Everyone Has a Story: Listen To Your Mother Ticket Giveaway

I just bought my ticket for Listen to Your Mother's DC show on May 4.

If you are not familiar with the LTYM movement, it is a spoken-word show started by Ann Imig that will be in 32 cities this year in the days surrounding Mother's Day. 

Writers around the country audition to read short pieces related to some aspect of motherhood. Twelve to fifteen are selected to take part in each city's show. On show day, performances range from hilarious to gripping to poignant, just like motherhood. You will love the honesty and vulnerability of the performances.

I was honored to be part of LTYM DC just seven months after we lost Jack. This year there will be a show in Baltimore as well. If you love to hear women's stories, the LTYM experience is for you!

To see if there is a LTYM show near you this spring, check out the website.

I'd really love to see you at the DC show at 2pm on May 4 in Crystal City, and today I'm giving away a set of two tickets! Wouldn't that be a wonderful way to spend a spring afternoon with a friend, your mother, your Mother-in-law, and...me????

Just enter the giveaway using the entry form below and I'll announce the winner of the tickets on Friday.
http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/81fd631/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway


To give you a taste of what to expect, here is a video of my reading at LTYM in 2012. Note: I think most of the performers will actually make eye contact with the audience. :)

Listen to Your Mother!

I am honored to be taking part in Listen to Your Mother DC on May 6. LTYM features live readings by local writers. The pieces we will read touch on various aspects of motherhood. As you can imagine, my piece will deal with our unexpected loss of Jack.

LTYM was started in Madison, Wisconsin several years ago by the fabulous Ann Imig of Ann's Rants. It went national last year, and will be in 10 cities this year!

Each show contributes to a charitable cause. LTYM D.C.'s contribution will go to the Susan Niebur IBC Research Fund, set up in honor of an amazing D.C. blogger who lost her battle with Inflammatory Breast Cancer this fall.

The show is at 2pm on Sunday, May 6 at the Syntetic Theater in Crystal City. If you are local, I'd love to see you there. Unless I'm in the fetal position backstage. But either way, it'll be a great show!

LTYM DC tickets are on sale here.

Who am I?

12 years ago today was my last day teaching high school English. We had school conferences that day, shortened classes, and minimal Saint Patty's hoopla.

I went home, waddled around a while, and went to bed, only to be awakened by my water breaking in the middle of the night. Tom scrambled to find a tarp to protect the upholstery of our new minivan from my leaky self. I, of course, told him to get a grip and get me the heck to the hospital.

But this post isn't about Tom, or about my sweet baby born 12 years ago tomorrow, or how I lost the 52 lbs of baby weight. It's about me.

12.
A dozen.
YEARS.

How can it be 12 years since I've taught school? That's more than a decade. Do I still call myself a teacher? Should I? Do I have the right?

I taught for 6 years, yet have been "semi-retired" for 12. Now I work part-time at a church, but teaching plays no role in that position.

Was this all part of a master plan that Tom and I formulated in the 90's? Have 2 kids, stay home for a decade, then go back to work part-time? No, like a lot of things, it just kind of happened that way.

It wasn't that I was terribly opposed to having someone else watch Jake for me, but with Tom's insane hours at work and our limited support system, I just couldn't figure out how to SWING it, even part-time. It all just seemed like so MUCH.

A second master's degree to become a librarian fell by the wayside when I couldn't figure out how to care for a constantly nursing child and still attend classes.

Even though I never considered it then, and just plunged into a wonderful decade of staying home, now I wonder if I am comfortable being so dependent on my husband's income, a situation not so very different from that of my mother, who married in 19 flipping SIXTY-THREE.

If I had kept on teaching, I would be making $75,000 by now. Going back tomorrow would earn me far less, but not nearly as little as I make at my part-time job, which pays for the groceries. Almost.

6 years teaching, 12 years not.

This makes me think of other milestones. Like being a daughter who has been alive longer without a mother than with one.

I think of the past and the future.

I think of planning and intentionality.

I have friends who PLANNED out their lives: how many kids, how big a house by which year, etc., in the same amount of time Tom and I took to decide whether we should get a pillow top mattress (no). They had goals. They looked at the big picture, not just the day to day. And of course, as we all know, not all of those plans came to fruition, but many did.

But life happens whether we plan for it or not. Sometimes life happens despite our plans.

I tend to live in the land of inertia, feeling that life happens TO me. I've realized, at age 41, that this is not the way I want to live.

I think rather than a life of planning, however, I yearn for a life of intentionality. What would I like the future to look like? My friendships? My family relationships? My faith? My career? How can I make a difference in the world? How do I get there from here?

I would like to face these questions with honesty, and optimism. Not a to-do list per se but perhaps a "will be" list.

And, as I am not known for my follow-through OR my big picture thinking, let's revisit this issue together...say in about 12 years?

Feelings Friday

Just got back from Walmart. As I walked through the aisles I realized my kids were too old for the little clothes, too old for the toys. I felt weepy and hopeful all at the same time.

Moms, if you haven't had a chance to watch this yet. It is well worth it. Get past the blush, get past the use of "countless" when a more precise number would have sufficed. Grab a tissue, and let's go...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olSyCLJU3O0

I wish for all of us, the gift of an ordinary day.

Good Thing I Like Me

Note to Self:

Before letting your 7 year old daughter watch you shower, make sure you have a very strong sense of self.

Apparently Molly would rather forgo puberty altogether if it means turning into such as vile, disgusting specimen as her dear mother.

All said in the nicest of ways, of course.

What Would Anna Do?

…if she woke up and saw there was just this much milk left in the jug?

And she feels grumpy, off, and a little bit crazy if she doesn’t follow her routine of tea, newspaper, and two big bowls of Special K Red Berries? And her son's equally rigid ritual includes having ample milk in which to bathe his 6 at a time, yes exactly 6, Frosted Mini Wheats?

She’s alone in the kitchen.

She ponders, bargains with herself, justifies her position, takes this picture and…

shares it equally with him even though she knows it won’t entirely coat her first bowl, let alone her second.

She does not comment when he still has milk left in the bowl when he’s finished. But she does notice.