Excuse Me Teacher, Can I Get a Pass?

I am lazy, let's just get that out of the way right now.

Whew. I feel better. Now that you know that one little fact, everything I'm about to say will make sense.

It's almost that time...time to go back to school. Most parents feel at least a little excited about this. Not me. I'm not excited. And as awful as this sounds, it's not because I am just so depressed to be away from my kids all day. I'm actually sort of thankful that they will have something productive to do. Due to the fact that I'm lazy, we don't do much around here during the summer. Ya know those really cool moms who takes their kids to the pool and the park and the beach and the movies? I love those moms. I love to wave at them from my window while I sit on my couch with a big bowl of ice cream.

But I digress.

Missing my kids is not why I dread "back to school" time. The real reason? I'm lazy.

Back to school means an end to my laziness. Okay, it actually just means that my laziness has to be hidden under the blanket of back to school nights, soccer practices, art shows, school plays and class parties. I have to, ya know, put on legit clothes...including a bra. I have to shower and brush my teeth and...well, okay, the shower doesn't always happen. Two words people, dry shampoo.

Back to school means I have to be at least a little organized. Did you know that at school, they don't just throw the kids a box of Eggos at lunchtime and say "good luck"? Overachieving weirdos. Because of this, I have to pack lunches. Fun fact, Eggo waffles don't taste so great when they've been in a lunchbox for four hours...I've heard.

But my laziness has bigger problems than packing lunches and putting on pants. And that bigger problem has a name. Homework. I despised doing homework when I was in school. Having kids in school is like a second installment in a horror movie: Revenge of the Homework. This time, it's out for blood. It's like a nightmare where I'm being chased by a psychopath wielding a sheet of long division.  On a positive note, I can save myself the trouble of applying to go on "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader", I already know the answer.

So, for me, back to school means schedules, organization, pants and homework. Thank goodness ice cream is sold year round.

Is it summer yet?

Da Dip

I have a serious addiction to food. Like, ya'll, I'm not even kidding. I really, really, really like food. This blog post was hard. How do you pick a "favorite summer recipe"? I might as well set out to pick a favorite child. Because my recipes? Well, they are like my babies. My sweet, rich, delicious little food babies. And I love them all. Every single one.
Since I couldn't really choose just one baby recipe to be my favorite and thus win the right of being shared via the world wide web, I decided to pick what I happen to be eating today.
My husband and I are big dippers, not the constellation kind, the food kind. We like anything that we can dip. We like warm dips, cold dips, artichoke and cucumber dips. Ranch and bacon and cheese dips. Salsa and hummus and soups. All things bright and dippable. Mmmmmmmm diiiiiiiiiiiip.
So it's really not surprising that the thing that we have been eating today (and yesterday...and the day before) is dip-related. This dip is spectacular. My friend made a variation of this recipe for me once and I have been meaning to declare my undying love for her and get to work erecting a statue in her honor, but I've been too busy eating this dip. It's even better in the summer because lots of veggies are in season. On top of being delicious, this dip is actually quite healthy, which is awesome. It makes you feel a lot better about eating yourself stupid on it.
Go get a pen...you are going to wanna write this down.

Super Scrumdiddlyumptious Dip:

2 cans of black beans (drained and rinsed)
1 can of black eyed peas (drained and rinsed)
1 can shoepeg corn (drained)
1 can tomatoes with jalepenos (I use mild Rotel because spicy food is like the Joker to my Batman)
1 container of fresh salsa (you can also make your own if you want to be all ambitious and over-achieverish)
2 tsp. fresh chopped garlic
1 cucumber (peeled and chopped)
1-2 avocados (peeled and chopped)
Apple cider vinegar (for the love of all things that dip, please do not use another kind of vinegar)
Sugar
Lime juice 

Combine all your canned things and you fresh veggies, sprinkle with sugar, then add a few swishes of your vinegar. Mix it all up and then squeeze a little lime love over the top. 

You can do a lot with this dip Yesterday we ate it with chips. Tonight we put it on fajitas. You can serve it over rice or with pasta or you can stick your face in the bowl and graze. The possibilities are endless. 

We usually follow this with a nice dessert like cobbler or pie with a good heap of ice cream. When you eat dip for dinner, you get a big dessert. Those are the rules. Happy dipping everyone. 

Swimming with Chickens

Last week, my blog post came on the heels of a very exhausting road trip with my family. It made for fuzzy writing I'm afraid. My dear husband pointed out a few grammatical errors. If you know me at all, you know that nothing dampens my mood quite like making a grammatical error. And if you know my husband at all, you know that having him (the guy who can calculate percentages in his head in five seconds but cannot master proper comma usage) be the one to discover it makes it all the greater the shame. Need less to say, I was eager to make up for it with a stellar, thought-provoking picture of writing perfection. And then I got a stomach virus. So please do forgive me if this week's post is a little gut wrenching.

My intestinal non-fortitude not withstanding, I was really excited to write about this week's topic, "Modesty, Swimwear and Body Image". Do me a favour. Try, just try, to come up with three words that are more conflicting and stick them in a phrase. Go ahead. Try it.

Have you ever seen those crazy chicken fights where two roosters just get stuck in a pen? They essentially attack each other, feathers fly, blood is shed and somewhere, some poor mother chicken wonders where she went wrong. That is how I feel about "modesty", "swimwear" and "body image" being put together. It's like a chicken fight. Because today, in our society, those words don't agree. They don't get along. They peck and scratch and tear each other's feathers out.

Forming a solid opinion on these words is like trying to balance a spoon on your nose while standing on a water-bed. I'm sure it's possible but not without a great deal of effort. With varying schools of thought and a large, healthy portion of societal influence, it's daunting to say the least.

I love society. It does such a great job of making things complicated. Everything is a debate and everything is contradictory. We all want to feel like we control our bodies and we control what's on them...as long as what we are doing fits within the confines of what is acceptable in the mainstream.

If you are a teenager, you should wear a bikini. This is what is done. This is what they do in magazines, and everyone knows that magazines are a mirror image of reality. One pieces are not sexy. They are not appealing. If you wear one, you will never get a date, a job, a home or a life.

If you are in college, you should wear as much, or as little, as you want without consideration to what impact this has on the world around you. It's all about you. It's all about what makes you happy. If a fifteen-year-old boy should happen to pass and become aroused by your lack of coverage, he must be a filthy- minded heathen. If an elderly woman glances at you a bit disapprovingly, she is an old prude. If an eleven-year-old girl looks at you and thinks that she needs to dress that way in order to be successful and beautiful, she should be allowed to do so, because it's her body. At this stage of life, your only responsibility is to yourself. Isn't that what life is all about?

When you have children, you can still wear a bikini...if you have to. But please, for pete's sake, do not breastfeed your baby in public. That's disgusting. And oh, those stretch marks are pretty unsightly, would you mind putting a tank top on over that bikini? You have what? Varicose veins?!? Seriously woman, please put on some shorts. The women in magazines do not have vericose veins and you have a duty to cover up because we might be offended by what we see. It's not like you're single any more ya know.

If you're an elderly woman, just wear a dress. You don't really have to get in the water do you? Shouldn't you be sitting under an umbrella somewhere?

No wonder I despise shopping for swimwear.

With society's ever present opinion plastered on the cover of every magazine, movie poster and television commercial, is it any wonder that studies report that 97% of women will have at least one "I hate my body" moment every day?

Confession: I am one of the 97%. I have those moments. Not a lot of them, but still. They happen and they're painful. I do not look like a girl in a magazine. I have stretch marks, I have varicose veins, my breasts hang below my rib cage on a good day and my stomach bears strong resemblance to a spayed cat pouch. My last few trips to the beach have involved cap-sleeved t-shirts and shorts, for no other reason than because that is what I am comfortable wearing in public.

Society might have me believe that this means that I have an unhealthy body image and low self-esteem. They would tell me that in order to love my body, I have to expose it. In order to not be ashamed of it, I need to parade around in as little as possible with my head held high. I disagree.

I don't always love the way my body looks on the outside, but I do respect it. It allowed me to walk and run and swim and spend countless hours on the back of a horse. It took me to school, to parties, to dances. It walked me through the temple with my husband. It nourished and bore children. It allows me to rock my babies, bandage scraped knees, embrace my husband, drive to soccer practice, teach music every Sunday. I respect my body. I am thankful for my body. I appreciate my body. And because of that, I love my body. I don't need anyone else to see my bare thighs in order to feel that.

I don't cover my body because I'm ashamed of it, I cover it because I respect it. And that respect is not contingent on the approval of society. That respect goes a lot deeper than a bathing suit.

As women, wearing a bathing suit can feel like being in a chicken fight. We might feel like we are being attacked, pecked, scratched and de-feathered. We might feel like we need to attack the choices of others to establish a comfort level with our own personal choices. We might think we need to dress to send a message, make a statement or conform to what is acceptable in the eye of the public.

But what if we could step back from the fight and realize that we don't actually need to do that? What if we focused more on the purposes our bodies fulfil, instead of how they stack up to the latest catalogue model? What if we could celebrate the virtues of a healthy body rather than constantly berate it for its flaws? Would we still be so concerned with what we wear to the beach?

What if covering our bodies was not seen as a sure indicator of immaturity but rather and acceptance of the reality that our bodies are made for more than bathing suits? What if young girls knew that their potential for positive influence in this world is not contingent on exposing their midriffs? Would our choices be less agonizing if we were content with our bodies and grateful for the rolls they fill?

I am thankful for the body I have been given. I appreciate my angel mother for her sacrifice to create that body. I hope that my daughter will feel that way. I hope that she will treasure her body and respect it and love it, no matter what shape it takes, what tint it has, or what flaws may come its way. I worked hard to give it to her.

At the end of the day, I hope she will be able to say, "I am who I am and that bathing suit is darn lucky to have me."

Smells Like Summer Spirit

Did you know that the sense that triggers memory best is the sense of smell? I wasn't sure that I really bought into that theory, until I had morning sickness. To this day, I cannot bottled Febreze without my stomach turning, even though it's been over a decade since its lovely aroma sent me rushing to my porcelain bff with baby #1. Now I'm a believer.

So when I was thinking about this week's topic, "favourite summer memories", it wasn't surprising to me when all my favourite memories involve smells.

Every season of my life has brought different smells. Some are good. Some are  less good. But all have been part of the journey. 

My childhood summers smelled like cut grass, sunscreen, chlorine, smoke from the bug zapper. They smelled like ebelskivers cooking in the cast iron pan, with a little bit of burned jam that leaked from the side. Bonfires and fireworks on the fourth of July. Tomatoes being canned. Grandma McKenna's bedsheets. Mint tea and flower gardens. It smelled like the gasoline from the garage where Grandpa's tractor was kept. It smelled like Chessmen cookies at bedtime.

The summers of my youth smelled like the barn. Saddle soap and leather. Fly spray and molasses coated grain. They smelled like the first few minutes after a good rain after we've waited under the overhang to take the horses out for a nice long ride. They smelled like porta-a-johns where I'd cope with pre-horse show jitters and sweat from underneath my helmet. They smelled like salt water and sand and the only kind of fish I can handle (the kind that I am not expected to eat). They smelled like books; sweet-smelling ink, old paper and binding. Those summers smelled like hot dogs and white cheddar and pink applesauce at Grandma's house and BBQ chicken on the grill on the front porch.

My teenage summers still smelled like the barn but they also smelled like movie theatres and Smith Mountain Lake and the stale cigarette smoke from my 1988 Oldsmobile Cutlass. They smelled like the wood flooring at my first job and my favourite Chinese buffet. They smelled like my first boyfriend's cologne and sun ripened raspberry body splash. They smelled like Frank's Pizza. And sunshine and line-dried bed sheets (back in the day when I actually got to be in bed long enough to see sunshine or smell sheets). They smelled like the hospital and the chemotherapy room and saline from mom's IV. They smelled like my hands after holding hers.

Summer still smells amazing as an adult. It smells like freshly bathed babies and sunscreen. Like fresh strawberry shortcake. Like the paper bags at the Pole Green Produce Market and dirt from the softball field. It smells like smoke from the grill on my husband's shirt and watermelon slices. It smells like home baked bread and honey and the outside of Bruster's Ice Cream. It smells like open windows during thunderstorms and sweaty children. It smells like bug spray and peanut butter and the vapor from number six's nebulizer treatments. It smells like cobbler and eczema cream and s'mores and exhaustion (yes, exhaustion does, in fact, have a smell).

And speaking of exhaustion, and how it smells...it smells like this woman. Twelve hour car trips with six children is like the essential oil of exhaustion. It's concentrated and pressed and stuck in a tiny little bottle and when you open it, boy is it going to get ya.

So thank you for enduring my nostalgic trip down memory smell lane. I am going to go walk around in circles forgetting what I'm supposed to be doing.

Every Party Has a Pooper

I want to preface this post by saying that I actually really do enjoy being a mother. I also, believe it or not, am a pretty happy person...usually. No, really. I don't scare children walking down side walks. I don't drown any kittens (admittedly, I will make life miserable and eventually non existent for any cockroach that dares to enter my domain or a twenty-foot radius thereof). I smile. I sing. I appreciate a good rainbow. Please keep that in mind while you read this post, which happens to be on one of my least favorite aspects of parenting...potty training.

I detest potty training. I believe that, if Dante had ever potty trained a toddler, there would be ten levels of hell in "Divine Comedy".  Yes, I think it's that bad.

Potty training is one of those things in parenting that has a million books about it, a million different theories and methods, a million "fool-proof" ways to make it happen overnight, while you sleep. Do you know what I would say, if I wrote a book about potty training? It would be really simple. "Stop wasting your time reading this book and just go ahead and accept the fact that there is nothing that I, or anyone else, can say to save help you. Nothing works, except what works. The end."

This would save everyone a lot of time and valuable Barnes & Noble money. Seriously. Everyone within the sound of my voice, step away from the potty training books and go buy yourself a nice vampire romance novel.

Now please don't think that I am saying that potty training is going to be awful and torturous no matter what you do. I mean, it's a very good possibility, but not an absolute. There are some people who have really good experiences with potty training. Some kids really do care about aiming for a cheerio in the toilet. Some kids really do drink twenty-six sippy cups of water in an hour and pee three times and it just sinks in. Some kids really do just wake up and say, "I am now mature enough to handle my bladder and bowel emptying methods. Please give me a M&M and let's call it a day." Some kids really are so impressed with the Mickey Mouse in green suspenders on their new underwear that they instantly will sacrifice life, limb and the convenience of peeing wherever they are at the time, just to don them. Some kids really are easy to potty train. I even had one.

Then there are the other kids, and I believe most kids, who don't give an ats rass about potty training. They are not impressed with the cheerios. They are terrified of sitting on the potty and Mickey Mouse is cute and all, but he is lousy at keeping pee off of legs.

Honestly, who can blame them? Changing your potty habits is a hard thing to do. After number four was born, my epidural wouldn't wear off. I couldn't walk and thus, couldn't get up to empty my bladder. This is a problem after delivery because your uterus needs to contract and clamp down to control your bleeding. If you bladder is super full and pushing against it, this process is inhibited. Peeing? It's a big deal. So in an attempt to avoid another catheter, the nurse brought me a bed pan. I sat on the edge of the bed on the bed pan for about thirty minutes. We stuck my fingers in water, put ice on my feet, talked about waterfalls...everything. But 20+ years of telling your body not to pee anywhere but a toilet is a hard thing to undo. So I feel pretty sure that the reverse is true as well. For their whole lives, they've been able to do their business wherever and whenever they want, without thought. Now you are asking a two to three-year-old to stop what they're doing, think about things and decide that it is better to go sit on a hard, cold seat to pee, rather than do it right where they are, as they always have. I mean, if you are sitting comfortably on the couch, and your husband offers to grab you a drink, do you really say, "No, no. I would like to get up and miss 'The Bachelor' so I can go get my own drink."? Humans gravitate toward convenience. Diapers are convenient.

When people ask me about potty training, I give them the only advice that I find useful (you may find it useless). Here it is:

First, don't try too early. Seriously, I know potty training feels like a right of passage and we are all eager to get out of diapers but trust me when I say that changing a diaper is about seven thousand times more pleasant than cleaning out dirty underwear. Before you start, seriously consider whether or not your child is really ready, or if you just want them to be ready. Just because your eighteen-month-old pointed to the toilet and grunted, does not mean he/she is ready to potty train. Don't rush it. It's not a race. If your child is potty trained before Kindergarten, you're doing fine.

Second, do what works for you. If pull ups are your game, and it's working, stick with it. If the kid likes to pee in a small child potty in the living room, and it's working, more power to you. Most importantly, if nothing is working for you, and it's just really, really hard...that is normal. It's okay mama. You aren't doing anything wrong. Sometimes it's just hard. Some kids take months to potty train. Some take years to be really consistent. It is OKAY.

Third, keep chocolate on hand. Not for your kids, that's the dumbest thing I've ever read, that whole M&M theory. I think a kid wrote that book. (Please note, if this method works or has worked for you...cool. Stick with it.) In my experience, it results in a lot of chocolate being eaten and very little pottying. So the chocolate is not for the kids, it's for you. When you feel like banging your head against the wall, eat some chocolate. This method might not help potty training, but I promise it has saved lives.

Lastly, be patient. Potty training can be a long process and it all depends on the child. One of my kids potty trained in two days and had two total accidents. One of my kids potty trained in a week. One of my kids took six weeks and one took six months. It really is a new experience each time. Don't let yourself get hung up on how it's "supposed" to go. If your first was really hard to train, don't think that means that your second experience will be equally taxing. If your sister's child trained overnight, don't think that means that there is something wrong with you or your child if they take longer. Be patient with yourself. Be patient with your child. Eat your chocolate. Breathe. Repeat.


"May the odds be ever in your favor."

A Failure to Plan

Birth. The final frontier. These are the voyages…okay, I’ll stop. It was just what popped into my mind when I thought about this week’s topic, “Birth Stories”. Birth is one of those words that sounds like it should be followed by a clap of thunder or a “don don donnnnn”, or insert other ominous footnote.

It’s the thing that pregnant women fear, probably due in large part to its gross misrepresentation in the media. Women, in general, associate birth with chaos, frantically trying to make to the hospital before the child wiggles its way out and goes running down the sidewalk, screaming and pain. Lots of pain. It’s no wonder we all dread labor.

Me? I don’t dread labor. I actually never really have. Actually, I take that back. Someone told me that she always knew she was about to go into "real" labor because she would throw up right before…and that was scary. I then found out that most women don’t throw up so my fears were abated. Being ripped in half by a nine pound critter pushing out your ladyship? Psh. Throwing up? HOLY CRAP!

But honestly, I really didn’t worry much about delivery, especially after I’d done it a few times. My labors have been blessedly easy. The usually begin with Pitocin and end with a baby with an epidural somewhere in between. I’ve never really had a birth plan, other than going to the hospital pregnant and coming home with a baby. Even this plan hasn’t worked out for me every time. If motherhood has taught me anything about plans, it’s that no one really cares about my plans.

Birth plans get a lot of attention these days. There are so many options. You can have your baby at the hospital, at home, in a bathtub, in a birthing center, in a box with a fox. You can deliver sitting up, lying down, on your side, on your stomach, squatting, bending or doing zumba. You can have an epidural, you can smell lavender and listen to Mozart, you can have an IV or rub oils on your feet. There’s a huge amount of debate surrounding all these things. We all have our ideas of what we want our birth to be like, and that’s great. But it doesn’t always go as we planned, and that’s okay too. My friend, Amanda, has referred to these issues as “first world problems”. And they are. The truth is, it doesn’t matter if we have a c-section or a vaginal delivery. It doesn’t matter if we go natural, or get an epidural. We are blessed to have choices and to have the safety net of living in a great age of medical technology and in a place where that technology is readily available.

So I typically spend most of my dreading energies on morning sickness (or, as I like to call it, “progesterone poisoning”) instead of labor.

My last pregnancy was a challenge. When I was seven and a half months pregnant, our family moved twelve hours away, from Richmond, VA to Orlando, FL. This move took place four days before Christmas. Did I mention we had five children and two of them had the flu? My husband drove the moving truck accompanied by the dog and the cat, hauling his car. I drove our van (affectionately known as “the hoopty”), filled with children, tissues and Motrin, hauling a trailer.

The next month and a half were filled with long days and lots of tears. While I had never really been afraid or anxious about labor, I suddenly found myself far from home with a doctor I barely knew, in a hospital that I had not so much as visited (unless you count internet surfing). Suddenly, I was very afraid and anxious about labor.

I try not to compare any of my deliveries to their predecessors, but something you need to know is that I never dilate prior to induction…like…ever. Oh wait, I did dilate about a fingertip with my fifth child. Have you met those women who walk around for weeks at 4cm and, by the time they reach the hospital, they are 7cm? Yeah…I want to step on their toes…just a little. Cause, ya know, it’s not fair.

Well, imagine my surprise when I was 4cm at my final check-up. My doctor actually had to call a nurse in to mop my jaw off the floor since I was way too pregnant to bend over and get it myself. I had an induction scheduled for the next day. When I got to the hospital, I was 5cm. A FIVE! That’s halfway. It was a miracle. We all fully expected that I would start Pitocin, sneeze and have the baby in our arms. Of course, that is not exactly what happened. It took a long time to progress from 5…a really long time. My contractions increased but were very irregular. I would have two back-to-back and then none for six to seven minutes. This had never happened to me. Golden rule of childbirth #1: Expect the unexpected.

I had epidurals for six of my seven deliveries. I love epidurals. They provide the perfect excuse to be lazy. Oh and did you know that they make you not feel like your abdomen is being chewed on by a great white shark? I repeat, I love epidurals. My epidural with number six, however, did not work. It localized in my leg. FYI, babies are not born in legs. Leg-epidurals are useless. Golden rule of childbirth #2: Things don’t always work the way they are supposed to.

When it was almost time to deliver number six, they got me ready for pushing. I was anxious to push. Pushing hurts less that sitting. No really. But when I started to push, it felt all wrong. I felt like I was doing all the work. Usually you feel the urge to push, but I didn’t. My contractions were still completely irregular and I was getting frustrated. I told the nurse that I wasn’t ready to push. They checked me (again) and said that I was actually only a 9, not a 10, which is what they said I was before I started pushing. I told them it wouldn’t take me long. The doctor left the room…and then I started yelling because it was time to push. They said it was probably just the baby moving down. I yelled louder. They checked me…number six’s head was coming out. Seriously, no one listens to me. Luckily, the doctor made it in just in time to get gloves on and catch the baby. Golden rule of childbirth #3: Timing is everything.

When all was said and done, number six made it here safely.

Childbirth rarely goes the way you envision it in your mind but what really matters is not the method. After all, who cares if Amazon ships your order with UPS or FedEx (okay, my husband might care, since FedEx signs his paychecks), as long as you get your package? What really matters is that the baby and mama make it through the whole ordeal in sore, but happy, pieces. Golden rule of childbirth #4: All’s well that ends well.

 

The Me and The Mom

Song lyrics make it sound so easy. Lucy Van Pelt can't love anybody but her. Whitney Houston said that learning to love oneself is the greatest love of all. I have wondered, more than once, what the secret is. I have certainly tried different tactics. I've focused on the positives. I've tried to let go of the imperfections. I've sung those songs until my voice went out. But, for some reason, being okay with being me? Well, it hasn't been easy.

When we were given the assignment to write this week on the "me behind the mom", I considered blowing it off. I could claim hundreds of excuses why I needed to skip and have someone else blog for me; the house is a mess, baby hasn't slept, haven't showered in three days, I've really been neglecting my Pinterest boards, there's a dead worm on the sidewalk that I should burry. Then I considered just keeping it "light", making a joke about my "behind" and how it's a good six inches lower than it used to be (thanks baby number four). But then I remembered some stupid analogy I heard once about how you can't strengthen muscles you never work, blah, blah, blah. Okay, it wasn't stupid, but when it makes me want to break out of my comfort zone it's not getting any immediate love from me.

Ever since I was little, I've been an awkward little thing. Picture that kid at school with glasses who reads books about unicorns and wears high water pants and talks in a squeaky voice. Got the image? Okay, good. Because that would be the cool kid that I wished I was. I was so weird, I couldn't even be a normal dork. I didn't just read about unicorns, I waged a campaign to convince my classmates that they were real and I had seen them (I still think that watching Tom Cruise's "Legend" counts as a sighting.) and, oh by the way, they can communicate with me. By the time I hit fourth grade things were bad enough that my parents put me into a private school. Yes, it was that bad.

When I first went to my new school I thought maybe I could be cooler. Maybe I could just not mention the unicorns, at least until my circle of friends was well established. I could do this. I could be cool. That idea lasted about eighty-five seconds, or until recess.

I repeated these efforts the first week of every single school year for the remainder of my primary education career. It yielded the same results every single time.

My next would-be attempts at self-transformation came when I went to college. After being with the same small group of people since the fifth grade, I'd finally be moving to a place where no one knew me. I could retrain myself. I could be a whole new me. Here's the thing about me...me is always there. I can't hide from her. She just shows up, invited or not. She's a little obnoxious like that.

After I got married, my husband and I, along with child number 1, moved to Richmond, VA. I tried again to be a newer, cooler, less dweeby sort of person. And I'll be darned if me didn't show up and spoil it all AGAIN. Seriously, me cannot take a hint.

After almost ten years in Richmond, we moved to Florida. This was exactly the opportunity that I needed to finally be the cool girl. I mean, no one knew me...NO ONE. And I finally figured out the secret. I just would not talk at all. Smile and speak when spoken to. No stories. No jokes. BAM, overnight success. But, once again, that inner dork just bubbled right to the surface. My personality is inevitable, like death and taxes. There really is no way to escape it.

So if you can't run from yourself. If you can't be someone that you aren't (No, this doesn't mean I'm giving up on being a mermaid, it's totally attainable. You'll see.), then what do you do? And this is why I didn't want to write this post. Because I haven't come to a conclusion yet. I don't have an answer. Being a writer, I like to have answers. I like to know what's going to happen before I write a story. But I'm probably only in the first chapter with this whole self-acceptance thing, which makes writing about it downright terrifying.

But hey, I took six kids to Sam's Club the other day. I can do hard things.

So here's where motherhood comes in. I've never really been cool or brave or strong or awesome...until I was a mother. And now I'm still none of those things, but all of those things. "Let me explain. No, there is too much, let me sum up" (sorry, I couldn't resist). Before I was a mother, I was way too chicken to ride a roller coaster. Now, after children, there is no way that I would get on a roller coaster, but it's okay now. I'm the mom. Moms can skip roller coasters and still be brave because HELLO!?! I TOOK SIX KIDS TO SAM'S CLUB! Do you see what motherhood did there? It let me be me and it let me be brave, even though I'm not brave. You think I'm crazy right? Watch, I'll do it again...

Before I was a mother I would tell really lame jokes and everyone would think I was lame. It works like that. Now, I still tell lame jokes, but my kids think they are hilarious. Seriously. They laugh. So I get to be funny even though I'm not funny. See how awesome that is?

So the thing is, the "me behind the mom" is still there. Being a mother just lets me be her and be okay with being her. I think that believing in unicorns, wearing pants that would make Steve Urkel proud, and singing Bonnie Raitt while all my classmates were singing Boyz 2 Men (That's probably wrong. I don't even know what they were listening to because I was listening to Bonnie Raitt), all made me a pretty dweeby person, but they make me a pretty awesome mom.

That's what motherhood does for you. It transforms you. It let's you be you, but better. It helps you recognize that it's okay to be you. Being you isn't a bad thing, as long as you're always trying to be the best you that you can be.

So the me behind the mom is a dork who loves to read fantasy novels and pick the marshmallows out of Lucky Charms cereal and make up random songs for absolutely everything. The me behind the mom is a world class chicken who has to take deep breaths when driving over large bodies of water because 'holy crap we might drive over the edge and get eaten by alligators'. She would gladly eat cookies for breakfast. She likes to listen to Raffi at Christmas time. And the mom behind the me? Well, she let's me get away with all of it and blame it on being a mom. It's a symbiotic relationship and it works. I can dig it.

My Awkward Teenage Introduction

The first thing you should know about me is that I am supremely unoriginal. No, I'm not being modest. No, I'm not self-bashing. It actually doesn't bother me because what I lack in originality, I make up for in mimicking skills. I'm an excellent copy-cat. Google and I? Well, we're close.

So under normal circumstances I would blog-stalk. I'd read everyone else's introductory post and then I'd change important things like names and dates, I might tell a joke. For the most part, however, I'd follow the template provided by my previous posters. The problem with this situation is that there are no previous posters. I'm the previous in this scenario. In other words, I have no idea what to write.

I feel like a teenager introducing myself to a new group, worried that I have food stuck in my braces or my sneakers are not the trendy kind.

I suppose in following the definition of an "introduction", I can start with the very basic, the who, what, when, where and how. Hello, my name is Jenny. And much like Lucy Pevensie, I am a human, specifically a girl. And when? Well, it's been a while (let's not dwell on that shall we?). I was born and raised in Virginia and lived there until December of 2012. I now reside in Florida, it even says so on my ID (though I've heard those lie on occasion). I haven't changed my license plates yet, I'm not ready for that level of commitment. Oh, and the how. Obviously, I came from a pea pod. Everyone knows that.

As for writing, it's always been a love of mine. I once read a book that says that most writers are (or were at some point) socially awkward. This explains a lot.

When free time is available, I love to spend it reading. I was an English major in college and have enjoyed dabbling in some free lance writing. I would love to take it up a notch at some point, if my childhood dream of becoming a mermaid doesn't work out.

I'm excited to be a part of "To Each Their Own". My love of the written word comes in second to my love of being a wife and mother. Combining the two is a little slice of Heaven. Motherhood, after all, is not so different from slaying dragons or falling through wardrobes, even if the dragons are more like carrot-sized cockroaches and the wardrobe looks more like an over-flowing laundry basket.

Here's to the adventure ahead!