Archive for the ‘Momma Said’ Category

With T-minus seven days until school starts, I have one thing to say: Uncle.

In other words, I give up. I give up trying to work and maintain a blog and write a memoir (well, maybe not that one) while the kids are home. Why? Because in the minutes it took me to write this far, one child yelled into my office to ask if the printer is on and the other, sitting in a nearby chair that does not belong in here, playing his Nintendo DS (free, thank you!), just announced he might have a breakfast bar. No wait, a breakfast burrito. No, more Nintendo. (more…)

Have you ever noticed what’s missing from the faces of runners you see along roadsides throughout the world?

Joy.

Running, it seems, is hard work. I know I don’t do it unless there’s a chance someone might pass me a ball. My husband, on the other hand, is currently training for his eighth marathon, and never, ever does he look like our son, Chris, looks on the soccer field after his team has scored a goal. Never, ever the joy. (more…)

Every late August/early September feels like a new year to me, with the school year approaching and all.

So it’s the perfect time to say thank you. MommaSaid’s traffic has quadrupled in the past year, and for that, we have you, the fans to thank.

We appreciate your comments, your tweets, your sharing. We love your stories and your Housewife Award entries.

In short, we love hanging out with you at the proverbial lunch table, and we look forward to another fabulous year. Thanks for being our friends.

Happy New School Year!

Jen Singer and the whole crew at MommaSaid.net.

I wrote this a few years ago, but I’m reposting as a hint to my mother, who hijacked my Wii Fit six weeks ago…

The moment the entire aerobics class turned their heads toward me and gave me a thumbs-up, I got hooked. These wonderful people care about me! They’re genuinely thrilled for my achievements in class! They want me to succeed! I’d love to invite them out for coffee after class to thank them for their sincere endorsements –  except they’re not real. They’re characters – or Miis – from my Wii Fit. And yet, I long for their approval.

Thanks to the Wii, Mom’s gone mad. (more…)

Bernadine and Nick with his columns.

It was like stepping into an oasis, where the children sit quietly and make art, while outside, soccer players clock each other inside my car.

Why didn’t I pick art? (more…)

I wrote this one for Good Housekeeping 18 months ago and yet, it still applies:

The hotels are cheese wheels!” my fourth grader announced cheerily. I would have been more amused if he wasn’t the only one with hotels on the cheese-themed playing board on our Monopoly game for the Wii.

He was crushing me. But at least he was getting the hang of the game…and of investing and spending the way it used to be, back before the mortgage crisis ate a chunk of his college savings. In fact, Monopoly is more than a game. It’s a lesson in spending no more than what you actually have. (more…)

So, I’m off to BlogHer with 2,500 of my closest mom blogger friends. It’s my first; the annual blogging conference has traditionally been held in cities far away during our week at the Jersey Shore. But this year (this week), it’s in New York, which is practically in my backyard…if my backyard had red double decker buses full of tourists driving through it. (more…)

“That dog has cat ears,” my son, Nicholas, then four, observed outside the supermarket one afternoon. Sure enough, the dog had triangular, upright ears, like Garfield, and not oval, floppy ears, like Goofy. That’s when I knew my son had inherited my, er, affliction. I hope he will use it for good, and not evil.

See, I have ADHCIT: Attention Deficit — How Cool is That? It’s something that can either fuel creativity or land you in after- school detention. It has spawned novelists, artists, musicians, comedians, video game producers, bloggers, inventors, entrepreneurs, Bill Gates and stars of the stage and screen. But it has also created a fair share of 29-year-olds sleeping on their parents’ couches at 10 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. The trick is to corral it, focus it, wrestle it into something useful, and, preferably, money-making. But that’s not so easy. (more…)

Here’s one from my GoodHousekeeping.com days that, sadly, still applies:

“Did you try on the coat?” my mother asked.

The coat…um, which coat?

She had given me several coats and some sweaters that she decided she didn’t want anymore, so I wasn’t sure which coat she meant. I figured it must be the “expensive one” she mentioned when she handed me the pile of stuff in the school parking lot on Halloween, while I, dressed like an Oktoberfest waitress, was busy rushing off to run the party in my son’s fifth grade class. (more…)

While we were on vacation “down the shore” in Wildwood, New Jersey, last week, I found signs everywhere that, frankly, I’d like to post in and around my house. As the hostess of the frat house for middle schoolers, I do believe that these rules should apply here as well:

Tell us: What signs would you like at your house?