Contest now closed: Congratulations to Nichol Perez who won the tickets!
What are you doing this Mother’s Day? On Sunday, May 12 at 5pm at Peter Norton Symphony Space on New York’s Upper West Side, the Listen To Your Mother Reading Series will give “Mother’s Day a Microphone” as the city and an inspirational group of women and men come together to celebrate motherhood and parenting in a meaningful new way.
Included in the cast of the New York City show are:
- Former Editor in Chief of Redbook Magazine Stacy Morrison (now Editor in Chief of BlogHer.com),
- Comedian Jaime Fernandez,
- New York City creative writing teacher Susan Buttenwieser,
- Social justice attorney and LGBT activist Nívea Castro and
- Author Tracy Beckerman (whose book Lost in Suburbia: A Momoir came out in early April)
This is only a handful of the talented, inspiring, touching and humorous women who will be on hand to share their stories this Mother’s Day. Each local writer will tell their own tales of motherhood in all of its complexity, diversity, and humor.
Win It!
Would you like a chance to win 2 tickets to the New York city performance? Leave a comment with the one piece of advice that your mom gave you and you swear by today. A winner will be chosen at random and announced on Wednesday, May 8.
Please leave your comment by Tuesday, May 7 at midnight (EST) to be in to win. The winner will pick up their tickets at the box office on the day of the show.
Good Luck and Happy Mother’s Day in advance
- Make eye contact, even little kids can see what your thinking, how you feel through your eyes
- Let them jump on your bed
- Say wow and truly be amazed by a story they tell
- Give lots of hugs everyday
- Say I love you every night
- Say I love you every morning
- Turn off your phone, tablet, computer and give them your full attention
- Go for a walk and see the world through their eyes
- Hold up in their bedroom and play with their toys, be silly
- Teach your child deep breathing, it is a great skill that will come in handy now and in their adult lives when dealing with stress
- Don’t just give them everything they want, teach them the value of everything
- Don’t be afraid to say no
- Help them explore what they love and find their passion
- You can never spoil and child with too many cuddles
- Celebrate all achievements, no matter how insignificant they are to you, you’ll be building self-confidence in them for the future
- Don’t be afraid to get messy in the kitchen or with paintings
- Like Men in Black, wipe your memory everyday. Whatever craziness happened yesterday, forget it. Today is a new day, love your children through new eyes
- Remind them how lucky you feel to have them as your child
- Make your child laugh, the great thing is that you’ll feel great too
- Do what they want to do once in awhile
- Don’t ever let your child have to say your name to get get your attention more than 2 times
- Play board games, card games or puzzles
- When you play a game, let them win
- Frame their art work
- Keep their homework
- Dance together
Board games, though not always played by the rules are always fun
I’d love to hear how you make sure your child feels love every single day?
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I’m looking forward to sharing our Happy Family Project with you, and I hope it inspires you to define your family’s happiness too.
My husband helps me balance work and life
I’ve tried different work scenarios in my adult life. The balance between work and life is that much more of a challenge when you add a husband and kids to the mix. I now have 2 kids, and in that time I have run my own business (with my husband!), chased contracts as a freelancer, and taken on long term contracts as a consultant.
Each of these work situations has its ups and downs, but at the end of the day I have to remind myself to take a deep breath and roll with it. Like everything else in life, I’ve had to make adjustments around everything from school hours, to the need for more “me” time, wanting to spend kid-free time with friends and my husband as well as job needs.
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On December 1, it will be a year that we have lived in this house. It’s incredible though how some parts of the house still feel as if we have just moved in. I’m embarrassed to say that the biggest bedroom mess is not in my son’s room, no he is a neat freak. The biggest mess is not in my 1 year old darling daughter’s room. No, the messiest bedroom of the house is in fact mine and Mr BAM’s. Somewhere along the way every piece of clothing the kids have grown out of, every broken toy and abandoned toy has ended up in our room.
But truth be told, I can’t just blame it all on them. Some of their items like first shoes, hats a sweaters, I have wanted to hang onto for sentimental reasons.
A lone newborn diaper that my 1 year old definitely no longer needs
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Have you ever had that feeling that you are jack of all trades and master of none? Some days, when the kids are in bed I look back at all I have accomplished for the day and marvel to myself at how many places I’ve been, people I’ve interacted with and things I’ve tried to cross of my list. There is a little nagging voice in the back of my mind that scolds me for congratulating myself on all that I have done. Mainly because I feel like I am rushing through what I do – not necessarily enjoying it, or even taking the time to savor the moment. There is alot of “doing” and not necessarily so much creating.
I’m so happy I have started running again, but the other morning I managed to do a 50 minute loop, start my cool down and realize that I barely remember breathing in and enjoying the fresh air. I barely remember seeing the changing leaves around me. Why? because my brain was swirling with all the blog posts I needed to do, what needed to be returned to Mr P’s kindergarten teacher in the morning, how I was going to make the time to have fun with my 2 littlies. Yes, I am trying to arrange my schedule so that I have time to “have fun” – sounds fun, right?
And don’t forget Mr BAM, how do we provide so much love to our 2 beautiful children and still have the energy to be good to ourselves and kind to one another. Sometimes we pass like ships in the night. He comes home just in time for dinner and the kids clamber him for hugs and kisses. I sneak off to do a few of the house chores I wasn’t able to do all day. Then, we start the “wind down for sleep” dance. Bath, stories, homework check, and sometimes we literally have a song and dance as a family in the living room. We’re both exhausted by the time the kids are in bed, we catch up on our day and invariable I will have work to do, or Mr BAM will want to curl up with a book…I wish I could curl up with a book.
To the world you may be one person, but to one person you are the world.
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As a mother of 2 kids at very different stages of their lives, I go through so many different emotions watching them learn and grow. With my eldest, I actually stressed myself out just a teeny weeny little bit about him starting kindergarten a few weeks ago. Of course, the stress was not really warranted and he has settled into the new routine and new friends quite nicely. With my 10 month old girl I am juggling how fast she is growing up – the word “spurt” is an understatement when it comes to how fast she is growing. After over a month of taking a few steps here and there, she has gone from walking, to running and now climbing all in just one week.
My weekends are spent mostly doing activities that the kids will most enjoy, and if I do something of the more adult variety, well then my husband and I can’t usually do it together, unless of course we get a sitter.
Someone looking in from the outside might ask, why have kids? To me the answer if so simple and so complex all at the same time. I love them to pieces and I wouldn’t trade them or the way we live for the world. Sure, at every turn and twist of their ever changing lives our family all has to adjust. That’s ok, that’s just life.
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