Ms. Mommy Poppins: Practically Imperfect in Every Way

The longer I have held the honorable title of, "Mommy/ Mama/ Lady who feeds me," the deeper my understanding of the sacrifices that my own mother made for me and my siblings. It's pretty easy to play the armchair quarterback role regarding motherhood, before you are one yourself. You often think, "Well, you are doing a pretty good job, but you may have fumbled the ball here and there." And once you become a mother yourself, you may very well say, "Oh, NOW I see why she did that!" After this realization you may proceed to mutter to yourself, I mean Siri/ smartphone, "Please make a reminder for tomorrow at 3:30 pm to write Mom a long, long apology/ thank you/ How am I still alive?, letter. Thanks." And Siri replies, "Your wish is my command."  In our grand country, many young Americans have fairly ideal childhoods. (Of course there are exceptions, but we are celebrating the victories here today folks! ) These small and curious creat...

You know when you just have one of "those days"? I feel like I say that almost daily, but then when you actually do have one of "those days," you realize that the other ones really weren't that bad.  Well, as you can probably guess, today was one of "those days." My day actually started, impressively well. By boys were at school on time, and I was feeling quite proud. I attended a ladies' Bible study on the military base where I live, and it was a fabulous time of singing, food, and fellowship. I even told a fellow Bible study friend, "That was such a great lesson today!" I guess those were my famous last words, or the beginning of the end for my practically perfect in every way, day.  I am always procrastinating on my kids' doctors appointments. I honestly had not remembered that my son had his 4 year old check-up due, until last week when his teacher asked if that is why he missed a day of school. (No, it was because I was s...

Welcome to "Military Monday!" Credits go to my friend Stephanie, a fellow military wife for this scathingly brilliant idea...  I'd like to think that my identity goes beyond my military family lifestyle. But, who am I fooling? It's pretty much a game changer, in how I view the world and the circumstances in it. If, "Holding down the homefront," is on your list of skills on your resume', then you can probably relate to this blog post.  During the refinement process of becoming a seasoned Marine wife, I have unknowingly had a paradigm shift in how I look at life as a whole. A paradigm shift, as you may know, is an often gradual transformation in the way you think, or view the world in which you live.  Before becoming a military wife, I saw life through my pre-military wife lenses. (Naturally.)Now that I have been, "Married to the military," for nearly 10 years, I have slowly but surely changed the way in which I look at life.  Here ...

Ok, ladies, I'm going to keep this short and sweet. Well, I will try. I am known to be a little (or a lot) long winded while blogging! A lot of stifled communication over the last 34 years, I suppose! ;) This is a blog post, that you can <hopefully> share with your husband, if you so happen to jive with any or all of my suggestions. And my husband has approved this message so this is not a passive aggressive way to give him a message. (However, that may be a good idea...nah).  HUSBANDS: START HERE :)  Glad you could join us this fine day. I see that your wife has handed over her phone to you, amidst the chaos of life. If you happen to be driving during this blind handoff, please pull over immediately.  Thank you.  Now that we are all safe and accounted for, I just wanted to share with you what your wife may be thinking, but she has never really verbalized to you. Because we expect you to just know things without being informed. I know, women, right? ...

Throughout the year, I have intermittent thoughts concerning Christmas and how it will be here... eventually. And so, that's about 12 months of pondering opportunities. On the other hand, there is the seemingly sneaky New Year's Day, that is just around the corner. I usually embark this journey of self examination and deep introspection beginning around... December 26th. And so, as you can probably calculate if you have your iCalendar handy, that doesn't give me very many days to think about my New Year's Resolutions, now, does it?  It's that time of year, once again, and I find myself in quite the same predicament. I have been known to wait until an hour before the ball drop to begin throwing out crazy ideas that I shall cling to for about the next 3 weeks, when I realize that this idea was really for the birds... Or rather, good in theory, but not yet in practice.  Does anyone want to guess how many times I have started and quit my, "Reading the Bible in ...

It's the most wonderful time…of the year. The day after Thanksgiving, I am always alarmingly surprised when I hear the starting pistol go off at 7am. Ok, maybe it's only in my head, but I definitely hear it. And it is then accompanied by the rushing around song from Home Alone, when Kevin's parents frantically sit up in bed after realizing that they had overslept.  Instead of visions of sugar plums dancing 'round my head, I have visions of to-do lists hanging o'er my head. Before you falsely accuse me of being quite the Scrooge McDuck, and ignoring the struggles of Tiny Tim, I do cherish this season. Our family unit has some of the usual traditions such as driving around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights while sipping hot cocoa. Our mischievous elf, Bing (White Christmas anyone?), delights us each morning with naughty tricks like making ginormous piles of pillows and blankets at the bottom of the stairs for the kids to jump onto. If only that ti...

Have you noticed lately how most major search engine websites will highlight what is "trending" that day? It often seems so random and off the wall. Ok, right now the topic that's trending is... SeaWorld killer whale. What??!! And tomorrow Winona Ryder will be trending, because that seems about right.  Whenever I come up for air, in between birthing babies, I attempt to be "on trend" in fashion. Of course, I always have my own spin on what's the latest, but it's fun to at least pretend like you don't have five pairs of mom jeans in your closet. However, I can tell you now that I will never own a pair of over-the-thigh boots. A little too Pretty Woman for my taste. I'll leave those boots up to Beyonce to pull off, as a sexy mama.  Well, lately it is hard not to notice a certain trend with many of my friends, who have been in my boat. These friends seem to be jumping ship, and swimming ever to gracefully, with their brood, to... a bigger bo...