Mothers Over 40 Archives - Page 6 of 30

The Heart’s Memory Lives On

by Lori Pelikan Strobel

On my kitchen counter there sits a small basket. In the basket, there is a small, folded-up piece of notebook paper. I have kept this note for 36 years. It is yellowed and slightly torn at the corners, but I haven’t been able to throw it out. It has a very special Valentine’s Day message to me.

I remember the grade school days of giving Valentine’s Day cards to all of my classmates. My mother would drive me to the store and I would painstakingly pick out the perfect box of Valentine’s Day cards for my friends. After handing them out in class, I can clearly see myself breathlessly waiting to open the cards from my friends, especially the boys. Somehow my girlfriends and I could always figure out which boy liked us. […]

Cupid’s Dilemma (A Cynical Look at Valentine’s Day, With Some Statistics, Too)

by Nancy LaMar-Rodgers

Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre

Ok so it’s not that dramatic but let’s face it, Valentine’s Day is a pressure cooker. My single friends loathe it because it reminds them they are single. My newly divorced friends hate it because it makes them feel like failures and, quite frankly, my few happily married friends also detest it, because of the pressure of reminding each other “how much you really mean to me.”

Let’s face it, if you are still married after 20 years in this day and age, it’s a miracle unto itself and for me, I love nothing better than my husband doing the laundry and dishes, and for him I am sure my showing of love on that day comes in the form of less flannel and more stockings and heels. […]

Valentines Schmalentines
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Valentines Schmalentines

Commentary, Daily Living, Midlife Foibles!, Motherhood, Mothers Over 40

Valentines Schmalentines

by Jo-Ann Rogan

Valentine’s Day is a waste of time and I tend not to celebrate it in any meaningful way. I don’t require my husband to bring me gifts or take me out for dinner. Valentine’s Day is about a month and a half from Christmas and exactly a month before our wedding anniversary. We can celebrate love any other time of the year and we won’t have to fight a crowd. We might say “Happy Valentine’s Day” and hug, but the celebration ends there. Usually, for my kids, I plan an experience in the time around Valentine’s Day, like a trip to the indoor water park or another fun event.

I don’t need a holiday for my husband to show me he loves me. He does that when he makes me a cocktail with fresh squeezed juice on Saturday nights after I have served drinks to half of the city for two nights in a row. I feel the love when we stand in the kitchen supposedly cooking but instead we are watching a TV show on the kitchen computer, and he starts to rub my back. […]

All I Want for Christmas Is (Watching and Raising) My Little Girl

by Michelle Eisler

In November, my daughter went through the Target wish catalogue and slowly chose one or two things she wanted, and then she got on a roll and started putting stickers beside almost everything. She asked if she could help decorate the house for Christmas, and to keep my sanity I sent her to help my husband put up a garland on our railing.

The tree was mostly done when she came back to help me, and I gave her some snowflakes to spread around randomly on the tree, she again stared off slowly. A few minutes later, I was finding snowflakes bunched on the same branches and all in a concentrated tiny section. The perfectionist in me twitched as I asked her if she could see anything she could change up and she replied ‘no’ with a big smile.

This year, I am seeing life through the eyes of my 5 year old. I am continuing to educate myself to try to provide her with what she needs as she takes big leaps on her journey. […]

The Miracle of The (Multicultural) Holidays

by DeAnna Scott

This year I set up our Christmas tree and for the first time, I also put out my menorahs or as I’ve learned they are really called, Hanukkiahs. I’m not Jewish and neither is my husband, but my kids are as they were born to a Jewish woman who was our traditional surrogate named Jessica, or fondly referred to as “Chava.”

We have blended our families and together we make up a large and diverse group of individuals – both in tradition and in heritage. But, in the end we are simply family. And, during the holiday season no matter what traditions you follow, family, love and sweet fellowship are at the center of it all.

Since the beginning of our surrogacy journey, the connection between our future kids and Jessica, her family and her cultural and religious lineage were of the utmost importance to me. I gratefully made it my job as their mom to teach my kids the traditions and beliefs that are practiced on all sides of their family. Not just Christmas but also Hanukah, which is why I bought Hanukah candles while we were waiting for our photos with Santa.

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A Different Christmas (Celebrating with Stepfamilies)

by Trisha Ladonga

The carols are playing, the decorations are up and strings of lights are strung over houses with care. It all seems rather normal, but for repartnered families having a first (or tenth!) Christmas together, it can feel pretty surreal. We share Christmas with my stepson’s mother.

One year he spends Christmas Eve and early Christmas morning with us and heads to his mother’s for the majority of Christmas Day and Boxing Day. Vice versa the following year.

After 12 years and two other children, I still can’t decide which is more difficult. Having the joy of Christmas Eve with all of the spine-tingling Santa expectation and early morning waking to presents only to be followed by the letdown of him leaving for the rest of the day.

His absence a niggling presence in all that we do the rest of the day. Or the alternative of waking up to Christmas morning without him and having the long (feels-like-forever) wait until he gets home to let our family’s ‘real’ celebrations begin. […]

Millennials and the Holiday Spirit

by Phyllis Goldberg, Ph.D. and Rosemary Lichtman, Ph.D.

Although it may be the holiday season, as far as presents go that doesn’t mean a whole lot to Millennials. Like so many other issues, they have their own ideas about gift giving. Apparently what they want is cash, mostly to pay down college costs and other debt.

So much for the negative stereotype that those born between 1980 and 2000 are lazy and have a sense of entitlement. Millennials are laboring under a collective $1 trillion in debt from student loans and still struggling to find jobs. Yet a survey of 6,500 members of the so-called ‘Me Generation’ indicates that last year well over half of them made donations to charitable causes and volunteered their time. […]

Our First Real Vacation With the Twins

by DeAnna Scott

Our annual vacation for the past 11 years has not changed. My husband and I, and now with our 14 month old twins, spend our annual 10 day vacation with family and friends on Hatteras Island North Carolina. The trip is something we look forward to and plan extensively for, every year.

Although it is a sweet, tender time of reunion with our East Coast family, this year seemed to have more than its share of trouble. To be brutally honest, not at all what I would consider a vacation in the restful sense of the word.

Since the twins were 14 months old, I felt I had to be uber-prepared. For weeks I had been making lists of everything we might need for traveling, playing, eating, sleeping and swimming: lists which included entries for items such as portable high- chairs, bathing suits, clothes, sunscreen, pool toys, regular toys, sleeping arrangements, diapers, wipes, diaper cream, snacks, car seats, to name just a few. […]

7 Steps for Getting Through the Adoption Process

by Michelle Eisler

I can’t count how many times I have cried for the child I have waited two years to adopt. This is the child I am afraid to meet because once I see and hold him, I will not be able to forget his place in my arms, or be able to ever let him go.

Seeing updated photos of him creates intense joy and grief as his changed face reminds me of the passing of time. Some days, the only way to keep my head above my emotions longing for him is to put him to the back of my mind. But the endless list of unknowns- wondering who he’ll be when he is in our family and what he might be doing right now takes over, and I break. […]

Walk the Walk: Five Advocacy Tips for Navigating the Path to Motherhood

by Michal Klau-Stevens

One afternoon I took a walk at a beautiful lake surrounded by woods with a main paved path and smaller trails through the woods. I decided to take a wooded trail, but as I moved further from the main path, the trail became less clear. I was afraid of getting lost in the woods. When I looked around me, I realized that some of the trees had blue paint marks on them.

Every few feet stood a tree with another blue mark. By following the marks, I was able to follow the trail through the woods to the main path as it circled around the lake. When I got to the main path again, I wasn’t sure which direction to walk to get back to my car. Luckily, another walker was passing by who pointed me in the right direction. If I had gotten lost, the walk could have been a disaster, but because I had signs to guide me and people to help me when I needed help, it was a wonderful experience. But, it wasn’t only the signs and the fellow walker that made the difference. I used my skills and I wasn’t afraid to ask the fellow traveler for help. I advocated for myself, and I felt confident and positive after my walk.

Navigating your way towards motherhood is a lot like that walk. You are entering unfamiliar territory, and you will have to find your way through. Whether you pursue motherhood the “old fashioned” way, or through assisted reproductive technology, adoption, surrogacy, or some other method, the steps to making informed decisions […]