Midlife Mothers Archives - Page 4 of 16

Vacation I

by Maggie Lamond Simone

The purpose of a vacation, they say, is to make us feel better. It is an opportunity to escape from real life for awhile, to pamper ourselves, to do things we ordinarily don’t do. It is meant to restore our mental health so that the usual daily routine isn’t so bad. That’s why we look forward to it each and every year.

This year, with the kids a little bit older, we had a family meeting to discuss where to go. After some debate and discussion, we decided as a family to go to the ocean. After making said decision, the husband and children then went about their lives, their jobs apparently complete. […]

The Oy’s and Joys of Summer

by Wendy Sue Noah

It’s summer time! YAY!

I used to say, when I was growing up, that things were very different. Not only were we friendly with our neighbors, with all day play and sleep overs to boot, but if I disappeared for hours to explore the woods in our backyard and play with the inchworms or hang out in my favorite tree, there were no worries or concerns.

Now, our reality is so very different. Even sending my kids to school all day, I have to go into faith when I kiss them goodbye, praying that these school shootings don’t reveal themselves in our town. […]

Culture Vulture

by Janice Eidus

I became a first time parent in middle age. Prior to that, I had a long run immersed in the cultural life of New York City, where I lived, and still live. My cultural palate was diverse and full, and I felt humbled and grateful to be deeply connected to a world so richly filled with art and artists.

I had a big social life, and most of my friends were people I’d met at artist colonies, where I often spent time writing. The friends I made were novelists, poets, screenwriters, painters, sculptors, composers, and musicians.

Fast forward to my new life as the first time mother of an infant daughter. I was simply too exhausted to do much socializing or event-hopping. I got by on so little sleep, and had so little free time, I didn’t have it in me to linger over lunch with a poet friend to discuss her latest chapbook.

When I did have time to socialize, I often did it with my daughter in tow, and it tended to be with other new parents, which whom I could discuss the minutia of diaper rash, diaper changing, and the best type of stroller for city streets, rather than the use of metaphor in the latest French avant-garde film. I was far less obsessed with the arts at that point than with my daughter’s “art” of projectile vomiting. […]

Rescuing Julia Twice

by Tina Traster

Dr. T couldn’t have been more pleased with Julia’s progress. At 18 months, my baby was in the 95^th percentile for her weight. She was talking, walking, her muscle tone was excellent. All good signs for a child adopted just 14 months earlier from a Siberian orphanage.

Dr. T specializes in treating internationally-adopted children. During my daughter’s third well-visit, he recommended a second round of vaccines because he didn’t trust the ones she received in Russia. He asked me how Julia was eating, glancing over his bifocals to read her chart. I told him she’s on an organic, whole-foods, non-meat diet. He said, “good,” and with a kind glint in his eye, added, “She looks great. You’re doing a great job. Bring her back in six months.” […]

Swimsuit Season

by Maggie Lamond Simone

Well, fans, it’s back-to-you-know-what time, and once again we’re hoping that everyone is returning refreshed, with a little more knowledge and maybe a little more confidence than last year! We’re pretty excited up here in the booth, as we get a bird’s-eye view of the season’s latest styles.

We’ve seen it all over the years, haven’t we? Hahaha. I mean, especially with The Mom – the shorts and t-shirt . . . the skirts that float around her like some bizarre jellyfish when she steps into the water . . . the caftans . . . the wraps . . . the classic towel-about-the-waist . . . yes, folks, she’s really “covered” the gamut in her ongoing efforts to convince us she doesn’t have thighs! And I don’t even want to think about the bikini wax issue! […]

My Two Dads (In Honor of Father’s Day)

by Maggie Lamond Simone

Me and Dad

You could say I always had suspicions. The fact that they get along so well in and of itself was a tipoff, but true confirmation came the first time I saw my husband clean the house. He was a man on a mission, determined to clean it like it had never been cleaned before . . . and convinced that it hadn’t been.

I found myself watching the whole scenario with my mother’s bemused expression and thought, “Oh . . . my . . . GOD. I’ve married my father.”

Although I’m doing better with it as time goes on, I admit I saw many of the stages of grief when the similarities started becoming noticeable. There was denial (“No. I’m imagining it. He does not turn the TV up after I go to bed”), anger (“Okay, stop it! I mean it! Stop rearranging my counters!”), all the way to acceptance (“All right, honey. We can leave for the show two hours early.”) […]

Frumpy No More

by Deatra Haime Anderson

Deatra’s bitstrip

When I got married 10 years ago, I moved from New York City to a rural little upstate village where a livestock feed store is the main attraction. I brought with me my nearly life-long fashion sensibility and tried, in vain, to keep rocking my 3-inch stilettos, wedge heels and tight jeans. I hobbled along, even in the grocery store, where I ignored the sidelong glances from women dressed in (what looked like to me) pajama bottoms and shoes I’d wear as slippers.

And then I got pregnant. And for the first time in as long as I could remember, I stopped holding in my stomach and discovered the mind-blowing comfort of elastic-waist pants. Part of the reason I loved being pregnant, besides the absolute joy of growing my daughter, was being able to wear whatever I wanted and not caring one single bit about my protruding belly. I put away my high-heeled shoes and strutted around in slides and flip flops. I wore my husband’s old button-down shirts and t-shirts and happily tossed on grandpa cardigans when I was chilly. I never felt freer or more comfortable in my life – it was glorious. […]

Stand and Be Recognized

by Jane Samuel

It’s that time of year again. Time to recognize our mothers. To make them breakfast in bed, buy them expensive cards, mold clay into indiscernible lumpish presents at preschool, take them to tea or brunch or dinner, to kiss them, hug them, honor them.

But in my Momma heart it is time to fully consider them. To not only parade around and polish the shiny head’s side of the motherhood coin, but to turn it and look at its tail side too. To ask, and answer, something that perhaps we don’t consider enough – when is a woman a mother? […]

Mums, Moms and Mothering

by Ellie Stoneley

I’ve fallen foul of it several times. My brother, who lives in the Far East, gets it wrong every year. The confusion has resulted in quite the most incredible mother in the entire universe wondering what she’s done to deserve being forgotten on a day she should be the centre of attention. I’m talking about my mother, and about Mothering Sunday. Or is that Mothers Day, or perhaps Mother’s Day?

In the UK, we celebrate our Mums on a different day than when the US celebrates Moms. Back in Blighty, Mothering Sunday falls on the fourth Sunday in Lent, while in America (and most of the world), Mother’s Day is always on the second Sunday in May. Just to add to the muddle, in other countries, mothers are celebrated on special days throughout the year – from January in Myanmar to December in Panama and Indonesia.

Our current tradition of celebrating and thanking our mothers is consistent with the States, but the roots of the celebration are different again and in a fascinating and thought- provoking way. […]

Offering a Mother’s Day – To Others

by DeAnna Scott

This Mother’s Day will be the first one I can celebrate as a mother of humans. I spent many years celebrating Mother’s Day as a mom of furry four-legged critters, but of course it wasn’t the same. In actuality, it hid the emptiness I had – an emptiness brought on by years of infertility and loss.

Women who are currently in the throes of, or those that have been through infertility, most assuredly can relate to these feelings. It is because of this emptiness that on this first Mother’s Day and all that shall follow, I shall celebrate it feeling grateful – I don’t want it to be a celebration in honor of me as a mother since it is I who has the honor to have been blessed with my two baby humans.

Yet, I can’t help but contemplate the emptiness of the remaining members of the moms-in-waiting alliance. It’s a club no woman wants to be a part of; you don’t volunteer for it and you certainly don’t search it out. But you pay your dues – you have no choice in the matter. As a matter of fact, you pay years of dues reluctantly learning that often this quest for motherhood is a journey, not a sprint. At least for us in the club. […]