My Mother’s Love

May 9, 2013 by carlycorrigan

Mother’s love is peace. It need not be acquired, it need not be deserved.

-Erich Fromm

My mommy and me circa 1984

There has never been a day in my life that I have doubted my mom’s love for me or felt that I had to earn it. It was handed to me freely without any stipulation. She has always been there for me when I needed something; a listening ear, shoulder to cry on, advice (whether or not I chose to listen).  Read more...

You’ll understand when you are a mom…

May 8, 2013 by Dena

On my wedding day, instead of the traditional father gives away the bride, I walked down the aisle with both of my parents and my bouquet was made up of 6 pieces, handed to me as I made my journey to my future by 6 of the women in my life who have shaped me into the woman I am today.

Getting the fourth piece of my bouquet from my Nanna…
Photo Credit: Jim Vaiknoris

But no one woman has been more of an influence on who I have become than my mom.

Nanna and her babies…
Photo Credit: Dena Fleno  Read more...

Healing My Relationship with My Mom

May 3, 2013 by Michelle

While my mom and I have a good relationship now, it hasn’t always been that way. For reasons I won’t go into in-depth, we have butted heads for as long as I can remember. We would go through periods of time where our relationship would be wonderful, and then we would go through periods where we didn’t talk to each other very much. This was the case as a teen and for most of my 20’s.

You see, I’m one of 4 kids – I have two sisters and a brother. I fall in the middle of the girls and 3rd overall. Growing up my mom worked full-time in retail and as she says, didn’t get much help from my dad. On top of the general craziness of having 4 kids and working, all of my siblings except for me required more attention because of either chronic physical illnesses or learning disabilities. I was always the one no one had to worry about but kids want to be worried about. I wanted to be thought of as much as my siblings and because I wasn’t, I developed a lot of anger towards both my parents, but for some reason, mostly towards my mom.  Read more...

Vagina is Not a Bad Word

Apr 29, 2013 by Sarah Bourne Perillo

My four and almost three-year old are obsessed with body parts. They are inquisitive about bodily functions, they want to understand how and why people are different shapes and sizes; we have had lengthy conversations about why Mom pees sitting down and Dad pees standing up. My daughters can properly identify their body parts.

The other day the two of them were playing on the porch. My four-year old has a strict policy at her school about using potty words inappropriately, and she has been working on refraining from using these words inappropriately at home and around her younger sisters. In the middle of playing my oldest daughter said something about changing her baby doll and having to wipe the baby’s vagina. My almost three-year old used this as a chance to tattle and came running inside, accusing her sister of using a “bad word.” This, of course, resulted in the classic argument: “did not,” “did too,” “did not.” I intervened and helped to guide the argument into a productive conversation about why vagina is not a bad word.  Read more...

Help Me! I’m Living With Hoarders!

Apr 22, 2013 by Sarah Bourne Perillo

I am a tidy and organized individual. My daughters, on the other hand, are total hoarders! Yes, just like on the A&E television show. They are obsessed with collecting junk and they refuse to throw anything away. Their ‘junk piles’ and purses filled with ‘neat stuff’ are driving me crazy!

My middle daughter is the worst offender. She has three or four special purses in circulation at any point in time. Stuffed inside the purses you will find old marker caps, broken toys, mismatched puzzle pieces, old junky baby toys, wash clothes, slips of ripped paper from school and random wooden blocks. The picture below highlights the typical junk pile she attempts to bring to school, to the grocery store or in the car whenever we are running errands. In this picture you can spot a special purse, broken tambourine and an old necklace with the beads falling off.  Read more...