“Today I’m participating in a mass blogging! WOW! Women On Writing has gathered a group of blogging buddies to write about family relationships. Why family relationships? We’re celebrating the release of Therese Walsh’s debut novel today. The Last Will of Moira Leahy, (Random House, October 13, 2009) is about a mysterious journey that helps a woman learn more about herself and her twin, whom she lost when they were teenagers. Visit The Muffin (http://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/blog.html) to read what Therese has to say about family relationships and view the list of all my blogging buddies. And make sure you visit Therese’s website (http://www.theresewalsh.com) to find out more about the author.”

In honor of the WOW blog, todays post is a short but very sweet one.

My son and I were cooking this morning, it’s an activity that we do as often as we can in my small kitchen. Below is the picture I snapped while he was trying to imitate mommy mixing the lasagna. Too cute. Enjoy.

I first felt the powerful bond of a mother-child love when I looked at the pregnancy test. That fleeting second that I found out I was pregnant changed me forever.

I knew there was no going back to my old self. The feelings and thoughts I had prior to becoming a mother washed away with the incoming tide of motherhood. I would never again think only of myself. I now thought and did for two.

It’s very rare, almost non-existent, that I am speechless. Within that wonderful moment of finding out I was going to be a mother, I was at a complete loss for words. My emotions took the reigns. My brain had yet to comprehend what was taking place within my womb. I was developing my son with every passing second. I was also becoming a mother at the same time.

I savored and adored my pregnancy and unborn child. I would sit for hours caressing my engorged stomach, full with new life. I talked to my son as if I had already bore him. I knew he could hear me and he would often kick me to reassure me he enjoyed our conversations. Even then, my motherly love enveloped him. I knew I would never love anyone or anything more.

When the day came that I brought my son into this world, I had given birth to a new me as well. I’ve never felt so powerful, so life giving, and so enormous in my life. Enormous in the sense that there was nothing that would ever keep me from my child. I had all the strength and courage in the world to nurture and protect my new baby.

Within moments of holding him, I memorized his scent and his movements. I could have picked him out of the nursery blindfolded if I had to. We had the bond. That impermeable mother-child bond. Never before had I felt such immaculate love and conception. I was his and he was mine. Nothing in this world could break our ties. I had created, nourished, and given life to the most beautiful little baby that I had ever seen.

My son is three now and the unconditional love I felt the moment I knew I was going to be his mother hasn’t wavered the slightest. If anything, it grows stronger everyday. I need my son just as much as he needs his mommy.

We sleep together, we laugh together, and we play together. I feel most vibrant when he is nestled in my arms at night sleeping soundly. When I gaze at his perfect face I can’t help but be overcome with emotion. Tears run down my face and I lick the salty liquid that is pure love.

Until you become a mother you never really understand the bond between mother and child. It moves mountains and plants seeds of love in everything that it touches. A mother is not a force to be reckoned with, but a gentle giant that cradles the body of the most important being on the planet.

When I hear my son call “mommy” I know angels are flying within that decibel of sound. The stream of silent, unconditional love runs to and from my son and I. He loves me, but I adore him more than life itself.

Please share your comments below. Mothers learn from each other in the most loving ways.

I took last weekend and stayed home. And when I say stayed home…I MEAN stayed home. I had done any errands previously during the week and purposely kept my schedule open on the weekend to do nothing except relax. I don’t recall ever leaving the house.

As I thought about what I should do with my 48 hours of free time, I could feel an unspoken and understood longing emanating from my bookshelves. I casually strolled over and inhaled. I adore the smell of books. That delicious scent of a book’s binding, and the way that the pages unintentionally take on the smell of their surroundings lures me close to their silhouettes every time.

I ran my fingers over each title as I read it and carefully chose the one that best danced off my tongue.

I vowed silently to myself to only rise from the couch to eat, sleep, drink, and go to the bathroom. Other than that, I wanted nothing more than to sit and curl up with my literary find. If you visit my blog frequently, you are more than aware that my love for reading and writing overpowers most everything that I do. So naturally, choosing a weekend to do nothing with would wontedly lead me to one or the other.

To read with nothing but silence around you is exhilarating. I get completely enveloped not only in the book, it’s plot, and the characters, but also in myself. I reflect on my weak areas as well as my strong points. I sometimes see myself in the characters and can’t help but wonder “what if?”

I read and read. I didn’t even turn the TV on. It was fantastic. It was magical. It was rejuvenating.

Try it sometime.

Sometimes when I look at a blank piece of paper, I see nothing. Other times I see a whole new world waiting to be prodded.

Once I add a pen to the mix doors open that once were closed. Locked even. No-name characters beg to be applied to every day scenarios that intermingle with the psyche. That luscious and fluid grace that ink provides as it’s being coaxed out of the tip with subtle movement from my hand screams creation in an otherwise gray world.

I can’t wait to play with lucid words and parenthesise my thoughts all while deciding if I want to rhyme or sing the previous word.  Symphonic phonics grabs at my tongue. I repeat the words that I scribed like Beethoven felt his notes; with passion, longing, heartache, smiles, desire, and an avidity for all things meaningful.

Sometimes I am called to write long, flowing prose styles and other times my soul grabs at all things lascivious. Either way, a blank piece of paper is so much more that white and blue.

Those thin blue lines dance under my lids and the pure, snow white of the paper invokes dozens of meanings to words I never knew existed prior till now. Happy endings and false pretenses have nothing on what sits enigmatically upon my banister of contemplations.

Playful bantering of synonyms that kiss, and sounds dance to the rhythm of a beat not quite known to them. Writing is such a rapture of mine I could never abandon it. I have to write to survive. I have to gather all the emotions and thoughts that I feel or I’ll surely go mad. If they never see the light of a book’s binding, I’m fine with that. They live on blank pieces of paper that mean nothing to another, yet everything to someone else.

Tonight I am without my son. He is sleeping out at his father’s house. I don’t normally allow my son to sleep out because my motherly instincts simply don’t agree with it. Ever since finding out I was pregnant with my son almost three years ago, I have become insanely protective of him. I have this yearning desire to be with him as much as I can. Don’t get me wrong, I do adore my “alone” time when I can catch it that is, but for all intensive purposes, I thoroughly enjoy not only being a mother in its entirety, but also simply being with my son. There really is no other male that I could even fathom spending as much time with.

I love the way, at almost three years old, that my child adores me. I love that mellifluous little voice that calls “mommy” when he needs something. I love his scent. I have it running through my veins. I could pick him out of a crowd of billions of little boys even if I was blindfolded. I love wiping the snots that drip down his cute little nose with my back of my index finger. And I even love the way he wipes his snots all over me, and even smiles when doing so.

So many motherly emotions have taken precedence over everything else in my life that it baffles me how I survived and actually lived prior to giving birth to him. That beautiful, sweet, and luscious smell of a newborn had me from the time I pushed him out. My arms became iron clad…nothing was going to harm my child. My entire being protects him like an invisible force field utterly impenetrable from the outside. A United States Marine couldn’t pry my son from me if he tried. Motherly love, there’s nothing like it in the world.

So for tonight, I will try and enjoy my own company for a change. While I do enjoy my solitude, I enjoy mothering my son so much more.

Please…share your insight with myself and my readers. We’d love to hear your thoughts and advice.

Like most of the world, I was floored when I heard the news of Michael Jackson’s death. I remember exactly where I was and I’ll never forget the immediate feeling of loss and shock that I felt.

I grew up on MJ’s music. I envied the dancing ability he possessed. I watched him tip his hat and stand on his toes with the utmost loving affection. The few strands of hair that always fell into his face, the tight white t-shirt, and the crotch grabbing mesmerized me. I thought he was one of the sexiest men on the planet…in his own way.

I seriously can’t believe we lost him. This was a death that shouldn’t have surfaced for at least thirty to forty more years. Michael should still be here touring, raising his children, dancing, singing, and caring for others. The amount of compassion he had for others astounds me and leaves me literally breathless. I wish I could look at the world that way.

MJ gave his all to help countless children and causes around the world. But yet, the media chose to focus not on the good he did but on the weirdness they thought he was capable of. Al Sharpton said it best at Michael’s memorial: “I want Michael’s kids to know…ain’t nothing strange about your daddy, what was strange is what he had to go through.”

The media helped contribute to Michael’s untimely death. The false molestation accusations that he had to endure took a toll on him, as they would with any one of us. Those accusations destroyed his spirit and you could see it in his face every time he walked into court. He was mentally, emotionally, and physically drained. And now that he’s gone, I feel more horrible than ever. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live in a world where all you want to do is be yourself, be “normal”, perform for your fans, and help those less fortunate…and the media and haters keep picking at you. They pick until blood drips…until your spirit is broken…they pick at you until you are gutted.

What Michael Jackson wanted was simply to be himself, to be a good father to his children, and to love his fans. It’s too bad that it took his death for most of the world to realize that.

Even though I’ve never met MJ and didn’t know him personally, I feel with every fiber of my being that I lost a family member. I weeped during his memorial service. I went through almost an entire box of tissues. Part of me feels sad and empty at his loss while other parts of me smile because I’m hoping he is finally at peace.

Thank you MJ for the dance moves, the beautiful songs, your compassion for the human race, and for your unconditional love that you had for your children, your family, and your fans. Know that you are respected for your talents and that you will be SO missed.

My son will turn three at the end of July. So, it is often that I peruse the web and come across parenting information.

I understand that everyone parents differently, but I have to open my mouth in awe when I read information that tells new parents to leave their newborn infant to “cry it out.”  I mean, really, how does this make any sense?

I also understand that not every woman is thrilled to become a mother, and that the instant mother-child bond that I felt with my son the second I peed on the stick and saw two lines…doesn’t always happen to mothers. That in itself is a sad epidemic in my eyes, and to be frank, I don’t even remotely understand how a mother can not feel not only an instant bond with their child, but also the immediate unconditional love that forges between parent and child.

I am not claiming expertise in the parenting field, but I do know that I never once allowed for my son to “cry it out”, especially when he was a newborn. If he cried, he got picked up, changed, fed, or simply cuddled with. Sometimes just picking him up and allowing for him to nestle as close as he could with me soothed him enough to end the crying. Infants need human contact, they need their mother, and they need attention. For more information on this, please visit www.attachmentparenting.org.

My son also sleeps with me, as I mentioned in a previous post. He has since his birth. It feels natural to me, to have my own flesh and blood right next to me. Nestled into his mother’s arms. He’s so content, even at three to be so close to me. He frequently asks me for hugs, and he never gets denied. I don’t care what I’m doing, I’ll always take time to hug my son. I’ve seen some moms, one of whom is my close friend, completely ignore her son when he asks for a hug. It’s appalling to me that a parent wouldn’t want to hug their child. But again, it’s not my place to judge how others parent their children, and I’m no expert.

Everyone has different views on how to parent, that’s no secret. What I would like to see research on, so please point me in the direction of any if you are privy to such information, is why some parents are not close to their children? Was it because they were not close to their parents while growing up, or perhaps they resent becoming parents in the first place? The factors are numerous and monumental I’m sure. A lot goes into why and how you parent your child(ren) the way you do.

Please, share your stories and theories. I’d love to hear them.

For as far back as I can remember,  my dad was awesome. He was always there for my brother and I, fixing our bikes, or getting dirty in the sand box with us. He was a fantastic father, and he still is.

I’m turning thirty in a few days, and I have to admit that it wasn’t until my early to mid twenties that I truly appreciated my parents. I finally understood all they gave up so that their children never had to go without. I’ve also realized that I’ve learned so much from each parent.

From my mother, I learned to appreciate being a woman, how to be my own person, how to be a fantastic mother to my son, to follow my dreams, and to live my dreams. Mommy taught me that in order to become someone, you have to be someone first. Find out who you are, be comfortable in your own skin and with yourself, and never listen when someone tells you you’re not good enough or that you may not make it. While I was growing up, she showed me time and time again that a mother’s love was powerful, life giving, unbreakable, and most importantly, that it was unconditional.

But so much of the person that I am today is also because I had a loving father in my life. Dad taught me how to ride a bike, how to mow a lawn, plant and maintain a garden, be a woman that respects herself, be a daughter, be a role model to my son, and most importantly, my dad taught me to how be independent. He told me to never rely on anyone to get what you want. If I wanted something, I simply achieved it. There was no failing, dad said it simply wasn’t an option.

Having a father’s love surround you when your a female is something that’s hard to describe. It gives you such a sense of being wanted, of being adored, and respected. I was never afraid of anything with my dad around. The fact that he was a big Italian guy that had a permanent puss on his face was enough to scare people in the other direction anyway. But just his presence around me made me feel invincible. I felt I could move mountains if I wanted to.

I am the woman and mother I am today thanks to both of my parents. But it is because of my father that I am a strong and absolute female. A father’s love and attention cannot be replaced. And having that strong fatherly shoulder to cry on when your young and adolescent years flash before you means more to a daughter than any boyfriend ever will. I learned that when it came time for me to find a man in my life that I had no other choice but to emulate my father. After all, he was the only male authority figure that I had to go on…that I had to clone.

I enjoy manly men, thanks to my dad. I love a dirty guy – an auto mechanic, a construction foreman. But I also love an authoritative gentleman, a man that knows what he wants. A handsome fellow in an Armani suit and tie grabs my attention as well as any bookstore. My father was the man I wanted to duplicate because I had so much respect for him.

Father’s Day is a wonderful chance to say thanks to the man in your life that picked you up when you fell. The man that held out his hand for a firm handshake when your boyfriends came to pick you up for your dates. But most of all, the man that you have enough respect for to call Dad.

Thanks to my dad, and also to my mom, for making me the center of their world.

Please share your stories, my readers and I would love to hear them.

“But words are things, and a small drop of ink, falling, like dew, upon a thought, produces that which makes thousands, perhaps millions, think.”  - Lord Byron -

It’s no secret that I’m a Byron (and a Poe) fan. His above quote ignites a rush of ideas that have been nesting within my loins, simply screaming to be written down. I think it’s the same for every writer that lands upon whatever it is that gives them inspiration. Be it the flowers outside, the birds singing their harmonic tunes, or the gentle breeze that ruffles the fall leaves, inspiration is all around us.

For me, inspiration speaks in forms of words, quotes, colors, sounds, and writing. I find that simply reading calms my soul. When it’s so quiet that you could hear a pin drop, the silence itself is astounding. I’ve always been a fan of solitude. Not just for the fact that I get to know myself, but also because silence speaks volumes without saying a thing. Cliche, I know…but true nonetheless.

So when writers begin writing, whatever it is they may be thinking of at that moment, something magical happens. Ideas mix with feelings and words intermingle with dreams, all producing a masterpiece that now has bore an audience. Once words amalgamate with paper, a story is given new life. Characters find friends, mothers bare children, men become fathers, and something that just a moment ago was nothing…now has been given a voice. And sing it shall, just you watch.

A single word, sentence, or paragraph means a world of difference from one person to the next. You may read a story and gain nothing, while the person next to you reads the same story and allows for the tears of their triumphs to rain down. Words are powerful, life giving, and tremendous. And never underestimate their influence over complete strangers.

I doubt that when iconic writers such as Byron, Poe, Melville, and Shakespeare were penning their thoughts, they allowed room for an audience. From studying them through college and on my own, I’ve learned that all the aforementioned wrote because their souls commanded it. Poe wrote The Raven inside a farmhouse while battling depression. I’m sure he highly doubted it would reach publication, let alone be canonized in high school and college classrooms today.

For all of you that are writers presently, and for all of you that are scared to write down your thoughts, my advice to you would simply be to WRITE. Write more…never less.  Whatever lives in your thoughts needs to be authored. It needs a home among the greatest literary geniuses that continue to live on today through their writing. Find the courage to start a journal, a blog, or even a book. You never know whose life you may change simply because they took the time to read your persuasions.

Please, share your writing thoughts. I admire other people’s determination when it comes to writing.

Co-sleeping…touchy subject I know.

However, in my opinion, co-sleeping with your baby is Heaven. I’m an advocate of it 100%. My son, who will turn three at the end of July, has been sleeping with me since birth. When in the hospital, I chose not to leave him in the nursery. I requested that he be in my room at all times unless otherwise medically necessary.

And when he arrived home, I knew that instinctively I wanted him to be as close to me at all times as humanly possible. Infants are utterly helpless. They need their mother (or care giver) around the clock. Therefore, I thought it was insanely natural to have my son sleep with me, and according to the information I’ve read on the subject, it is. So much so, that I didn’t even purchase a crib. I didn’t add a crib to my registry and I instructed all my close family members to not even be on the look out for a crib, I flat out didn’t want one.

I enjoy my son being close to me, even now as he gets ready to turn three. He’s still helpless and he needs his mommy.

I adore the smell of my son and the way he nestles into the crook of my arm when it’s nap time and bedtime. I love crawling into bed at night after I have put my son down and pulling him close to me so that we can cuddle and become as close as safety allows.

If you’re a new mother and you maybe worried about any dangers associated with co-sleeping, I direct you to Natural Child , Mothering, or CoSleeping.org. Those three websites will give you all the research and statistics associated with the topic.

I can also tell you, as a mother who co-sleeps with their child, that when my son was a newborn I hardly changed positions while sleeping. This wasn’t done deliberately. Your natural mothering instincts take precedence. You know your newborn is sleeping next to you, and for me, that was enough to tell my body not to move. It may sound like it was uncomfortable, but I can assure you it was not. I found it amazing that the exact position I went to sleep in, was the same one I woke up in. I’m sure this doesn’t happen for all moms, but in my case, it did.

The benefits of co-sleeping are tremendous for me and my son. He was never a sound sleeper and he woke up quite often throughout the night until he was about two, and maybe a little older. He would wake up to eat, or reach for his pacifier that fell out of his mouth, or simply to nuzzle closer to mommy. It was so much easier to lull him back to sleep with him right next to me, and he slept for longer periods of time when he was an infant. And that meant that mommy got to sleep decently as well. Sometimes, we could go up to four hours before he wanted to eat again. And I see that even today, when he wakes, he is extremely well rested from getting a full nights sleep.

While co-sleeping may not appeal to all mothers, it worked for me and my son. If I have another child, I will absolutely co-sleep with them as well. And when I feel the time is right, I will transition my son into his own room and bed. But for now, there’s nothing more sublime then taking in the smell of my son, or feeling his drool land on my arm, or even allowing for the faint sound of his little snores to help lull me to sleep.

Please, share your motherly outlook on co-sleeping. I’d love to hear your side of the story.