By Contributing Mama Daphne Biener

Hello.

My name is Daphne.

It’s been eight months since my last concussion.  It’s been eight months, one week and four days since I saw one of my children crack her head and lose consciousness.

Oh, my children are fine.  But their multitude of accidents has rendered me a total freak.  Funny thing though? I never knew I was freak; that fact was only recently brought to my attention. I am an irrational worrier; a mother locked in a world of illogical fear where dark dangerous scenarios dance in my head like so many sugar plums.  Only a whole lot less sweet.

I was out with my friend Sharon when she received a message from her EMT husband; he was en route to an emergency call at my children’s elementary school.  My girls go to this school, not tightly secured in a little box and not wrapped head to tushie in bubble wrap, but just out there, limbs free to snap and heads magnetically drawn to the nearest hard surface.

Sharon’s children also attend this school, yet she remained mysteriously calm.  I freaked.  I freaked in a big bad way and when I looked for commiseration in her face I saw concern. Not for our respective children, but for me.

•   You know you would have been called if it were your kids?

•   Their classes are not even out at recess now.

•    Come on, relax, what are the chances that it’d be your kid?

Sure, sure I saw where she was going with this.  Logic.  Clear rational logic.  Unfortunately clear rational logic is something that fled my being when my baby chose to leap to her first concussion.  Logic packed its bags for good the second time a head injury left her unconscious.  By the third time a child of mine lay unresponsive… logic, sanity and rationality had all hitched a ride to the coast with nary a backward glance in my direction.

I would have to carry on without them.

And so I have.  In place of logic, I live with a pounding, irrational fear that something will happen to my children.

I thought we all did.

I stood there in the mall that day, paralyzed with fear while above my head my freak flag snapped in a windstorm that impacted only me.  I observed the peaceful calm that reigned supreme on Sharon’s face.   And I thought, you know what?  I’m going to change.  There is no need to worry.  The kids are probably fine.  Kids will be kids, right?  You can’t protect them from everything.

And just like that I pulled down my freak flag and tucked it away forever.  Look at me! I’m totally normal and my children are fine.  Who needs to neurotically check breathing 100 times a night? Not I.  Who needs to replay hypothetical scenes of unsupervised playgrounds and daredevil monkey bar feats?  Not me.  No sir.  That’s all behind me now.  I’m fine.

Really.  I am.  What’s there to worry about?   Nothing, that’s what I always say.

You know, because I’m so normal.

You can read more of Daphne’s work on The Rocky Mountain Moms Blog, on her eco-fabulous site, A Greener Biener, or here on the mama bird diaries.

By Contributing Mama Erin Butler

After four years of marriage,

my husband and I have started dating again. The good news is that it’s to each other.

The bad news is, even after years together, it’s not as easy as we thought.

Since our daughter was born two years ago we have gone out, without child in tow, four times. Five, if you count when we dropped her off at my parents so we could go sign our wills.

Every parenting magazine warned us to “make time for each other” but we didn’t.  And while we are far from divorce court, our relationship has shifted.

Before baby, it was all about “us” and now it’s all about “her.” Our lives revolve around our daughter and we have struggled to make the “us” still work. And while friends tell me it’s common, it’s still unsettling.

Since my husband works from his home office about three times a week and I am a stay at home mom there is no lack of contact between the three of us, in fact sometimes, it’s too close for comfort. And maybe that’s the problem, too much quantity and not enough quality.

My energy has been on Katherine for two years straight. Every day I am plagued by the hard hitting questions: Will she ever eat carrots that aren’t smothered in humus? When will she start calling animals by their names and not the sounds they make? How long can I keep up the charade that Sesame Street is the only program on tv?

And while I focus on a daily routine consisting of meal time, nap time, play time, laundry time, etc… my husband brings home the bacon to finance all those organic peas, Lands End sheets, swim classes and gallons of Spray and Wash.  While our two roles go hand in hand, we live with such different responsibilities that it somehow turned into different lives, with our daughter as the only common denominator.

When she was a baby it wasn’t so obvious, or maybe I was too sleep deprived to notice. But lately, I’ve been feeling that the one relationship that was supposed to withstand anything was beginning to buckle.  And that’s scary.

So we instituted date night. After five phone calls to arrange babysitting, six outfit changes, and locating a missing baby doll, we were back in the dating pool.

At the restaurant we started talking about the weather. Like we were 80 years old, and just met. To save the sinking ship we quickly diverted the conversation to our daughter.

But after a half hour of chit chat, we finally started to talk. Not about who was going to go to the grocery store the next day or the oil change my car desperately needed, but about the things that really matter.

We discussed my writing projects, the changes he wanted to make in his career and where we, as a family, want to be in five years.

And then there were the real issues.

How it breaks his heart that Katherine always chooses to be with me rather than him.

How I am envious of the freedom he seems to have…after all, no one else ever follows him into the bathroom!

How he misses spending time with just me.

And how I miss the feeling of being the only girl in his life.

It was one of the most productive conversations in months. I know one date is certainly not going to solve all of our problems, but it at least put them on the table.

Though it was nice to have an uninterrupted meal, by the end of the night we missed her, which is something I don’t have the opportunity to feel often.

We took our dessert home so we could be the ones to tuck her (and her baby doll) into bed.

We ate our cheesecake sitting on the couch listening to the hum of the baby monitor behind us. It wasn’t the sweep-you-off-your-feet romantic ending that we had years ago but it was us. The “us” that hadn’t been around in a long time.

Now, I am not the type of girl to kiss and tell, but I am pretty confident there will be a second date.

By Contributing Mama Daphne Biener

Yesterday was the last day of summer vacation.  The last day to lounge around in our pajamas until noon.  The last day to ride our bikes in meandering loops around a neighborhood ringing out with kids’ happy voices.  It was also the day to say goodbye to that super cool summertime mama and say hello again to rules and schedules and bedtimes.

You probably wouldn’t recognize her, so I’ll tell you—that super cool laid-back mama is me.  Something happened this year on summer vacation.  The first half of the break was typical enough, as I neurotically planned, then executed a 22-state, 6500 miles, 45-day road trip around the country. Thanks to all that rigorous planning and scheduling and agonizing the trip was a raging success.  We saw people.  We visited places.  We ticked activities off of our list.

But it is when we returned home that the real magic began.  We came home to a blissfully blank calendar.  Not one square of a day filled in for 3 long weeks until the FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL.

It must have been in response to all that hyper-planning, but something in me gave way, and I became one of those other kinds of mothers.  You know, the type that says yes.  It was strange and unfamiliar and more than just a little bit wonderful.

Here’s how it went down:

Kids: Hey Mom, can we go to the pool?

Me: Sure thing.

Kids: Hey Mom, can we go for a hike?

Me: Why not?

Kids: Hey Mom, can we stay up late and eat popcorn in bed and climb up on the roof to juggle flaming knives?

Me: Yes my darlings. Go right ahead.

Ok, it never got that bad, but no doubt this agreeable behavior is a slippery-slope.  The lackadaisical lady that has taken me over is prone to say yes to everything.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m having a blast right along with my over-ice-creamed kids; it’s just that I’ve become pretty accustomed to my role as the just-say-no mom. I didn’t set out to be a naysayer, any more than I planned on being the sheriff of bedtimes and the Queen of Eat Your Vegetables.  It just turned out that way.

But now that I’ve gotten a whiff of life as a Yes Mom, I kind of like it.  I like saying yes like kids like popsicles and water slides.  And it has been all well and good so far, but I am sad to say that this party is cruising to a screeching halt.  Check the calendar.  It is upon us:  FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

So, I’m sorry to say it, but NO.  NO you can’t watch a movie and NO you can’t have more ice cream.  NO you can’t stay up late and NO there is no time for a bike ride.  There is dinner to be eaten and homework to be done and teeth to be brushed.  The old sheriff is back in town.  Hey, don’t look so sad.  I hear she’s pretty chummy with that cool mellow lady you’ve been hanging around with lately.  And one never knows… Maybe she’ll show up one weekend just in time to whip up a batch of chocolate chip pancakes for dinner.

You can read more of Daphne’s work on The Rocky Mountain Moms Blog, on her eco-fabulous site, A Greener Biener, or here on the mama bird diaries.

By Contributing Mama Diane LeBleu

When you reach a certain age ….

* Close ups are no longer a good idea.
* You contemplate Botox and a tummy tuck instead of augmentation and liposuction.
* You no longer attend weddings and baby showers. Weekends are spent at your kid’s soccer tournaments and swim meets.
* Gossip with your girlfriends isn’t about who is on Prozac or whose child is the biter. It is about who has cancer and who is getting divorced.
* Mammograms are recommended annually. Starting at 40 or earlier, if you have a family history of breast cancer.

Celebrating my fortieth birthday this year was an amazing experience. I celebrated with my twin sister, Denise, six years after her battle with breast cancer and two months after mine. We had been planning this trip for the past two years, long before breast cancer invaded my life. So it became not just a birthday party but also a post-treatment celebration. We went to Cozumel, Mexico with our husbands after calling in some big favors to arrange the complicated web of childcare for mine (4) and hers (2).

Growing up, we were close and this experience has brought us closer still. We now have shared memories of friends and fights in high school, sharing an apartment in college, muddling through the first years of parenthood, and most recently, breast cancer.

What was initially a frightening, earth-shattering ordeal became another memory we can recount together – surgery, chemotherapy, and now, hot-flashes. We are both way too young to be dealing with night sweats but the fellowship in misery provides a shared laugh. And when she undergoes a bilateral mastectomy later this year to reduce the chances that the bastard we know as cancer won’t come crashing back into her life, we will have even more to talk about, like who’s got a better rack.

When you reach a certain age, your 11-year-old daughter can recognize more celebrities in People magazine than you.  But at any age, every day should be a celebration – not just the milestones.

Early detection is key. Regular self-exams and annual mammograms save lives. Don’t get too busy to take care of yourself.

Contributing Mama Diane LeBleu is the mother of 4 children (Danielle, Travis, Sabrina and Caroline) and lives in Austin, Texas. She writes at The Writing Mamas Salon of Austin and Divine Caroline.

By Contributing Mama Alecia Kintner

Ever think about chucking your current life and heading for the beach in the Caribbean?

Not just for winter break, I mean, but permanently?

That’s exactly what my husband Mike and I did, along with our 10-month-old twins.

We sold our house in Connecticut, quit our jobs, let go of health insurance, said goodbye to shopping malls and fast food, and moved to the tropical island of Roatan. Lock, stock and barrel. Actually, our barrel was a 40-foot container: trucked to Newark, hauled by rail to Miami, and shipped by sea to the waiting arms of Honduran customs officials – who promptly slapped a 30% duty on all its contents before releasing it.

We arrived in paradise during rainy season. There was no way to haul this massive (and massively expensive) container over the dirt mountain road from the south shore to our north shore home. I’ll admit I hadn’t entirely thought this through when I argued for taking all the comforts of home with us. I shudder to think about how we’ll ever move this stuff back.

Mike made 18 trips in a pick-up, in the rain, leading a caravan of larger pick-ups. Our worldly goods were unpacked and slowly transported from the French Harbor dock to Palmetto Bay Plantation. It took two days.

Our move-in wasn’t just hampered by rain – on Day 1, as darkness came unexpectedly quickly, the fact that our new construction didn’t yet have electricity meant that the trucks simply threw boxes over the side and hoped they hit the foyer. Forget about directing traffic with a flashlight; I was just lucky to see our boatload of inappropriate New England antiques and unnecessary cold-weather clothing make it under a roof.

That was nearly two years ago. Delaney and Hayden, our twins, are now 27 months old.

It took a while to settle in and get the hang of island life. Somehow the new house absorbed the antiques and they look great mixed with rattan and sisal. We enrolled the babies in a darling international preschool early, at 18 months, giving us all a focus to our days. They’re talking now, with a mix of English and Spanish, and their friends are from all over the world.

Still, we live with frequent power outages, well-water shortages, limited fresh vegetables, pesky sand flies, the fear of malaria, and unbelievably bumpy dirt roads. Ocean breezes, drop-dead sunsets, lush flowers, and the lulling sound of the surf at night. We struggle to earn a living but we live very differently.

Think it sounds great?

It is.

Until you realize you have a laundry list of things you need from Target, you’ve run out of your favorite Clinique lip gloss, you’re dying for a new pair of shoes other than counterfeit Old Navy flip flops, or you want something more stimulating to do with your kids than picking guavas or playing I Spy a Monkey La La.

Every once in a while even paradise needs shaking up.

So where do you think we’re going this summer? Back to New England. To a family summer camp, where we’ll get our fill of group games and organic salads. When we arrive, we’ll even be met by our own “family helper” who will usher the twins back and forth from their age-appropriate activities so that Mike and I can play tennis or go to a yoga class, or make an illicit escape to Target.

Of course, that assumes I haven’t managed to get us uninvited to the Tyler Place Resort by telling a little white lie about Delaney and Hayden’s age, just so they would get into the best play group for them. Ouch. This is not like me.

I’m generally so up-front that I actually warned Mike on our second date that the relationship would never work; I wanted to have children. He was equally blunt and said “no big deal, I want to live on an island.” And here we are.

Clearly, I need a vacation from this vacation.

You can read more about Alecia’s crazy island life at Twins on an Island.