Book Review- Mommy A to Z by Meredith Hale

Mommy A to Z
Meredith Hale
File Size: 2893 KB
Print Length: 158 pages
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B00KIC4X0S


The full title of this humorous book about raising "tiny humans" is Mommy A to Z: An Encyclopedia of the Joys, Wonders, and Absurdities of Motherhood and the book is broken into chapters headed by, you guessed it, the letters of the alphabet. Each chapter has funny anecdotes and clever parenting advice, such as what to do with the overflow of artwork that your child wants attached to the refrigerator and how to deal with the young artist's ego when she notices a treasure is no longer there.

Meredith said that this is not a how-to parenting book, but she does offer tidbits of wisdom along with the witty commentary on the antics of her children. When she wrote about letting go of our children in small increments, that really resonated with me. She mentioned all the little ways that her daughter was asserting her independence and wrote: "But this was the first time I'd had to let go, to grant her some independence. It was a glimpse into part of what motherhood is: putting what's right for your child ahead of what's necessarily comfortable for yourself."

Having raised five children, I can attest to that push-and-pull between wanting to hold them tightly and learning to set them free.

Meredith also says in her introduction that sometimes laughter is the only barrier between motherhood and madness, and to that I can also attest. I got my start as a professional writer doing a weekly humor column that kept me from permanent residency in the closest mental hospital. Laughter is so good for us in so many ways, and certainly does make the "medicine" of parenting go down a whole lot easier.

While I marveled at how mothering has changed in the, ahem, many years since my kids were toddlers, there were still so many parts of the book I could relate to. So many sections had me laughing out loud, I was so glad I had swallowed my coffee beforehand. The book is written from a mother's perspective, but I think many fathers would enjoy reading it, too. It is a warm, funny, wonderful testament to the joys of motherhood.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
About the Author:
Meredith Peters Hale is an editor and writer whose work has appeared on sites including The Huffington Post, Pampers.com and WhattoExpect.com. She has recently launched a new humor blog based on her book, MommyAtoZblog.com. Meredith currently resides in Westchester, New York, with her husband and two feisty (and energetic) children.

Meredith will be my guest this coming Wednesday, sharing a fun author interview conducted by her young daughter, who considers herself a princess. Please do try to come back to visit on Wednesday. In the meantime you can connect with Meredith on her other  BLOG, FACEBOOK, GOODREADS, TWITTER and at her WEBSITE

 Buy the book at Amazon *** Barnes and Noble *** Apple

Fun at McDonald's

Since I missed my usual Monday offering - I was out of town - I thought I would share a bit of fun from the humor column I used to write. It, too, was called It's Not All Gravy, and I wrote that column for seven years for a Dallas suburban newspaper. Enjoy....

When the kids were young and only the three older ones were in school, very often the high point of my week was taking the twins to McDonald's Funland for lunch. It was one of the few places I could safely take them and still relax. Plus it offered a nice break from our usual fare of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It also provided an opportunity to be in a social setting, while not fully entering into it.
 
I could sit at my table with my cheeseburger and fries and observe the variety of folks who frequented this outdoor eating/play area.

There was the Super-Mom. You know the one I’m talking about. The mother who takes exceptionally good care of her own kids and anyone else's that happens to be nearby. I could always count on her to console Danielle when she fell off the slide and would just smile when she would shoot me a withering look for ignoring my poor child.
 
There was the Super-Athlete, who flexed muscles I'd never even heard of as she pushed her child on the merry-go-round. And I still wish I knew how these women could be so active and not sweat.
 
There was the Super-Sophisticate, who handled any situation that arose calmly and with finesse, from her kid's scraped knee to squashed French fries on the seat of her pants. She was the one who intervened in squabbles over whose turn it was to go down the slide next as if she were addressing the UN Security Council. I was more inclined to let the kids settle it themselves.
 
There was the Super-Protector who hovered around her child at all times, keeping him out of potentially dangerous situations. She would rush him off to the hospital to have his stomach pumped if he ate something off the ground. She could shoot the most disdaining looks if your child’s grubby hand touched her Bradley’s bag of Animal Crackers.
 
Then there was the Super-Intellect who dazzled anyone within earshot with her command of world affairs, while the rest of us discussed daytime television and the price of Pampers.
 
Our trip to McDonald's could also be a very good opportunity for the twins to pick up some of the fine points of social behavior. They learned quickly that the best way to win friends and influence people was definitely not by pushing some kid off the merry-go-round and smugly watching him cry. Nor was it by smashing French fries in another kid's hair, or by beating someone else with the blunt end of a hamburger. And it most certainly was not by stealing some kid's box of McDonald's cookies and hiding under the table with them. 

So, for a mere $6.35 *I got lunch for three (including dessert) with a hint of Emily Post, a chance to be in touch with the outside world and a unique atmosphere rivaling only the monkey cage at the zoo.
 
* For a price check, keep in mind this was a long, long, long time ago.

Monday Morning Musings

Had she lived four more weeks, my mother would be 95 years old today, April 28. When she was in the hospital, the doctor joked that she was close enough that we could say she was 95, but of course that could not be her official age.

This is one of the ways I will always remember Mother. One of her favorite things to do was sketch the scenery when we were out at the lake near where she lived. My sister and I would join her in that endeavor, and we all had sketchbooks filled with pictures. My mother would also draw on letters she wrote. Sometimes a bunny for Easter, or a flower for spring, or a snowman for winter, or autumn leaves falling. I'm so glad I saved many of those letters and pictures.

Mother had a heart attack on March 24, my sister's birthday, and she died on March 28. I was able to get to Michigan the Wednesday prior, so I did have two days with her. On Thursday, she had that bloom that people often get before they are going to die. Mother was sitting up, looking good, enjoying the company, and for a little while we forgot that she was probably not going to survive the heart attack with the flu on top of that. It was a very blessed day. The kind of day that all families should have when they are about to lose someone so dear to them, especially if they make the most of it, and we did. We told stories, we sang songs, and all of the people who loved her dearly came by that day.

The following Wednesday, April 2, two of my kids, Mike and Dany, helped me sing Mother to heaven. That was a bit unusual, I know, but the church that she was connected to did not have their music ministers available. None of us thought the funeral would be right without music, so my niece borrowed two guitars from friends - one for me and one for Dany - and Mike shared his beautiful voice. We did hymns that Mother particularly liked, and it was a real bittersweet experience.

We planned the funeral service so all of the grandchildren would have a role of some kind, as that is so important in saying goodbye. Some were readers. Some were pall bearers. Some were Eucharistic Ministers. Some brought up the gifts at offertory, and one of my daughters, Anjanette, read a story she had written "Evelyn and the Blue Bunny". My mother, Evelyn, introduced me to the book Bunny Blue when I was a child, and the tattered copy of that children's book was one of the few I saved into adulthood. I then shared it with my kids, and then it was passed on to grandkids. It is such a wonderful story that we all have loved, and I'm sure my mother was smiling to hear it.

I didn't plan to share this today. Most of you know I tend to keep some things more private, but I saw the birthday card that I had planned to send her on my desk, and I couldn't stop thinking about her. It's hard to wrap your mind around anything else when it is filled with memories and your heart is a bit heavy.

Book Review - I Will Never Forget by Elaine C. Pereira

I Will Never Forget: A Daughter's Story of her Mother's Arduous and Humorous Journey Through Dementia.

Elaine C. Pereira
File Size: 435 KB
Print Length: 257 pages
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: iUniverse (January 20, 2014)
Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
Language: English
ASIN: B008132KMO

In the words of the author, "My mother's is a story that needed to be told. She was a kind, brilliant and talented woman all of my life until dementia took hold distorting her persona and leaving an agitated, bewildered and compromised person in its wake."

This is the story that Pereira does tell, and it is wonderful that she had such a close relationship with her mother and was able to help her in her declining years. Other women who are in similar circumstances - caring for a parent with dementia - will be able to relate and learn from example how best to deal with the challenges. There are many.

One of the messages that comes across strong in the book is the importance of treating the person with dementia with respect. It takes a great deal of patience to maintain that respect when dealing with the frustrations and fears that come with caring for someone who is slowly losing mental faculties. Pereira managed to hang on to patience and love, and she shared a lovely poem at the end that is comforting to those who think they have lost their parent even before he or she is gone. My father had severe dementia before he died, and it would have been nice to know he still loved me at the end.

I struggled a bit with the writing, however. The story was not told in a linear timeline, so it was a bit confusing to jump around in time. I also thought the story strayed away from Mom for too long in places. The incidents - like her son's fight with cancer - were important, but the telling of that could have been condensed and more focused on how that impacted Mom.

The best parts were the scenes with Mom, when the reader got to experience her humor and her steadfastness. That is where the emotional connection between author and reader was made, and I got a real sense of the "heart" of this story.

Elaine will be my guest this coming Wednesday with a fun "mock" interview with her mother. I do hope you can stop by and get to know a bit more about Elaine and her mother, Betty Ward.

You can get I Will Never Forget at the following retail sites:

 AMAZON  * BARNES AND NOBLE  *  IUNIVERSE          

For Mother's Day

First, I want to wish all the moms a very happy Mother's Day. I hope your day is filled with lots of love and laughter and special times with your families.

 There's no denying the bond we have with our mothers, no matter what the relationship has been like. I wrote about that in my blog for Venture Galleries that posted the other day, and my blogger friend, Susan Fleet Swiderski had a nice post about mothers on her blog, I Think, Therefore I Yam. And no matter what the relationship has been, we do owe them for our lives, even if they have disappointed us in many other ways.

That is one of the things that the author of The Woman in the Photograph comes to understand. This is a memoir from Mani Feniger, relating her quest to find out more about her mother, a German Jew who left Germany just before the Jews were rounded up and sent to death camps during the Holocaust. Mani finds a photograph of her mother taken years ago that shows a happy, carefree young woman who appears so different from the aloof, cynical mother Mani grew up with.

As Mani researches her mother's life from her beginnings in Leipzig, Germany to her life in New York, she comes to understand the hardships that molded her mother and so many other German Jews who left their home country, as well as most of their treasures.

This was an interesting story and offered a glimpse of a part of that history that many of us were not as aware of as we are the victims of the concentration camps. The story also points out the importance of looking at the issues in our relationships with a different perspective and perhaps finding some peace.

The book is written in the narrative nonfiction style that makes a memoir read like a novel and can pull one into the story. Most of the time that worked quite well, but there were a few places where the imagined scenes between her mother and others went on a bit too long and included details that just seemed to bog the story down.

Some time ago, the author offered the ebook free for Kindle and I got my copy then. Now it is priced at $8.99, which I think is too high for an ebook, but if you don't think so, you might give it a try.

 

As a special Mother's Day treat, I am offering my historical mystery, Boxes For Beds free today. The
story is set in Arkansas in 1961 when the mob still ruled Hot Springs, and a young woman who has left New York to find some peace in the quiet little town of Pine Hollow gets caught up in kidnappings and murder.

I was just reading the Sunday comics and laughed out loud when I read Mallard Fillmore. The picture is a gray-haired lady in a comfy plush chair reading a card that says, Dear Mom, Thanks for loving me, taking care of me, and for not putting our family in a reality TV show.

Amen to that.

Every Day Should Be Mother's Day

I thought this excerpt from my humorous memoir might be fun on this the day after Mother's Day. Yesterday mothers were treated like "Queen for a Day" and today it is back to business as usual. Enjoy....

Since we can’t have Mother’s Day every day, over the years mothers learned not to expect to much out of life - a kind word every other year or so; now and then a big night out on the town, starting at McDonalds and ending up in a whirl of recklessness at Dunkin' Donuts for dessert; and occasionally, a small sign of gratefulness on the part of our kids for all we do for them.

"Did you wash my soccer uniform?"

"Yes."

"Good."

The gratefulness is found in tone and inflection, and may be a matter of interpretation.

Early on I learned to take my joys in little things, since the big things like Mother’s Day, Christmas, and my birthday only came once a year. Some days it was a thrill to take seven forks out of the silverware drawer and find them all clean. You may think that’s a bit pathetic, but you have to understand that it might have been year and a half since I’d taken a single clean fork out of the drawer and finding seven was like winning a Lotto jackpot.

Other days it was a thrill to tell the kids to start cleaning their rooms while I made a quick trip to the store and come home to find them actually doing it.

Another universal thrill for all mothers is to discover some random afternoon that we have fifteen full minutes to ourselves to do anything we want. As any experienced mother can tell you, there are all sorts of things one can accomplish in fifteen minutes. You can take half a bath. You can read twenty-two and a third pages in a book. You can start that letter you've been promising your sister for the last two years and hope that none of the news becomes ancient history by the time you finish it.

Or how about when we ask our kids who ate the last piece of cake, and one of them answers, "I did."
 If and when this ever happens to you, be very careful how you react. If your husband comes home from work and finds you wandering around the house in a daze with a silly grin on your face, he may lock the liquor cabinet, reserve a room in your name at the nearest mental hospital, or both.

Monday Morning Musings

 I haven't shared an excerpt from my humorous memoir,  A Dead Tomato Plant and a Paycheck, in quite a while, so I thought I would do that for today. I really can't do Monday Morning Musings because I am actually writing this on Sunday. Tomorrow I will be out of pocket all day.  Enjoy.....

Nothing is worse than having everyone in the family sick at the same time. At least when you take turns, passing a flu bug around like a hot potato, someone is always well enough to tend to the rest of the folks. But when everyone is sick, guess who has to grit her teeth and make chicken soup?

You guessed it. Mom.

One year was particularly bad at our house. I was on the losing side of a persistent flu bug that hung around for four or five weeks. And I used to think a 24-our bug was bad.

That particular run of the flu reached the point where the kids took numbers in the morning to see who would get to stay home from school that day.  I could only handle one or two sickies at a time, especially the sickies who didn’t act sick. Nothing was more wearing than a kid who threw up one minute and knocked his brother senseless the next.

Why couldn’t they take a cue from us adults and just stay on the couch in a semi-comatose position and just moan a lot?

And why did they have to eat. Imagine yourself with a stomach that feels like Mt. St. Helen's revisited, and the sweet aroma of chili dogs and nacho cheese chips comes drifting in from the kitchen. Have they never heard of chicken soup and weak tea?

Usually, when it came to the delicate art of juggling kids to see who got to stay home, my natural instincts served me well, but one day my judgment must have been clouded by my own raging fever. The kid I elected to keep home -- the kid who was at death's doorway with a terrible sore throat and a headache at eight in the morning -- spent half his day with his head out the door playing with the dog and the other half of the day fixing snacks. The kid who went to school with a vague complaint of a stomach ache was sent home right after the stomach ache voluntarily removed itself from the vague status.

And through it all, I spent a great deal of time on the sofa in a semi-comatose position, moaning a lot.

In Sickness and in Health

I have been in Michigan for almost a week and tomorrow I will be at Horizon Books in Cadillac from 1-3 in the afternoon. If you live near Cadillac, I'd love for you to stop by. 115 S. Mitchell Street
Cadillac, MI 49601 

The following is an excerpt from my humorous memoir, A Dead Tomato Plant and a Paycheck. The book is still looking for a home, but a door has been opened. I have a publisher who has asked for the full proposal, so maybe, maybe....  Enjoy.

Have you ever noticed that when a kid is sick, he expects meals in bed, unlimited sympathy and continuous entertainment? Or when a husband is sick, he simply takes the day off work, stays in bed, and accepts juice, aspirin, and a kind word in four hour intervals? But heaven help a mother who has a cold or the 24-hour flu. Somehow she has to carry on as if all was well, and about the only way she can get any sympathy or understanding is to be approaching death's doorway. Even then, one of the kids might ask if she has the time to wash his soccer uniform before she passes from this earthly life.

I'd like to see some type of parent-child contract drawn up that would grant equal time, consideration, and cough medicine in the middle of the night to mothers.

I'd like to see a clause included in this contract stating emphatically that when a child comes home from school to find his mother still in her robe, it doesn't mean that she was just too lazy to get dressed that day.

If a mother has red watery eyes and a runny nose, it isn't from peeling onions or from watching a sad scene in an afternoon soap opera.

If a mother's face appears to be unusually flushed, it isn't from the exhilaration of an afternoon tryst. 

If a mother is making 25 trips to the bathroom in an hour, it isn't just from a need for some solitude and serenity.

If a mother doesn't have the strength to drag her body off the couch to cook dinner, it isn't because she wore herself out playing tennis all day.

I used to believe that if we could get our families to recognize the fact that we were indeed sick, then we could work on getting them to respond in a positive helpful manner. To accomplish that goal, I considered making a big sign and hanging it in the living room where everyone could see it as they come in the door:

"Attention! The mother in this house is sick and has gone to bed. Do not disturb unless extreme emergency arises. (Needing to go to volleyball practice does not qualify.) Somebody cook supper. Wash your own dishes and gym clothes. It would be nice if someone came to check on me in about four hours to see if I'm still alive and to bring me some orange juice. Love, Mom."

Happy Mother's Day

I'd like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to my mother, and send her some virtual roses.

Ours was not a storybook relationship for many years, and it's only been in the maturity of my own adulthood that I've learned to appreciate all she did for me.

The product of an unsettled and emotionally unhealthy childhood, my mother came to marriage and parenthood totally unprepared. Being abandoned as a child and growing up in an orphanage hardly qualifies as a firm foundation for loving and giving. And that's what motherhood is all about. Loving so fiercely it-carries you through all the bad times, and knowing when and how to give your children back their lives.

My mother did all of that and more.

Not in the traditional sense, because she didn't know how, but in her determination and courage. When her marriage fell apart and she was faced with raising two kids by herself, it was almost like history repeating itself, except she didn't make the same choice her mother did.

My mother and her sister were put in an orphanage as young girls and didn’t see their mother again for many years. My mother kept us together as a family the best way she could, teaching us something about loyalty I overlooked for too many years.

During my childhood our home life was erratic and unpredictable at best, the makings of a best-selling novel at worst, but we survived. And through it all, she was there, trying and failing and trying again.

Now, looking back, I realize that even in her failings there was success. My sister and I are both reasonably mature, healthy adults and we didn't get there by ourselves. Sure we carry around a little excess emotional baggage from our past, but doesn't everybody?

Nobody is ever completely put together emotionally, and considering the odds against her so many years ago, I figure my mother did an outstanding job.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to say thank you, Mom. Thank you for the years, good and bad, which have made me who I am, and thank you for showing me there's more to loving than saying the words we still too often find so hard to express.

Going on Vacation

Tomorrow morning I leave for a long drive to Michigan, but the miles are worth it. I'm going to see my mother and help celebrate her 90th Birthday.

There was a time many years ago when we weren't sure she would make it to 70, let alone 90, but thankfully she is still with us, and still in relatively good health.

I'm really looking forward to this trip. It will be nice to kick back and relax, and if the weather is nice we can take our sketchpads out on the deck overlooking the river at my sister's house. That is one of the things we enjoy a lot, and the first thing I packed was the bag with my art supplies.

If the weather doesn't cooperate, we can sit inside and knit. That is another thing we share in common. We like to do all kinds of hand crafts, although Mother is much better at it than I am. :-)

But the most important thing will be just being there. Talking, looking at pictures. Talking some more. Visiting with my sister and all her family.

I thought about bringing my laptop computer and keeping up with e-mail and maybe doing some work, but as this day has progressed, I've thought less about that and more about how nice it will be to have 10 days away from all that and just immersed in family.

So that is what I am going to do. I will disappear from the blogosphere and the Internet for about ten days. Will the earth stand still because of my absence?

Ha! I don't think so.

But thanks to a function with Blogger that allows us to schedule blogs, I have a few posts ready for certain days so readers still have something fresh now and then.