After being exposed to the proper amount of guilt David has given me one of the best Mother’s Day gifts I’ve ever received. David created a packet of “Guilt Cards”- each card requesting a favor with its own accompanying guilt message.

I love these cards and not just because they periodically allow me to get out of doing some household chores. In one action they tell me that David recognizes what I do, appreciates it and is offering to give me a break.

(click on image to see larger size)

I think my favorite is “Please Change the Kitty Litter – you’ll find the litter in the garage next to your son’s broken tricycle”. I can’t wait to see what my birthday brings!

Mom, I’m sorry. You were right.

One of the most surprising things about becoming a mother is realizing in a lightning-bolt-flash of a moment that your mother had been right. Indeed, she was right about so many things. I want to take a moment and let my mom wallow in her “rightness”. You were right when you told me:

• That Santa Claus would always come as long as I believed
• That life isn’t always fair
• That some problems and wounds feel better the next morning
• To always bake chocolate chip cookies on rainy days, even when living in Seattle
• To not save the good china and the good furniture just for guests or special occasions.
• To pick up after yourself and to put your toys away when finished
• That fairies live in lamps, teddy bears talk and magic exists in warm, fuzzy blankets.
• To only listen to opinions from people whom you respect.
• That sometimes the best time to spend your money is when you don’t have it
• To not live life scared. Be bold.
• To surround myself with pretty things, and bright colors
• Broken hearts hurt but everybody gets one and that is why there are so many songs written about it.
• To never call people names when angry. When you fight stick to the issue not to the person.
• Motherhood is a job and you need to treat it like one. Get up, put on your uniform and get to work.
• When you are wrong, say you’re sorry, and mean it.
• To make spaghetti sauce from scratch, and matzo ball soup from a package
• To not talk about doing something but do it
• That 5 years old is the best age to be and even though we all grow older none of us has to grow up.

Most importantly you told me that you loved me every day. You told me that motherhood was the best job you ever had and you would do it again if you could. And so today mama I’m giving you permission to say “I told you so”. You were right.

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This is my submission for Scribbit’s Write Away Contest

My mother-in-law, Carolyn, is 5’11” and since I stand at a meager 5’4″ this made quite the impression on me when we first met. Carolyn is this beautiful combination of old-fashioned southern belle and 21st century bad-ass. She knows how to make biscuits and gravy from scratch and runs a large daycare center with over 200 children. But the thing I love most about Carolyn is that she almost always takes my side when David and I argue. A quality that is priceless in a mother-in-law.

Television is filled with a long litany of evil mother-in-laws from Endora on “Bewitched” to Marie on “Everybody Loves Raymond”. That is the order of nature. Mother loves son. Son loves other woman. Mother hates other woman. When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. My relationship with Carolyn could not be farther from that image. Since I live so far from my own mother, Carolyn has become my “satellite Mom”. In many ways I feel as if my mother taught me all that she could and where she stopped Carolyn has picked up.

Carolyn has taught me about loving others even when you’d rather smack them. She has taught me so much about being a parent and most importantly has given me the confidence I needed to raise my own children. She held my hand (or leg as the case may be) through the birth of both of my children and encouraged me to embrace the beauty and wonder of pushing a small, wet, tiny, slimy, person out of my body. Much like my own mother she has seen me at my worst, knows the worst things about me and still loves me.

I love the fact that when I sit in her “chair” her side table is filled with magazines, newspaper clippings and interesting books. I adore that her closets are a magical source of childhood memories and a menagerie of new toys. But mostly I love her for not trying to change me, for loving me as I am, and allowing me to marry her son. And that is why I don’t call her Carolyn. I call her mom.

This is not related to Mother’s Day, but I just saw one of these in the park next to my house.

That is right, a bobcat. I saw a bobcat on the sidewalk where my kids and I travel to get to the playground. I’m thinking our next outdoor activity will be in the mall.

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?