When my oldest was still a baby my husband and I began to plan for the inevitable ’sex talk’.  It was a bit early, and Gabe couldn’t even speak let alone understand the technicalities of human conception but we were going to be prepared for when the time did present itself.  It was decided that my husband would deal with our sons and I would handle the girls.  It would be 8 years before we had to put our plan into action.  Gabe asked his dad what the difference between a boy deer and a girl deer was.  With 8 years to prepare Steve was ready.  “Well son, a boy deer has antlers and a girl deer doesn’t!”  It was then decided that I should be the one to handle any sex questions.

“Mommy, are you a virgin?”  my then 6 year old daughter asked a few years later.  Again, I had trained for years for this moment.

“Why, yes dear, I am!”

While my children no longer consult neither my husband or me for sex advice, they like to have their friends ask me the age old question:  Where do babies come from?

“Kissing!  Babies come from kissing!  One minute I’m kissing my husband and the next thing I know I’m having a baby!” 

My oldest son has actually tested and proven this theory twice, and if nothing else my other children pause and think on my words even for just a moment before planting a lip-lock on their current significant other.  And that is all a mother could ask for, that her children stop, if even just for a moment, and consider the consequences. 

Mission accomplished.

Dear children:

I, your mother and personal chef, agree to provide as non-”disgusty”, child-friendly and nutritious a meal as possible on the condition that you, my children, agree to attempt to eat at least one bite of the aforementioned meal.  Any screaming or crying regarding the “disgusty-ness” of the meal, barfing noises or flinging of food across the room will nullify the one bite.  An inability to make another tasting attempt will result in the loss of said meal.  As a family we also agree that I, your mother, will not make individual meals nor prepare second meals when the first does not meet your specific and often vagrant standards. 

In the event that these conditions are not met, I reserve the right at any time to remove all other foods from your reach, wrap up your unsatisfactory meal and present it to you at each subsequent meal for up to 24 hours.  In the event that hunger still cannot inspire you to eat, I will agree not to serve the rejected foods for at least, but not limited to, two weeks, at which time we will try again.  I also reserve the right at regular intervals to completely lose my head and scream, “Don’t you know there are starving children in Africa who would be grateful for the chance to take one bite of anything?”. 

These conditions are subject to change at any time, according to my temper and tolerance.  Compliance with these standards in highly encouraged in the interests of family harmony and maternal sanity.

Sincerely, Mom

(Eva’s writing today’s blog, as it’s a very special day for her!)

Today was MY birf-day.  MINE (not my sister’s, so don’t even think about giving her a present).

I didn’t have to go to school, which was really cool.  I didn’t have to get up until late, Momma says I slept almost as long as my brother does.  Then Momma took me to Denny’s for alien-pancakes.  The big nice lady there heard it was MY birf-day (MINE!) and gave me brownies, ice cream and chocolate sauce, so I had dessert after breakfast.  Momma usually doesn’t let me eat chocolate that early.  But, she has chocolate that early some days, but she never lets me, no fair.

Then we went to Outside-door-world, where I got a toy truck with a momma-horsey, a daddy-horsey and a baby horsey and a (“MOMMA!!!!  WHAT”S THE YELLOW THING CALLED???”), oh, and an ‘ATV’ like our neighbor drives up and down the streets and momma complains about havin’ a head-achin.  The nice man at Outside-door-world helped Momma with the toys she was carrying and I asked “is he going to pay for those for us??”, and they laughed.  Everyone laughs at me every time I ask a question.  It makes me soooo mad.

Then we went to the bookstore but Momma spent wayyy too long in the books-with-no-pitchers row.  Borrrrinnggg.

THEN, Momma took me to Bounce on It, or whatever it’s called now.  I get to jump on big dinosaurs and slide down slides, it’s super fun, even though I have to keep my socks on.  Momma jumped with me on one of the jumping-things and she laughed a lot.  Then she said something about her tummy being knocked into her brain and went to sit down.  I stomped on her foot I was so mad that she didn’t play with me anymore.

We went to pick up Annika from school and I told her all about my day, and that it’s MY birf-day, in Fev-roo-awy, not hers.  Hers is in June (which is much easier to say). 

We went home and I played with my new toys and Momma made me my most favorite-est dinner: hot dogs with square cheese and mac’n'cheese!  (Daddy says I must’ve been born in the year of the mouse since I eat so much cheese).

Jaime brought me cupcakes and I ate the tops then Annika ate the bottoms.  Daddy put together my art thing-y.  I’m using Annika’s markers (ssshhhh, don’t tell her) to color my pitcher.

I’m five years old now, and I had a fun birf-day!

Somewhere out there are a million conversations that Rob and I plan to finish.

And I know that most of them we probably won’t.

I also know that someday, Rob and I will be old and empty-nested and most likely will have moments when we long for someone to break the silence or throw a coal of energy on a dull moment.

For now, however, I keep telling myself that I need to keep a small notebook handy to write down all of the things I need to follow up with my husband about. Something like ask about him running into an old friend at the gym. Or find out what he meant when he said something was up at work today.  That notebook would be a great tool to keep Rob and I abreast of each other’s lives. Like say, we could meet up around midnight, compare our notes and say things like “OH YEAH, I was telling you how I saw So and So at the gym today and listen to this…” and I’d actually hear the rest of the story. Or I could get out my ENTIRE, like all at once, story about what I’d talked about with Logan’s teacher. Or the zillions of other little things that get lost out in space when you try to have an adult conversation with young children running around.

On Friday night, this was never more apparent.

Rob and I were sitting at the kitchen table enjoying a meal (YES, a SEPERATE meal from the boys, don’t get me started, that’s another post entirely). The boys were in the tv room all set up with their must see tv of the moment: Star Wars The Clone Wars series. Adam was playing trains in the room with them. All is peaceful, all is quiet. I took a big breath and gave it a try…

“Hey,” I began, “You never said how your day was today.”
“Actually it was really interesting,”Rob answered. “Listen to this–”

“HEY GUESS WHAT! LOOK!” Ryan flew into the room on the wings of his cape. “THAT GUY HAS A GIANT GUN!” and he was kind enough to even turn on the kitchen tv for us so that we could see that, yes, indeed, some clone/robot/ewok/whatever character had a large laser gun capable of wiping out an entire race.

“Great, Ryan” we replied. “Thanks for sharing.” Off Ryan went to the tv room and back we went to Rob’s day.

“So anyway, I think that–”
“DADDY! SEE! SEE THAT GUY! THAT’S YODA!”

“Yes, I see!” Rob called back, then again to me, “Ok, I heard that–”

“Hey, I bet you don’t know what city in our state has the highest population!” Logan beamed, suddenly beside us. He had his Almanac for Kids book and was ready to deliver all kinds of fabulous facts that we needed to know. Right. Then.  Rob allowed Logan to feel smarter than us for one second then reminded him that Mommy and Daddy are talking now, please try not to interrupt.

Again: “ANYWAY, I bumped into So and So in the lunchroom and–”

“OH my gosh, I forgot to get turkey bacon at the store.”

Admittedly, that was me, not one of the boys. I’m just as bad. We all are. Rob does it to me, I do it to him, the boys do it to us. It’s why NO ADULT CONVERSATION EVER GETS FINISHED AROUND MY HOUSE.

“Sorry,” I told him. “What happened again today?”

“OK, well I was–”

“OWWWW! ADAM WANTS TO SIT ON MY CHAIR AND HE IS TRYING TO BITE ME TO GET ME OFF OF IT!” wailed the tv room.

Rob and I could only shake our heads, shrug, and realize that once again, our conversation would take place in little puzzle-like pieces.  It’s like the boys have an alert system that lets them know when one or both of us are not focused on them in any way shape or form. And it’s not like we DON’T pay attention to them, it’s just that there seem to be 2 things that parents are unable to do without buzzing their kids’ Second Fiddle Alarm System. They are:

1. Talk on the phone

2. Talk to your spouse 

So, like I said earlier, I take it in stride, knowing that someday there is a possibility that I might actually want these moments back!

As you probably know by now, this company (MA! motherhood with attitude) was launched as a challenge to ‘perfect parenting propaganda.’ Mothering today is loaded. Loaded with pressure to achieve perfection. Recently, an older mom, whose kids are long gone and are parents themselves, told me that she thinks moms today face much more pressure than she did. I’m not sure why this is except that I do think the media see us as a ripe consumer target and, therefore, they pitch us every gadget and parenting philosophy under the sun, positioning absolutely everything as though, if we don’t buy their gadget or buy into their philosophy, we’re the equivalent of the parents who lock their kids in the closet and feed them through a hatch.

Well, this morning, I’d just love to hear from our readers about a random moment when you received unsolicited ‘perfect parenting’ advice from a friend, family member or stranger.  To get things started, here’s one of my favorites, told to me by a friend.

She was at the grocery store with her son. He was sitting in the cart and, as kids will do, he was  grabbing things off the shelves and asking if she could buy them. Each time, she’d say ‘no’ and put it back.  Finally, he grabbed something and  she gave in, “That’s fine, put it in the cart.” At that moment, a woman walking the other direction — a complete stranger — walked by and sniped, “Oh yeah, that will be REALLY good for him,” shaking her head.

My friend wanted to cry or scream.

That was what I call a ‘drive-by perfect parenting sniper.’

Tell us your story and give the offender a name if you can think of one, such as ‘perfect parenting prude’ or ’safety sue.’

We’ll share some of your stories in our next newsletter!!!