Go-Go Mommy

Sorry mom, Maria Shriver has your "thank you" card!

Two nights ago, I attended a private talk and book-signing with Maria Shriver featuring her new book, "Just Who Will You Be?" I'm sure you'll hear this from every other mom blogger who attended but I'll reiterate just in case: Yes, she is even more beautiful in person. Yes, she is kind, gracious, and witty. And yes, she spoke from her heart and touched all of ours.

Maria Shriver is known for many things; she comes from a famous family, she has a famous husband, she is the First Lady of California, and she was a high-powered journalist - with an emphasis on "was". This became the impetus for her newest book. After she was asked to resign and give up her journalism career when her husband became Governor, she discovered that her twenty-five year career had been the major factor by which she defined herself. And when that vanished, she wasn't sure exactly who "Maria" was.

Sound familiar? How many of us have by choice or otherwise changed paths or are deliberating a change? How many are at a "personal versus professional" crossroad? How many of us define ourselves by our jobs, by our successes? How many of us are trying to find our own voice while we are the caretakers of others: spouse, children, parents, grandparents, etc?

As Maria spoke to our Silicon Valley Moms Blog group, she told us that the "theme" of all of her writing has been to create dialogue. And boy, did she ever with this one! As she spoke, she openly shared her inner struggle between her background where she was raised to constantly make herself useful and be doing something of importance (after all, with a father who founded the Peace Corps and a mother who founded the Special Olympics, she joked that maybe the only thing for her to do to top that would be to run for President like the rest of her family), and finally her realization that just being herself should be enough.

Many more great points came up in her talk and during the Q & A that night: how she takes 10 minutes a day to just be still and let her mind be still; how she struggled with work/life balance with the birth of each child; and how she manages to run her family while she created and is running an incredible volunteer network.

But the point that really resonated with me was when she said that the greatest gift we can give to our children is to let them know that "they are enough." To which I wanted to yell, "Hear, Hear"!

BTW, here's a photo of the thank you card I hand-stitched and gave to Maria for sharing her personal soulful journey. Sorry your "thank you" from Poppy will be delayed, Mom!

How to Improve a Classic

I am so geeked! Miss Sweet Pea is just blossoming! Since Grandma and Papa were here, she picked up about 7 new words (bringing her vocabulary to about 12 words); you gotta start somewhere! It's so sweet hearing her say the typical things like "up", "hello", "dog", and then all of a sudden hearing bursts of words like "mom and dad". When she said that string of words, KB thought is was Poppy who said it. It took a lot of convincing to get him to accept that it was actually Sweet Pea who uttered that beautiful line for the first time.

In addition to her vocabulary, she has also become a very hearty, and independent, eater. This stage is great because Sweet Pea is ready to try any food you put on her plate. She loves tomatoes, noodles, peas and a zillion other foods. Of course, some of those bites of new items come right back out after a couple of chews (eewww), and that, coupled with the fact that half of her "favorite" foods still end up on her lap due to her insistence on using her own little fingers to feed herself, is the second reason for my excitement today.

I received a trial "DaBib" in the mail a few days ago and it is like no other bib Sweet Pea has worn. You can see that the bib has a unique, soft "scrunch neckline" that is super easy to put on baby and hugs the neck so no errant peas or sauce-filled noodles sneak down her neckline and end up as permanent fixtures on her shirts. The front of the bib is a wonderfully soft terry and the backing is waterproof. It has a pocket to turn forward when in use to catch those wayward crumbs that try to follow gravity's pull onto her lap saving me from countless "spray and wash" treatments on her meal outfit. Yeah for the attached "optional" crumb catcher!

"DaBib" is an iParenting Media Award winner and you can read more about the incredible mompreneur/inventor of DaBib here. Thank you, Shea, for creating a "new classic"!

Book Review: The Middle Place

I received a copy of The Middle Place written by Kelly Corrigan from Hyperion. As you all know, I love a good read and stick mostly to works of fiction. This book, however, chronicals the author's journey as she battles breast cancer while being a wife and mother to two girls (three years old and a 1 and 1/2 year old) and at the same time is "George Corrigan's daughter." Hence, this is "The Middle Place" where one is both an adult and still someone's child all at the same time.

What I really liked about this book is that while we learn of Kelly's trials as she battles cancer - first her own breast cancer and then at the same time her father's bladder cancer - we also learn about her childhood, adolescence and the classic mother-daughter conflicts that so many of us can relate to and are hoping to avoid in the future with our own little girls. We also get to see the "full circle" as Kelly, now a mother herself, reflects on those conflicts. In doing so, she sees them more clearly for the what they were: expressions of love from a mother who is trying her best to raise a strong and competant daughter.

Kelly's story resonates with me, not because of the obvious connection so many of us have with family, loved ones, or God forbid ourselves who have suffered from cancer. Rather, Kelly's conversational writing style was comfortably similar to my own so it seemed like I was reading letters and the memoirs from a long-lost friend who I wanted desparately to be a winner in life. The Middle Place definitely made me laugh as she told stories about her family and cry with her through some of her cancer "low points" such as shaving her head before her daughters witnessed it all coming out on its own.

Thank you, Kelly Corrigan, for such a brave and honest account of the battle you and your father faced against this awful disease.

You can read more reviews about The Middle Place at Everyday I Write The Blog.

Wine, mommybloggers, and a great time!

I actually had a grown-up afternoon on Sunday and I am still glowing from the wine event! It was my first Silicon Valley Moms Blog get together and I not only had a great time, but I scored big time!

First, it was a great opportunity to finally meet my fellow mom bloggers face to face. XiaolinMama and I took advantage of the "moms day out" opportunity and rode together so we could do some catching-up - look out loves, 2 hipster mamas on a 10 minute road trip - hey, you take what you can get! The really weird part came at the event, I didn't realize that after reading these awesome ladies' posts for the last 5 months, it already felt like I knew a lot of the people there. Kind of freaky; like being in the middle of a conversation before you've even met the person, but with awesome ladies like BonggaMom, CityMama, and Glennia (who I actually did meet once about 3 years ago), they eased my "semi-stalker" sensation and made it seem like the most natural thing in the world. I love blogging and bloggers!

Second, the event was sponsored by Graco who introduced their new soothing center called "Sweetpeace". It is this incredible machine that is built to actually sway like a person. Yes, a person (side to side) rather than a machine that simply goes forward and backward. In addition, it truly blends in with modern decor. It's a very beautiful beige color with some very tasteful light green trim, rather than being a primary color eyesore in your home. When the awesome Graco people were showing us that it not only has a variety of settings and sounds but that it also had a hideaway drawer so you can hook up your ipod, I was immediately hooked. When I said, "Wow, I wish I could bring it home to let Sweet Pea (my 12 month old) test drive it, they instantly said, "No problem, we'll let you take it with you." GASP! Did I just hear correctly? SCORE #2!

Of course I immediately set up the soothing center when I got home and Sweet Pea went in it at the first opportunity. Here she is looking all cute and cuddly.

She was having a ball being soothed giggling and kicking her legs to the beat of my 70s Dance Party mixes. Which, by the way, leads me to mention that the sound on this center is surprisingly good whether you are using your own tunes or the prerecorded selection. And oh, by the way, when I returned from the park with a sleeping Sweet Pea, I didn't have to take her out of her carseat and ruin her nap - I just popped the carseat onto the Sweetpeace stand and she was all set to finish her nap. All I can say is - I wish I had this soothing center when she was 1 month old and colicky. Oh well, at least I've got it for the next five pounds (t's approved up to 25lbs.). Finally - being a premmie is paying off!

Book Review: The Other Mother

As a parent, time is precious. As a newer mother, I am frequently reminded of this from others through helpful, albeit unprompted, advice. For instance, I have been told many times to "enjoy my children while they are young". And that because "time passes so quickly" I need to "take advantage of every moment" since "before you know it, they will be in school" and then it's "off to college."

I guess time is the biggest battle that we all face. Whether we have kids or not, whether we work outside the home, inside the home, or stay at home to raise our young ones. We are fighting against the hours, minutes, and seconds that make up each and every day we face. And while doing this, the mundane - the chores, the work, the minutea of living - every once in a while there may appear a stab of guilt telling us we are ignoring someone. Maybe it's our son or daughter who is with a caregiver for the day while we attend to our "work" lives, maybe it is our spouse as we rush to a fro each morning and night so we can get through our laundry list of "to dos" before the day escapes us, or maybe it is ourselves - our own thoughts and dreams about what we want and need out of life.

I just finished reading The Other Mother by Gwendolen Gross and for me, it illustrated the rhythms of life. The choices we face along with the hopes and dreams we decide to keep, to let go, or to just put on hold as life gets more complicated when "family" enters the picture.

"The Other Mother" is a fictional story of two mothers; one is an experienced stay-at-home mom of three ("Thea") and the other is a working mom who is having her first child ("Amanda"). The story is beautifully written and immediately draws you into each mom's world from the very beginning. In fact, as someone who recently "left the workplace" to stay at home with her toddler and newborn infant, I actually found a little bit of myself in both characters. The juxtaposition of these two women, tied together with a thread of mystery made it impossible for me to put down.

"The Other Mother" clearly illustrates the self-doubt that is a part of parenthood, the firm convictions that we carry with us - be they right or wrong, and the special treat of being able to really see issues from a perspective other than our own.

Congratulations to you, Gwendolen, for giving us the gift of new perspectives and for reminding us that as a parent, each decision made is much more complex and very often much more agonizing that one might originally consider.