Ma! Motherhood With Attitude has ecards for free, greeting cards and notepads for sale, and a newsletter. The cards are hysterical and honest at the same time, and cover many phases of motherhood. I love the Guilt Begins and Sleep Deprived ones for new moms.

One of the owners of Motherhood With Attitude, Janalee Chmel, has this to say in her bio at the site:

“I am continuously struck by the disconnect between what I am experiencing as a mom and what I see in greeting cards and gifts for mothers. Come on! We all sit around at play dates or moms nights out and talk about how hard it is! And yet, all the cards act like we’ve got it soooooo good.

I hope that my writing shares the real experience. If we can’t be honest about this, then our kids have won!”

Amen! Enjoy the site.

The book is a great read that exposes the secrets, through interviews with over 100 women, many of us hide about motherhood, and also examines the incredibly high demands we put on ourselves. The book provides strategies to help you set realistic expectations about your parenting, and ways to find freedom from “mommy guilt.”

One of the great things about Amy and Trisha’s book is the humor. I often found myself laughing out loud while reading it.

I appreciate their great tips for helping mothers in the midst of the craziness we call parenting. It’s a book I wish I had read before I had kids so I wouldn’t have been so hard on myself.

Chapter titles include: Am I A Bad Mom If I Don’t Buy Organic Vegetables?, I Love Being A Mom, I Just Hate Doing It, and Oh My God, I Don’t Want to Color Right Now.

THE INTERVIEW (Part 1):

MB: Why do you think moms feel so much pressure to appear happy and to “love” being a mom?

A&T: We grew up in a time that said ‘you can do it all – you SHOULD do it all.’ While we’re in a great generation for many reasons, what that mentality did is raise the bar on expectations to an absurd level. So now, as mothers, we really feel like we should be able to handle everything, say yes to everything and look and feel happy.

MB:Why do you think mothers don’t tell the truth about what they are experiencing?

A&T: One of the things we heard over and over again in writing our book is ‘I feel lucky…I know I should be happier….’ Moms today feel like something’s wrong with them if they’re not completely happy, in part because this generation provides more choices than any other generation. And that just perpetuates a false atmosphere…moms are looking around feeling really alone, when in reality nearly all moms are feeling at least a little bit insecure or guilty about how they’re doing as a mother.

MB: How can moms not be so judgmental of each other?

A&T: The first step to shedding judgment is to learn how to not judge yourself. We are way too hard on ourselves, and have to realize that we’re doing a good job, even if it’s not perfect. Also, one exercise we like is to say the word ‘judge’ to yourself every time you feel yourself judging someone else.

MB: Why can’t we admit how hard parenting is?

A&T: Again, if we’re not being honest with ourselves, it’s really hard to be honest with others. That’s the first step to learning how to love motherhood as much as you love your kids — start by being honest with yourself and then the other moms in your community.

Look for Part 2 next time.

Scroll down for links to other pages with interesting baby and toddler costumes. If you have a slightly twisted sense of humor, like me, be sure to check out the demented and gore baby costumes. Call me sick, but I thought the baby with an ax in its head was hysterical. Would I ever put it on my own baby? Probably not, but the horror movie lover in me thought it was a hoot.

View the video here.

NIGHTUS INTERRUPTUS

No matter how old your kids are, every so often you will still get slammed with a sleepless night. Invariably these nights are the result of you having some fun. If your children are anything like mine they live by the motto, “If Mommy and Daddy have a good time, they must suffer the consequences and suffer dearly.”

Yes, folks, those carefree partying days are long gone. Don’t even kid yourself otherwise. Just when you think it’s safe, and especially when you are really counting on sleep that night–well, that’s every night–circumstances beyond your control will leave you a bleary-eyed mess the next day. Here’s my most recent encounter with one of those nights that remind you how difficult sleep deprivation is and get you to be more vigilant about birth control for awhile.

My children are 5 and 2 1/2. You’d think I’m in the clear and can count on a good night’s sleep, but think again. Recently our family went with two other families to ride a train and then have dinner. My two-year-old, who normally naps every day, would not take a nap the afternoon before the train ride. Not a good thing but, as we all know, you can’t make a kid sleep–the stubborn little boogers! By the time we arrived home it was an hour past the kids’ regular bedtime. They both were so tired I figured they would pass out for the night. What a surprise, my two year old had other plans.

Starting at 10:30 she began waking up every half hour and crying that frustrating, “I’m overtired so no one else gets to sleep either,” cry. Due to several glasses of wine at dinner, neither my husband or I thought of giving her Children’s Tylenol until about 1 a.m. After the Tylenol, and what felt like hours of her rustling around, she seemed to calm down to go to sleep and all was quiet. O.K., I thought, if I fall asleep right now I’ll get a good five hours of sleep. Well, the alcohol I had imbibed in had other ideas. Finally, around 2:00, I fell asleep.

Suddenly I was jolted awake by a loud gagging/clicking sound. The cat is throwing up in the hall! Is it just my cat or do all cats make a really weird sound when they barf? Of course, my husband doesn’t wake up. I drag myself out of bed, clean up the lovely mess, and throw the cat outside. Your cat illness sympathy level is at it’s lowest point at 3 a.m. and my cat tends to time his pukes accordingly. I get back in bed, but that darn alcohol and rich food combination keeps me tossing and turning again. It takes a long time for me to fall back asleep.

I’m having my first contact of the night with REMs when I’m pulled out of my dream by a warm and sticky feeling. If you are a male, you may want to skip down to the next paragraph. Unfortunately, my period has started and, not to get too graphic, I need to get up and change my pajamas. Words can not explain how crazed I feel at this point. I am plagued with fears. I’m afraid to look at the clock, afraid of what’s going to happen next, and afraid of what a lunatic mother I’m going to be with my kids all day. I also loathe men–they who sleep through cats barfing and don’t menstruate.

As I lay there seething, I realize I don’t even have the energy to seethe properly. I painfully turn my head to look at the clock and see that it’s only half an hour until the alarm will go off. I surrender and slowly pull myself up and go to the kitchen to put on the water for coffee. Oooh, we’re going to have a fun day today, kiddies! Nothing like an exhausted parent who’s overdosing on caffeine.

I think the mix of parenting and sleepless nights are part of what Charles Darwin meant by survival of the fittest. Only those who can go without sleep have lasted to perpetuate our species. Who knew being among the fittest was so tiring?

So, whatever the ages of your children, go ahead and plan those fun evenings out. Just don’t count on doing much more than surviving through the next day. Darwin would be proud of you.

I’m beyond happy today. Here’s why:

1) Although we applied in March, we finally received both of my daughters’ passports today for a trip they are leaving on in only 4 days with my mother-in-law. Getting the passports in time involved countless hours of phone calls and stress.

If you need a passport anytime soon, apply now! The backlog is HUGE. Also, contact me if you’d like to know what I learned about moving the process along.

2) My husband last week received a research fellowship that will allow us to continue living here for at least 2 1/2 more years (yea! we don’t have to move soon.)

3) I also found out today that I sold more books last February than I ever have before (there is a 4 month delay before authors know about the number of books sold through certain distributors.) Thank you to everyone who is buying Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me? and also to all of you who are telling others about the book.

Also, thank you for the many messages I’ve received from both men and women who have found the book helpful. Those messages mean the world to me.

What’s all of this have to do with the actress, Debra Messing? Just like the mothers profiled in my book, she is brutally honest about her mothering experiences and I love her for it.

From the June issue of Redbook – have you all figured out how much I love Redbook by now? – here is an excerpt from her interview:

Redbook: What’s been the biggest surprise for you about being a parent?

Debra Messing: I remember the first few months after I gave birth, I was enraged that my closest friends and family did not tell me how hard it was. I said, “Obviously it’s a miracle and I love my child, but why didn’t you tell me how exhausted I was going to be? And how difficult the hormonal changes are?” And they all said, “If we told you the truth, you wouldn’t want to do it.”

Redbook: That’s why kids are so cute.

DM: Exactly. Otherwise you’d just hand them off to a bear in the woods!

The blog and I will be on vacation next week. Check back on Monday, July 2nd, for new postings. I hope you get the chance for some R & R too.

Have you seen a recent magazine ad by the cotton industry – you know, the fabric of our lives? The ad doesn’t look like any real mom’s life I know.

The scene is a spotless white kitchen except for the baby’s high chair. The baby is squatting on the chair seat. He (I’m pretty sure it’s a boy) has orange baby food all down his front, squished under his feet on the seat of the chair, spilled on the tray, and you can see drips of food have splattered down to the bottom rungs of the high chair. It’s pretty gross.

The mom is grinning broadly as she holds a spoonful of food to give the baby. She is wearing a blindingly white dress shirt with splotches of the orange food down the sleeves and front. Oh, and she’s skinny, has had time to do her hair and makeup, and doesn’t have undereye circles.

What is this woman grinning about? She obviously is very concerned about how clean she keeps things considering the state of the kitchen. Yet she’s happy that her child has spit or thrown food all over a shirt that I’m sure she had to iron? I guess it’s her own fault for thinking she could wear white around a baby, but I sure don’t remember ever being thrilled to clean up a mess or have food flung at me.

I wish someone would design real clothes for new mothers. Fashionable clothes that fit comfortably while you’re losing the baby weight, made with fabrics that deflect spills and smells. Some spit-up down your front? No problem. You can wipe it off easily and no odor is left behind (you know how badly that stuff can reek.) How about some clothes that are spit-up colored? That way if the doorbell rings before you get a chance to clean it off, no one will know the difference.

Breast pads never seemed to soak up how much I leaked. I would have loved clothes that wicked away the moisture and made it evaporate instantly. No more big circle stains around my nipples! (I’ll share a funny story about that later.)

Diaper leaks? That one’s hopeless. There’s no outfit in the world that could keep me from changing my clothes after a diaper leak. If only babies came out potty trained.