Someday I’d like to introduce my kids to ME, the ME I was before they were born. That girl was fun. She read and wrote all the time and had dinner with friends in cute bistros. She and her boyfriend (now husband and father to the three kids) got lost on back roads in her […]
We Are All THAT MOM
When I began writing about motherhood and my small and not-so-small stumbles along the way, a beautiful thing happened. Instead of the “laugh with me” attitude I expected from everyone atop their perfect motherhood mountains, I received “Me too’s.” Your kid dressed as a Disney princess for four months straight? Me, too. Your kid talks […]
Carrie on Parenting: Mama Tried
Despite my Sunday learning, Towards the bad, I kept turning. ‘Til Mama couldn’t hold me anymore. And I turned twenty-one in prison doing life without parole. No one could steer me right but Mama tried, Mama tried. Mama tried to raise me better, but her pleading, I denied. That leaves only me to blame […]
She Thought I Was a Bad Mother
You are a bad mother. She didn’t say it in so many words. It was the way she looked at me after she caught me in a moment of parental weakness…accusatory, disgusted, disbelieving that she could be in the presence of such a deadbeat parent. I poke fun at my own parenting skills (or lack thereof) all […]
Bartending for Moms Everywhere…You’re Welcome
One of my favorite movies from childhood was the 1991 blockbuster hit City Slickers. You’ve probably seen it, so I won’t bore you with the plot summary, but the screenplay’s writers were definitely onto something with the Barry and Ira Shalowitz characters, a pair of adventure-seeking brothers who owned an ice cream empire and one of whom, […]
T-Ball Practice Is Cancelled, and Other Ballpark Drama
Every time a t-ball practice is cancelled, the coach gets his wings. Yesterday afternoon, I received the BEST group text ever. No practice tonight and NO GAME on Saturday morning? This is my kinda team! Can I tell you how happy things like this make me? Just…giddy, if we’re being completely honest about it. I […]
Carrie On Parenting: You’ve Gotta Love Childhood Innocence
When the doctor first handed me each of my three children, I couldn’t believe that here in my arms was a perfect, untainted little soul, a sweet baby smell, a head full of soft hair (at least for my kids), and, scarily enough, a blank slate, completely devoid of experience in how the world works […]