Category: Left to Write Book Club

It was my friend Mary’s turn to host playgroup. So it was her gorgeous backyard on a sunny Friday morning where we were gathered and having the most lighthearted of conversations–  setting up trusts and awarding guardianship for our boys in case both parents die…

It was a laugh riot, as you can imagine.

My son, an only child at the time, couldn’t have been more than eighteen months old, but my husband and I had already named a guardian for him– my sister. More devoted and involved than any aunt has ever been and living nearby, she was such an ideal choice that we never gave it a second thought.

Little did I know on that bright, beautiful day in the suburbs that we would be moving across the country, much less across the world. I had hoped, but had no idea that we’d have a second child. I didn’t know keeping regular contact with family across five states and two timezones would be so difficult.

Dropping by every few days, my sister was once a fixture in my son’s daily life. She once knew our  routines, our little sing-song memes, and the order in which books were read at bedtime. It’s hard to explain all that in a will… with or without adding a younger sibling to the mix.

Life hasn’t exactly stood still for my sister either. After we moved away, she bought a house, took a promotion, and got married. I worry how well she and her husband will be able to handle my children. After all, there are many days when I don’t know how I’m going to handle them…

It doesn’t help that my sister makes a point of mentioning that she never wants to have kids. On the other hand, she keeps a room in her house just for Scout and Lou and tears up whenever she has to say “good bye” to them.

My sister and brother-in-law are both talented educators. They share our faith and values, our history, and even our sense of humor.  They are good people and most important of all, they adore our children. I have no reason to believe that they would be anything but wonderful guardians, yet I find myself lecturing them on my parenting philosophies upon the simplest of prompts.

I’m pretty sure the last time we spoke, my sister was all, “Dude, we just wanted to know how preschool is going…”

It’s moments like this when I think back to that day at playgroup. My friends and I each talked about who we had (or had not) chosen as guardians and why. Most of us cited similar parenting styles, shared beliefs, etc. Then, my other friend Marci made a very excellent point.

Once we’re gone, we’re gone… and for all this planning and fretting, there’s nothing else we can do or say about how our children are being raised.

My breath still stops and panic sets in when I think about that comment. My whole mom existence is schedules, systems, and planning, planning, planning. The realization of how little control I ultimately have is tough to comprehend.

Yet,  I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently as I read The Kids Are All Right, a memoir written by four siblings which has nothing to do with that movie (You know. The one that stole its title… )

Funny, heart-breaking, and honest, this book details the years following their father’s mysterious death, their mother’s cancer diagnosis, and their separation once she passed away. Each of the  kids alternates in telling their story– misdeeds, fears, and all.

Throughout most of the book, it’s very clear that they kids were NOT all right. At one point, I wanted to go back to 1986 specifically so I could rescue the youngest from her emotionally abusive adoptive home.

As a reader, you just know this isn’t the way their devoted and loving parents would have wanted their kids’ lives to play out. As a parent, it makes you want to reach out and hold your own children, whispering a lifetime of “I love you’s” in their ears…  Just in case.

Yet, this sort of stuff happens all the time. It happened to them. I could happen to us.  We can try to prepare, but ultimately, we just have to trust that we’ve planned the best we could and hope that the kids will be all right.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of The Kids Are All Right as part of the From Left To Write Book Club. I was not otherwise compensated from my review. The thoughts and options expressed above are my own. If you would like to read more posts inspired by The Kids Are All Right, please visit the From Left To Write website.

If you would like to purchase a copy of this book, please go here. More information is available on their website.

When I first read the description of Maddie Dawson’s The Stuff That Never Happened, I thought I was in for a fluffy, bedtime read.

Annabelle McKay knows she shouldn’t have any complaints. She’s been in a stable marriage that’s lasted almost three decades and has provided her with two wonderful children, thousands of family dinners around a sturdy oak table, and a husband so devoted that he schedules lovemaking into his calendar every Wednesday morning. Other wives envy the fact that Grant is not the type of man who would ever cheat on her or leave her for a younger woman.

The trouble is Annabelle isn’t sure she wants to be married to Grant anymore. The trouble is she’s still in love with someone else.

Dum-dum -DUM! One woman. Two great loves. So deliciously scandalous. What’s not to like, right?

So I started reading about Annabelle and Grant’s cozy little life. Their companionable suppers and quiet ease with one another, Grant’s passion for his work, Annabelle’s weepy episodes in public places…

A few chapters in, I couldn’t take it anymore and had to put the book away. It was hitting too close to home.

No, silly, I am not yearning for a long lost love. It’s the other thing… the being married to the  sweet, wonderful guy. I have a nice, NORMAL, devoted husband who loves our family and his work. Yes, I am a very lucky girl!

I have no complaints about our marriage except that I often wonder where it’s gone…

Six years ago, I was a newlywed. We had no sooner bought a cabinet for our wedding china and a house to put it in than my husband and I thought, “Hey wouldn’t it be GREAT to start a family!”

Two kids, four houses, and six jobs later, I wonder what was so wrong with just “being in love” for a little bit longer… HA!

Ah, but so goes the great romance of my life. Still, I have no regrets. Truly.

I once read an article about how marriage brings about children, but children bring about the end of marriage. I don’t entirely agree with that statement, but I completely understand. OH. MY. HELLS. Do I understand!

In an earlier post, I detailed the amount of stress we’ve been going through lately with balancing home and work. More specifically, balancing our life at home and my husband’s life at work, which, by the way, supports this whole gig.

Until one of us comes into hoards and hoards of money (not likely), we’re always going to have to work.  Furthermore, we’re always going to take care of our home and kids. Right now, the division is somewhat rigid. My husband goes to the office. I stay home with the kids. Both jobs are demanding, but not mutually exclusive. My husband still needs to part of the family. I still need to be part of the world.

At the moment, our children are very young. At ages four and one, each of them require a LOT of attention. I’m told that this too shall pass.  “It’ll get better once they get older.” Except that I was a kid once and I know for a fact that it only gets more complicated… and more angsty and misunderstood.

Fortunately, my husband has a job doing what he loves and at a great company too, but it’s still very long hours. In what little time that remains, there’s fitting in all of the chores and other responsibilities of running a home. There’s devoting time with the kids- with each of them as individuals, as a family, and as an extended family. Then there’s spending time alone, pursuing our passions and hobbies, or just vegging out.

Unfortunately, on the very bottom of that list has been spending time as a couple– date nights, uninterrupted conversations…. Sitters aren’t cheap, which brings us to the very thing that divides us. His work to support our life.

It’s hard not to feel like we’re growing apart, because by necessity, we are. I just wonder how I’ll look back at all this two or three decades from now. Or worse, what two or three decades of living this way will do to “us”.

Don’t get me wrong. I adore my husband. I love our children and I’m grateful for our charmed life. However, these days I’ve been asking myself, is this marriage or is this just my marriage?

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of The Stuff That Never Happened by Maddie Dawson as member of the From Left to Write Book Club, which was created as a continuation of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog Book Club. The thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own.

You can visit Maddie Dawson’s website or follow her on Twitter.

To read other posts inspired by this book, visit the From Left to Write Book Club Blog.

On Wednesday evening of the week before last, Lou spiked a fever. She’s been teething. So, it seemed like nothing out of the ordinary, but Mike and I decided to go ahead and cancel my 30^th birthday party, which was planned for the upcoming Saturday.

In the middle of comforting my sick baby, trying to get dinner ready, and to be perfectly honest, feeling disappointed (petulant) about having mah birthday party canceled, my mom instinctively called.

She just had a feeling, as she often does, that she needed to be in touch with us at that very moment.

I’ve mentioned before that my mom is a pediatrician, which was a blessing as a first time mom and a curse as her daughter. Having seen it all from the far-fetched to the mundane in her 35+ years of practicing medicine, the woman is the Wikipedia of Worst Case Scenarios.

So when I told her about Lou’s fever, she started listing possible causes such as… oh, bacterial meningitis, seizures, and pneumonia… as if it was nothing more that reading a grocery list. Eggs. Bananas. Milk.

What she calls “concern” and “ just being informed”, I’ve long dubbed “hysteria”. When she insisted that I take Lou back to the doctor and demand lab work to be done, I told her, “Stop freaking out!” as I have done many, many, many times in the past.

“Okay,” she backed down, “Just consider what I told you.”

I could tell by my mom’s voice that she didn’t want to stop “freaking out”. This was her granddaughter. Her only granddaughter living 1,679 miles away and whose tiny body is being ravaged by big, ugly GERMS!!!

I could tell that had we not moved so far away, she would already be in her car and heading our way.

I could tell that the only reason she did was out of respect for my boundaries when it comes to motherhood.

Still unnerved, I tossed a barb about my sister’s upcoming wedding. She brought up my own bridezilla tendencies. I rolled my eyes and told her I had to go and “why would you call me at DINNER time anyway? Ugh!”

Mike came home a few minutes later. Upon taking in all of the information relayed from my mother, he stared at me wide-eyed and as he has done many, many, many times in the past… sided with my mom.

Err on the side of extreme caution. Parking brakes in parking lots. Triple checking window locks. Pediatric Urgent Care at supper time with the older one in tow for a fever. Yup, there’s a reason Mike gets along so well with my parents.

On the way home, I sent my mom the following text, “Got lab work done for L. Will let you know results when we get them.”

She replied two seconds later with, “Thank you for paying heed…” followed by a list of which tests should have been run.

“U R crazy but I love you”, I texted back.

“PRAISE the Lord. I’m proud U R my daughter.”

(Oh, Mom. Always with the high drama. Ha!)

Within the span of one conversation (and across several miles), my mother and I went from genuine concern to pressing one another’s buttons to mutual adoration. It’s shorthand for rehashing everything that has gone before– every door slamming and storming out, every criticism, every insecurity– and a testament to the way in which we’ve been able to evolve and come full circle.

Is there any other relationship that can endure such blows and never suffer an ounce of love like a mother-daughter relationship?

I thought about this a lot as I read If You Knew Suzy. Although, I don’t how you can NOT think about your mother while reading this book… and want to hug her.

Faced with her mother’s death from lung cancer in 2005, Katherine Rosman embarked on a cross-country journey to meet people her mother affected– among them a former golf caddie, a legendary Pilates instructor, an eBay glass collector, and an immigrant doctor at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.

The result was If You Knew Suzy, a memoir chronicling the journey of cold calls, e-mails, and interviews in her quest to reconnect with her “healthy, vivacious, free-spirited, moody, pain-in-the-ass, nurturing, imperfect, perfect mother.”

Juxtaposed with the stories she never knew about her mother told by people some of whom she hadn’t previously met, Roseman tells a bittersweet saga about a relationship that was loving, but fraught. A relationship that I sympathize (commiserate) with all too well.

I never felt as close to my mother as when I became a mother myself. Holding my baby boy, and a few years later my baby girl, for the first time I finally understood what my mom’s “freaking out” was all about. I doesn’t stop me from rolling my eyes and begging her to “reeeeeelax already”, but at least I get it and appreciate her all the more for it.

It turns out Lou was perfectly fine, which I knew all along she would be. Ahem. All she needed was a little rest and some extra cuddles, and she was back to normal by the weekend. (Just in time for Scout to come down with something…)

Not that anyone is keeping score or anything, but if one were… there’s clearly only one winner is in this situation. Mother’s Intuition. Yea, Mom!

Disclosure: I received a complimentary copy of If You Knew Suzy by Katherine Rosman as member of the From Left to Write Book Club, which was created as a continuation of the Silicon Valley Moms Blog Book Club. The thoughts and opinions expressed above are my own. You can purchase a copy of this fantastic book here.

To read other posts inspired by this book, please click here.

Excepted from the front flap:
Faced with the loss of her mother to cancer at sixty, Wall Street Journal reporter Katherine Rosman spent a year investigating the life of a woman she only knew as a parent. Along the way, Rosman discovered another side to her mother—a woman whose life was intricately connected to a host of characters her daughter hardly knew…

Blending humor, honesty and old-fashioned reporting, Rosman’s grapples with the bittersweet reality that sometimes we can’t truly know someone until after she is gone. At once comforting, candid and very funny, If You Knew Suzy is a heartfelt memoir against which readers can consider themselves and the lives of all those they love.