Some women know their whole life that they want to be a mother. These are the girls that played with baby dolls as children, babysat as teenagers and put pillows under their shirts pretending that they were pregnant. That was never me. I hated playing baby dolls. As a matter of fact my favorite game as a child was “library”. (Yes, I was a bookworm even then.) Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t “anti-kid” it just wasn’t something that I dreamed about.

I got married relatively late, at 30 years old. David and I waited a year before we tried to get pregnant and when we did start trying it didn’t happen. We didn’t get pregnant. Months went by and then years and after what seemed like an endless road of disappointments we miraculously got pregnant. God knew it would take “fighting” for a baby to get me truly prepared for what was ahead of me.

And what was ahead of me?

Not sleeping, chronic back pain, an additional 15lbs, my breasts now reaching my belt line, finding army men, little cars and tiny hair brushes in every area of my house. Sitting on my couch only to discover crushed goldfish crackers and empty sippy cups. Finding that Max has used the back door as a surface for coloring. That Lucy has taken every pair of MY shoes out of the closet to try on. Max is using the toilet as a place to wash his face and Lucy has decided that it is fun to rip all the toilet paper into teeny, tiny pieces.

And I LOVE IT!! That’s why you can’t explain motherhood to somebody who isn’t a mother. You can’t explain the inexplicable conflict between utter chaos and complete unconditional love. You can’t tell somebody that you would gladly welcome a tornado into your house as long as it took the shape of a 4 yr. old who tells you that you are her “best friend”. That is a mystery that only a mother understands.

Mother’s Day is this weekend and so this week my posts will be strictly focused on mothers and mothering. Today, I present my gift guide for Mother’s Day.

1.) Sleep. If you know a mother she is not sleeping and more than likely she hasn’t slept in several years. As a matter of fact I’m surprised the military has not studied mothers in order to determine what biological factor allows them to seemingly function flawlessly on so little sleep.

2.) Silence. Although some people might consider silence torture, mothers are no longer aware of what silence sounds like. Silence is something she experienced before having children. Most mothers exist in an environment where there is always a constant stream of questioning or narrative happening ALL THE TIME.

3.) Shopping. I don’t mean give her money and let her buy things – I mean let her go by herself. Most mothers haven’t shopped for clothes, shoes, make-up, magazines, food, books anything without an audience in tow. The freedom to go into a fitting room without fear that little hands are going to open the door while you are half-dressed, or crawl under the divider and introduce themselves to the woman next to you would be heaven.

4.) Appreciation. Mothers love being mothers and will sacrifice themselves until it hurts. Show her and tell her that you know she does this and you are grateful for it. Let her know that you recognize all the little things she does (from putting away the laundry to making sure your favorite breakfast cereal is always in the house). Because at the end of the day all mothers really want is to know that their sacrifices are not in vain. That they have created a happy home, a solid family and good children.

If none of these ideas work for ya’ than flowers, a massage and take-out is always a good place to start.

I couldn’t carry a tune if it had a handle, but David’s family is filled with musical talent. I think Max might have inherited some of this. His favorite toy is the harmonica and I think he does okay for only being 2. It is my pleasure to introduce, in his musical debut, Max.

Untitled from Beth Morley on Vimeo.

David and I love going to the movies. As a matter of fact it used to be one of our favorite things to do on a Saturday. Parents warned us that once we had kids that this would be a selfish indulgence that would be hard to continue. But like most new parents we had these giddy and ridiculous ideas that we would be “different”. We read the books, we knew the importance of “making time”, of not allowing the baby to “alter your life”. Oh how cute. Needless to say I can probably count on one hand how many movies I’ve seen in the theater since Lucy was born — which was in 2004. Yep, I’m counting in years.

Instead our movie palette has turned to the dizzying array of animated films. I have become quite the expert on talking animals, nursery rhymes and those absurd, disgustingly trite stories of Blues Clues, Dora the Explorer, and Barbie. (OH MY GOSH I’M ACTUALLY SUPPORTING BARBIE!!! BARBIE – THE DEVIL OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT!! AAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!)

However, there are some beacons of true entertainment and wonderful scriptwriting in this bastion of bright-colored films. My favorite at the moment is “Flushed Away” with singing slugs, great set design, and wonderful voices provided by Hugh Jackman and Kate Winslet. I actually think I like this film more than the kids and I genuinely laugh every time we watch it. With lyrics like “poor poor Roddy flushed down his own potty” how can you go wrong?

I’m reaching the end of the semester. Indeed, tomorrow is the last day of class and then final exams are next week. At this point all the enthusiasm and excitement has been slowly beaten out of me by 60 teenagers who do nothing but stare blankly at me and whine about how many pages I require them to write. (Because apparently having to write 4 WHOLE PAGES is a fate worst than death). As revenge I’m going to share with you some of my favorite typing mistakes of the semester.

Example #1:
“In Shakespheres play “Othello” the theme of jealousy is throughout.”

Okay, besides the fact that she obviously ended the sentence with a preposition – SHAKESPHERES? As in a “sphere”? Seriously, you’ve reached your first year of college and you haven’t figured out how to spell Shakespeare? Really?

Example #2:
“Iago is a cleaver character and it is his cleaver way of thinking that causes Othello’s downfall”.

I’m thinking he meant clever here. Just a guess, but I’m not terribly aware of a lot of “large knife” thinking. Perhaps it is tied to Kung Fu. Not sure.

Example #3:
” Sir Gawain presents himself as a roll model for courtly love.”

When you say “roll model” do you mean like the perfect hot cross bun? Or are you thinking of something more savory like a buttered wheat dinner roll? Just curious.

Example #4:
“It is the hostel environment that the protagonist must live in that in turn makes him hostel”

I didn’t realize that living with other young people in some sort of cheap housing can actually make a person become cheap housing. OOOHHH, HOSTILE — yeah, I get it.

Please take comfort in the fact that I don’t actually say these things to the students. Okay, sometimes I can’t resist and I do point out their inability to proof read by mocking them publicly but it doesn’t happen often.

David has been working with a client who provided us with two free tickets to the Dallas premiere of Iron Man. It was quite the “rock star” evening for us. We met some of David’s coworkers at a pub, shared some drinks and then hit the theater for the show. It was so nice to use my “tiny” purse – you know, the purse you only use for going out in the evening. The purse that cannot possibly fit diapers, wipes, sippy cups, toys, snacks or sundry baby items.

I spent ten years working in online media prior to becoming a mother. Once Lucy was born it became very evident, very quickly that David and I BOTH could not work in that industry and be parents. I tried to juggle both and felt like I was failing or more accurately drowning. I quit and I’ve never regretted the decision. However, that does not mean I don’t miss it. It was so wonderful to be around all those creative people again and to be a part of that world, even for an evening.

I think as women we do such a disservice to each other by trying to put motherhood in a tiny, defined box. I know many women are completely content at home with their kids and some feel they are better mothers for working. For me, it is a combination of both. I need time to be creative, to use my mind for other things. When I take those breaks and come back to motherhood I am more patient, more energized and have better ideas. I wish as women we could all be more honest about that. We assume that only men define themselves by their careers, but in reality women do too. We define ourselves by the multitude of roles we play. And for me that is Wife, Mother, Teacher and last night it was Rock Star.

David and I like to take the kids to the mall at night. It allows us the opportunity to look at a bunch of stuff we can’t afford and the kids get to run around and burn off energy. Not to mention it allows us to act as natural birth control to all those hormonal teenagers. They take one look at us and think “Oh, I don’t want to have kids – really.” On a recent visit we explored a new toy store. The kids found the new updated version of the View Master and David and I couldn’t resist saying yes to the purchase. We both fondly remembered traveling to distant places and the wonder and beauty of the View Master slides. Knowing that my mother never throws away anything that we might have even touched as a child I called her to see if she had our old View Master slides. Indeed she did, and being a good Grandma she overnight expressed them to our house from Michigan because the thought of her grandkids existing even one day without those slides was disastrous. Not to mention the joy of knowing that her own child actually WANTED one of their old toys back resulted in urgent and panic filled packaging.

Well, the package arrived yesterday and my mother did not disappoint. Not only did she mail me our original two View Masters, but the boxes and about 150 View Master slides. I have to admit that I think David and I enjoyed this package more than the kids. We stayed up until 11:00 last night looking at slides of the Las Vegas Strip in 1968 (The Flamingo? Circus Circus?), The Hoover Dam, The Partrdige Family, Happy Days, Shazam, The Banana Splits, The Apollo 11 project and endless numbers of space slides. They were awesome. They completely transported me back to my childhood and this morning I haven’t decided if I’m actually going to share them with the kids.