in hand, I even find myself switching from the amazing Rachel Maddow to American Idol. (Head hung in shame.) I know. I’m not proud of it. But its just my reality right now.

I don’t think it will always be like this. In fact, as my boys grow older, I see changes in my freedoms daily. I will be participating in the March of Dimes walk this year with my family for the first time because I think the kids will be fine for it. And I was able to drag my boys to one small community Obama meeting before he was elected. Sure we had to leave early due to their wrestling, but change is coming (to steal a certain liberal theme these days).

And in the meantime, I’ll step up onto my soapbox here. Writing doesn’t require packing snacks-drinks-diapers-wipes, stuffing the stroller into the trunk, getting shoes on kids, bringing games and books, strapping kids into carseats and breaking up “he’s touching me again” fights. I can still rally, speak up and speak out right here. My blog can be like a dorm room poster and my posts can be my classroom political debates. Yes. I can still do this. So while I may not be a liberal college kid anymore, I am certainly still a liberal mom.

Cross posted at Type A Moms.