I have a secret.

And I wonder how you will feel about me when I tell you.

I have someone I've really been loving spending time with.  

And it's not my husband. 

Has that ever happened to you?  You start getting to know someone and pretty soon you realize that when you know you might get some alone time together, you start feeling kinda well, excited?

Well this is happening to me.  

Yesterday morning after the school kids were off to school, I found myself having another opportunity to hang out with this person.  

It was a brisk, sunny January Southern California day with big puffy white clouds moving across the sky.  

Our meeting place was quiet, beautiful and rather hidden, which added to the intrigue of it all.  

We chatted, we laughed, we shared a little bite to eat, and we gazed into each other's eyes and smiled. 

I had suspected I was feeling this way already but yesterday sealed the deal.  

I am head over heels in love with him.

And the funny thing is?

I don't think my husband would mind at all.

'Cause I think he feels pretty much the same way as me. 

Sorry if I got you all worked up for nothing.  But I couldn't help it. After my date with El Destructo in our backyard "treehouse' yesterday morning, I realized how much this is all true - that I'm utterly head over heels in love with this blue-eyed, wispy blonde-haired son of mine.  

And in the middle of my daily chaos, I must remember to force myself out of the routine and the obligations and the cleaning and the bills and the phone calls and the mama list of endless to-do's and simply hide away with my little lover.  

'Cause there's not much more I need to turn me on than a guy smearing yogurt all over his face.

 

A Weekend Experiment

What a week. On many levels. But mainly on the level that I struggled hardcore this week with being well, a mom. That's what I am, right? A mom? Oh yeah, that's right. My blood boiling impatience was at an all-time high most evenings this week which resulted in too much yelling and too many tears. 

But as I settle into the glory that is called the weekend, I'm forcing my brain to stop thinking about how I failed this week. Instead, I'm steering all thoughts towards how I succeeded. I mean, how much self-beating-up can one mom do?

Some of you moms might have felt the same way as you herded your kiddies through their day, so I've decided to throw out a little weekend exercise for all of us out here in MWOB land.

This exercise has a few purposes:

1) To remind ourselves of what GOOD things we did this week as moms.

2) To assure me that I am not alone.

3) To get into the blog-lovin' practice of leaving comments.  I know there's like a million of you out there and this feeling of being insecure about leaving comments is getting old.  

4) If this bloggy place was worth its salt, I would have like a giveaway all lined up for the best comment.  Too bad.  I'm an underachiever, don't you know that by now?

So via the comment section, please answer:

How did you simply kill it this week as a mom?  (just in case, "kill it" is the gymnastics equivalent of "sticking a landing" which in case you need more, "kill it" means you did something really awesome.)

I'll start if off.  Dig deep ladies, and click that comment section.

Calling all supermoms! Yeah, that means YOU!

After reading Karen's "Halloween Inadequacy" post again this morning, I really started thinking about what some of her statements would sound like to other moms who don't know her at all. I was thinking about her statement of how her girls this year AGAIN wanted her to throw a Halloween party, but "to no avail." As I've surfed through blogland (to an excessive degree the last couple of months,) I can only imagine there are oodles of moms who might look at that and think, "Why, to no avail?"  Not only are there moms out there throwing parties but they are creating original crafts, sewing handmade costumes, baking made-from-scratch cakes and cookies, and blogging to tell their friends (and hopefully some strangers too) all about it.

And you know what I say to those super-duper moms?  I say "More power to you!" and "Who the hell are you?" and oh yeah, one more thing..."Is there any way to bottle up some of that super mompower and send it my way?"  

Since I know Karen and the depth of her heart and spirit and the boundless patience she has and how she is a faith-filled soul who endured one of the most trying experiences a mother could ever go through (more on that story in future posts I hope),  I know that throwing a friggin' Halloween party means nothing in the grand scheme of the kind of mom she is.  And how sad that a cool dream catcher craft (and it does look cool) would make her feel, well, like a lame mom.  Isn't it funny how our mom brains work?

As I continue to contemplate, or maybe even obsess, about the purpose of starting this space in blogland,  I realize that if Moms Without Blogs does only one thing in its existence, I want it to be a simple daily reminder to all of us hard-working, self-critical moms that we need to spend just a little more time in our crazy brains validating ourselves and the incredible work we do in our homes.  And it's not the work that we show to all of the world that's most important.  It's all the stuff no one sees.  It's all the stuff that happens in the silent of the night and in between the parties.  It's all the seconds that get squished between the hours, and all of the tiny ways we satisfy an endless stream of needs.   

The modern world of mommying is taking us for a serious ride but some things will simply never change.   The basic, most important, needs of our kids are being met...by us.  By all of us loser moms who don't really want to to take the time to puree that spinach and hide it in the middle of our kids' PB&J's.  And when it all shakes down in the end, I feel certain that it will be the simple things that have paved the way to a happy, productive life for our children.  Not necessarily the butternut squash organic rice-crispy treats shaped to look like pumpkins.

So all you super-duper supermoms out there? Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Or maybe slightly more apropos:  

Put that in your food processor and puree it.