To my Lily: I love you the most. You introduced me to the world of motherhood and made us a family. I love how genuinely kind and sweet you are. I love how you consider any alone time with me now a special date, even if we just go to the market. I love how nurturing and compassionate you are to animals and people, alike. I love watching you draw and the pride you take in your art. I love how you hug like you’re never going to let go. I love how thoughtful you are, always. I love your tan lines and the tiny birthmark on your cheek. I love hearing from teachers and neighbors how wonderful you are, even though I already know. I love talking to you on the phone, on the rare occasion when I’m not at home. I love reading the little notes you leave around the house and hearing you read to your brothers. You are my absolute favorite.

To my Ben: I love you the most. You were the sweetest baby in the world and I literally didn’t put you down for over a year. I love your exuberance and enthusiasm. I love how you wake up every morning in a fantastic mood, no matter how you went to bed the night before. I love how easy to please you can be. I love the smell of your neck and the color of your magic eyes, whether they are green, gray or blue that day. I love holding your hand and the face you make when you spot me at school. I love the way your voice gets really high when you’re excited and that you actually squeal with delight. I love that you “remember being born.” I love how much you worship your sister and the way you watch her when she’s not looking. I love your favorite teddy bear and how cool you look in sunglasses. You are my absolute favorite.

To my Evan: I love you the most. You will always be my baby, even though you insist that you are a big boy. I love your husky voice and the way your repeat everything you hear even though half the time, you have no idea what you’re saying. I love watching you try to keep up with your siblings and their friends. I love the humming sound you make when you really like what you’re eating. I love watching you play and how you can make a game of pretty much anything. I love how much you love making people laugh. I love the way you say my name. I love your pudgy thighs and your knees and the way you look in your pajamas. I love the way you hold my face with two hands when you give me a kiss. I love hearing you thump down the stairs in the morning. You round out our family, completely. You are my absolute favorite.

{For the record, you each got the exact same number of words. It’s even.}

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

It was a familiar scene: The children were playing upstairs and Jeff and I were sitting on the couch having a late night treat. Suddenly, Evan bounded in the room. I wanna a bite, he announced and pouted his bottom lip out so far that I had no choice but to oblige. Shhhhh, I whispered spoon feeding my little bird. Swallow it quickly and go back upstairs. Pronto.

But before he could even swallow, he darted back to the hallway. Lily! Ben! Mommy gave me ice cream, he hollered gleefully. It’s yummy! In lightning fast speed, I suddenly had three tongues wagging in my face. We heard there was ice cream, they said in unison. We want some, too!

The contents of my Styrofoam cup quickly disappeared (graham cracker ice cream from the newly discovered ice cream place near our house, if you were wondering,) and I sent my little monsters back upstairs to pretend to re-brush their teeth.

Perplexed, I sat trying to analyze my youngest son’s behavior: Would the ice cream not have tasted as good to him had he not announced it to his siblings? He’s smart enough to know that the more they get, the less there is for him. Was half of the joy rubbing it in their faces, on the off chance that I wouldn’t give them a spoonful as well? Or, was it purely altruistic of him, in which case I can’t really relate at all. I have no idea.

I do want to point out something to my little brother: That ice cream was really good. And you didn’t get to have any. Just so you know.

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

Sarah Fader records anecdotes from her daily life at at Old School New School Mom. She also currently runs blog workshops for elementary school children in New York City and provides freelance transcription services for major television networks, in between running after a two year old.

I recently wrote a post about the fact that I’m an unmarried mother to a 2 year old, and my boyfriend and I are expecting another child. I wrote it to record some of the insensitive and hurtful statements that people have made based on my relationship status. For example, many people have questioned the paternity of the second baby. Apparently, because I’m not wearing a wedding ring I am automatically deemed promiscuous.

After I wrote the post about being unmarried, ironically, I received a hateful comment from an anonymous reader. It read:
“You are the product of how our society has become so immoral……there is no shame now in bringing illegitimate children into the world. We have become a Godless society…..and you my dear are helping us along the road to destruction. People have become soulless and just look to their own pleasures to fill empty lives….this is very sad.”

Aside from the fact that it bugged me that this person failed to use ellipses properly, I was stunned by the antiquated point of view inherent in this comment. This individual appears to be living in the 1950′s where women were made out to be pariahs for having a baby out of wedlock and sent to homes for un-wed mothers.

Sadly, it appears that society has not evolved in the past 50 years. We are continuing to judge other people’s life choices. Whether or not I choose to get married is my decision, not society’s. It is not up to strangers to dictate my relationship status both Facebook or in “real life.”

There is so much judgment out there with regard to parenting, I’m beginning to wonder why people can’t just mind their own business. Why they feel they need to tell others how to raise their children. For example, when I sleep-trained my son, I cannot tell you how many people told me that I was “traumatizing him” and how he would end up being a “detached child.”

Or when I chose to breast feed for a year, people repeatedly asking me “When are you going to wean him?” I wanted to say “Back off!” But instead I politely said “When he’s one.”

So why does society continue to adopt such a judgmental stance? Maybe it has to do with feeling important. If you can judge another person, tell them what to do or how to act, perhaps it makes YOU feel better about yourself. You feel you’ve asserted your authority over another person, and therefore have more power than they do.

Let me return to my anonymous reader. Perhaps this person felt more important because he/she told me how to live my life. Maybe this person feels badly about their own life, and it makes him/her feel better judge me. Whatever the case maybe, I believe it’s time to stop judging others and start living our own lives.

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

It’s a good thing I hosted a contest on joy, because reading almost 100 posts on anything else would have kind of sucked. I really did love reading them all, and choosing just one winner was so, so hard. The winner of the $1000 check you ask? Sunday from Extreme Parentood. Read her post and you’ll understand why she won, or at least be a tad less pissed that you didn’t. Congrats, Sunday and thanks so much to everyone for writing and to SOYJOY for hosting the contest!

You may recall that little kitchen store I opened called Bread and Butter. Well, it was a flop. I have a basement full of stuff and haven’t made a sale in months. The good news? I’m trying to get rid of what I have left and have marked the prices way down. I’ll throw in some free goodies, too, so it’s worth buying something just to see how generous I’m feeling.

Finally, I’ve designed my own gorgeous Flip camera just for one of you. Check out the easy to enter contest here!

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

This may be the most revolting muffin recipe you’ve ever read, I’m warning you…

It’s adapted from a gluten-free protein muffin my friend makes in which you add chicken to the mix. I was intrigued by the idea, but my children have no problem with gluten. Chicken and veggies, on the other hand, are a constant battle. I figured it was worth a shot and came up with the following recipe. My kids devour them– they would eat them for breakfast, lunch and dinner if I let them. It’s kind of a miracle.

What you need:

1 box of organic muffin mix and the ingredients to bake them (water, egg and oil)

3 jars baby fruits and/or veggies (This time, I used carrots, squash and pears)

1 large breast of chicken, poached

1 cup of juice (This time, papaya)

Prepare the muffin mix according to the directions. Using a food processor or blender, mix poached chicken with juice. {Insert gag here.} Add to muffin mixture. Mix in the jars of baby food and blend everything together. Pour into muffin tins (make sure to spray them with non-stick spray) and bake according to directions.

I know, I know, they sound disgusting but I’m telling you, my kids love them. I’ve used all different fruits and vegetables and everything seems to work pretty well. I even used pureed cauliflower.

But, whatever you do, don’t let them know the ingredients.

It’ll be our little secret.

{Less revolting recipes can be found at A Southern Fairytale}

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

The Scary Mommy Society is open for guest posts. Check it out!

©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

Brittany is a 30-year-old anomaly, who, even through the current economic downturn, has managed to work two jobs for the past two years. By far, the cooler of the two is her on-air position for an alternative rock station in Boise, ID. Despite her wholesome appearance, she really is a badass at heart. She’s been married to the love of her life for two years, with whom she bought her first house in April. She loves wine and photography, has an adorable yet bitchy cat, and is most recently navigating the complex emotions surrounding the loss of her first pregnancy. She blogs about it all at Lessons in Life and Light.

For a year and a half before my husband and I even started trying to get pregnant, I voraciously devoured any kind of information on pregnancy, birth, and parenting I could get my hands on. I watched documentaries, read countless blogs, books, talked to friends, interviewed a midwife…all in the name of finally getting knocked up. And let me tell you–I thought I knew it all. I was going to have the perfect pregnancy. I was going to do everything right. I was going to give birth in a birth center using hypnosis, breast feed exclusively for at least the first three to six months, then pump religiously when I went back to work. I was going to baby-wear, co-sleep for a few months, practice elimination communication, and I had even begun thinking about making my own baby food. I was going to be the perfect mom, have the perfect husband, and have the perfect child. Anyone who did things differently than me just wasn’t as educated as I was, obviously.

But then everything came crashing down. I got pregnant. And I lost the baby. And everything changed. All my dreams of that perfect life went out the window. I realized that so much of what I envisioned for myself was totally out of my control. During the short time I was pregnant, I did everything right, and things still didn’t go the way I’d planned. I tried to miscarry naturally but I couldn’t. And to my horror, I wound up in the one place I vowed never to step foot in during the course of my pregnancy: a hospital. My body couldn’t do what it needed to do on its own and I needed help. I had a D&C performed on August 12th, and surprisingly, the surgery was the least painful part of the whole damn experience.

Sometimes, life veers off track. You never anticipate these things will happen to you. Since my miscarriage, I see things differently. I have more compassion for the women around me who make different birth and parenting choices than I would. Some women simply can’t give birth naturally or breast feed. And some just don’t want to. What I’ve learned from this experience is that everybody’s journey is unique and special in its own wonderful way, and my job as a woman is to offer support, not judgment. I began my blog earlier this year and chose the name “Lessons in Life and Light” because I wanted to blog about two of my favorite things: life and photography. I never knew how much meaning the title of my own blog would hold for me, because this is truly the biggest lesson I have ever learned in my life.

I am eagerly awaiting the return of my cycle so that my husband and I can try again. I still hope to have that perfect, magical pregnancy (barfing, bloating, and all). I still plan on having a natural birth in a birth center using hypnosis. I still plan to breast feed and pump, baby-wear, co-sleep, and practice elimination communication early on (although I was obviously smoking crack when I was contemplating that whole baby food thing). But if things don’t go the way I plan, I’m not going to beat myself up about it. Because I know now that so much of it is truly out of my hands. What I can control though is the amount of love I offer my child and other women out there who are finding their own way just like me.

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.

There seem to be two definitive camps of mothers: Those who cry on the first day of school, and those who rejoice with the “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year” commercial from Staples playing gleefully in their heads. I’ll give you one guess as to which camp I fall into…

{Let’s just say, I’m not sitting here with a box of tissues and pint of ice cream. I assume that comes as no surprise.}

It’s not that I’m totally void of emotion or sentimentality, it’s just that I’m ready for the kids to be back into school already. I’m done with the late summer nights and non-stop washes of bathing suits and pool towels. I’m over the all day play-dates and incessant begging for snacks. I’m through with the never ending afternoons in the sun and mosquito bite covered legs. So long, summer.

I’m ready to bang out the lunchboxes assembly line style and lay out the school clothes the night before. I’m ready to drop children off in the morning and pick them up in the afternoon. I’m ready to get back into a routine, thank you very much.

Sure, I’ll have my moments of tears here and there, but for today? I’m all smiles.

And, so was she.

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©Scary Mommy™ 2010 All rights reserved.