Ladies Only Blog Share Link Party: Remember When.

Every Memorial Day, I take my daughter to our small town's proud Memorial Day parade.

We live in a small town within a large city. We have our own zip code and downtown, but we are also proud Northampton residents. I feel the need to say this because I often feel caught between both. I can tell you we live in a New England city and I would be correct. I can tell you we live in a small town and that would also be correct. We're nestled within this grand place - we have our own Main Street, our own diner and our own Soft Serve with lines stretching out into the sidewalk. We have our own post office and multiple pizzerias and coffee shops. A little grocer or two, and both lunch hour and rush hour traffic. We are both country and city at once.

We have our pride.

My daughter goes to the parade for the candy. This particular parade is quite generous with that - as schools and scouts and veterans and emergency workers all march for Memorial Day - tossing out hats and pins, lollipops and tootsie rolls. My daughter is a sugar fiend and there's nothing she likes quite as much as being pelted with candy..except receiving the flag. Every Memorial Day, a veteran marcher spots her cuteness in the crowd and rushes to the sideline to adorn her with her own American flag. She has a collection.

I often assume she's still too young to know what Memorial Day stands for. I don't know how to talk to her about having to fight and defend our country. I forget what she already knows - her beloved fairy tales feature war. Fights over land and castles and beliefs.

Someday soon, I'll tell her about honor and respect and selflessness. Someday soon, I'll tell her about real-life heroes.

She's piecing it together more and more, each year.

*Your post does not have to be Memorial Day related, but it should be one of your older posts that you'd like to revisit and share!*


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I am very excited to be a new co-host of the Ladies Only Blog Share with a few of my favorite fellow bloggers:



Michelle from A Dish of Daily Life


Crystal from Mommifried






Angela from WriterMom's Blog






Janet from Tell Another Mom




Make sure to bookmark or subscribe to their blogs and visit them on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and so on. The links to their social media spaces are on their blogs. We all faithfully return the favor!


I've had a hectic week in humid rain up here, but I've also had many uplifting moments connecting with friends and family. As usual, I was struck and inspired by the words of my blogger friends. There are too many good ones to count, but I wanted to share a few:

- Ilene's post at The Fierce Diva Guide To Life left me speechless for a long while. I had to read her post several times, reflecting on my own relationships with both lost and found loved ones.

- Kim from Co-Pilot Mom is a girl after my own heart. A thoughtful and involved mother with such a way with words when describing sweet and silly moments with her children. What has parenthood overtaken in your life that used to hold much more prominence? I related to this post about losing our touches with movie and television knowledge.

- Airing my Dirty Laundry One Sock at a Time is a blog I visit daily. Read her chilling account of her family's experience with the Oklahoma tornadoes here. There may be a fart joke or two, which honestly just made the whole ordeal even more 3-D for me.

- I also feel compelled to share a post from a fellow photography business builder at Callia's Corner. She's working so hard and her post this week is such a nice description of how I feel. In the theme of "Remember when," maybe we both will look back at these days one day and smile at the hectic pace of nonstop business that we both feared and desired to eventually happen.



Now, let's get started on the link party! Have fun and visit the links below. We ask that you try to visit at least three. Remember to leave a thoughtful comment on the new blogs you've discovered and let them know you're visiting from the Ladies Only Blog Share Link Party! Feel free to pin your blog post to the Ladies Only Blog Share Pinterest board, too! In the URL field, place the link to your post. The name field should contain the title of your post. And if you'd like to co-host a future link party, give Crystal a shout at mommifried@gmail.com

We recently added a fun optional way to share and grow your community and meet some new people! On Friday, we'll have a comment chain on Michelle's Facebook page specifically for our Remember When posts. You can post your link in the comments. The rules are if you choose to post here, you need to comment on the two blog posts directly ahead of you. That way each person is assured of two comments, and hopefully they are meeting someone new at the same time! Feel free to comment on others if you'd like but make sure you do comment on those directly above you. The person who is first on the comment chain can choose to comment on anyone in the comment chain! On Saturday, MommiFried will host the comment chain, and WriterMom's Blog on Sunday.

A few simple requests are...

** Follow and visit all of the hosts and co-hosts

** Link up your favorite post! Please try to stick to our weekly theme

** Please share this link party so others can join

** Visit at least three of the blogs on the link party


And now, party time:

Challenges, Struggles, Confessions.

What a scattered mind I have in this scattered week.

My friend and I were talking about the humidity and how it seeps into our brains and maybe makes us say things we wouldn't normally say. I have to admit that this weather makes me feel like I'm on the verge of getting into good trouble. What? I don't even know. Memories past of sneaking into friends' neighbors' pools, or misplacing my car on a sticky Hoboken morning. Stone sober, of course. I just like that you can get so caught up in a hot and muggy night that you can wander the streets for an hour the next morning trying to remember where you parked. Hoping the car wasn't stolen. Although once I left my car unlocked in Jersey City and someone definitely broke in (if you can call it that with an unlocked door) but they must have been caught or distracted mid-theft, because all of my stuff was messed with but nothing was missing. Luck on my side. Always on those blurry mornings, I'd find my car.

Then I would go home and eat breakfast and shower and go to work at 11:00 am at my sales job. Ah, youth.

I know I'm still young, at least at heart. I'm still up at odd hours occasionally but I rarely lose my car. And when I do lose my car, it's in the Target parking lot while I'm pushing a cart with two kids and a shopping bag filled with crowns and magic wands from the $1.00 bin. And most likely it's raining. Sometimes I try to unlock an identical Honda Odyssey. Sometimes mine is several rows over.

Humidity and scattered thoughts weigh heavily on my body and mind. There are many themes of this week - some struggles and confessions. I'm looking at them as challenges. To do what? I don't know. Conquer? Probably not. Tackle? Maybe a bit. In the ever-quest to just be..more..everything. More kind, less bitter. More secure, less anxious. Here are my week's tidbits, in no particular order:


-- I always say that I don't have a competitive bone in my body. In fact, I have trouble watching professional sports because the confrontation and all of the hearts and souls of the fans makes me squeamish. I can't imagine caring that much about something you have no control over. I realize I'm nearly alone in that. However, every now and then I find a niche or a special talent. And it's only when someone infringes on my territory or that I feel threatened or combated, that I became a fierce warrior. I fight tooth and nail!

-- I can't stand surprises. I don't mind being blown over from left field but it's when you tell me you have a surprise for me but that I have to wait for it that makes me really upset. I'm so afraid of my comfort levels being shattered that I often read ahead to the ends of books (and then still read the whole thing) and sometimes I read spoilers for movies and TV shoes online. I'm terrible.

-- I have issues with little boys having shaved heads. I do think it's Holocaust-related for me and while I hope my son doesn't give me reason to face my anxiety (he has gorgeous hair, why take it away??), well I will fast lose control of his hair. I know this.

-- I find daydreaming that I'm a singer, dancer or pianist to be so satisfying, despite the fact that I logically know those three things will probably never happen. Daydreaming is magical.

-- I like Scarlet's princess phase. I feel that I can help her with it despite the fact that I was partly a tomboy as a kid. It's something she turns to me for.

-- As Scarlet inches dangerously close to the age I was when I lost my father, her bond with Cassidy only strengthens. It amazes me and fills me with joy. It also gives me insight into just how much I lost out on. Sometimes I get jealous of their bond, and I worry that she's not even mine. Like she is Cassidy's and Des is mine, rather than both are both. It's stupid. I hope. I know she looks to me too:





Whirling, dancing, frenzied adorableness.

Holy Crap, I'm a NICU Mom.

The other day a peculiar letter arrived in the mail addressed to: "The parents of DESMOND B BOWMAN."

I ripped it open very flawedly (is that a word? appears not. flawfully? full-of-flaw?), to discover an invitation to our local(ish) hospital's "Neonatal ICU Graduates Annual Reunion." I stared at it for a few minutes, thinking the hospital must have made a mistake because clearly there are no NICU graduates in our space of residence, right? Well, wrong. 11 healthy months and I had almost forgotten..

Ok, not really but it did take a second for the memories of the past year to all connect.

For awhile now I've been so hung up on explaining how ok Des is, even though it's blatantly obvious to everyone else. A late roller and crawler? Eh, only kinda. More like on the later side of what is normal. Some things he does really early. Some things he does right on time. Some things he does a little late. Like all babies. Unlike all babies, he's never been sick except for one barely detectable case of croup over the winter. And curses, I started writing this yesterday but now it's today and he has a very small cold. Of all the chances!

Des is my second baby, but he made me act like a first-time mom more so than Scarlet did. Not only that, a first-time mom in a NICU. If you haven't heard the story already, Des had to go on preventative antibiotics in a different hospital's NICU for a week after he was born. They never found anything wrong with him. I constantly feel the need to explain how ok he is because I was once made to believe that he might not be ok. We knew in our heart of hearts that he wasn't sick, but after six days there, I started to forget.

And then I remembered, and I've been remembering that for awhile now. He's all good, if not a little squished sometimes..


That invitation was sent to the right people. He is a NICU graduate and I'm a NICU mom. I know this because..

- Mainly, because my son was in the NICU.

- I've had to wash my hands for two timed minutes with industrial strength soap before going into the NICU. 17 times a day.

- I have nursed behind a thin privacy curtain, while wires and monitors trailed out from all parts of my son's body, and while huddled parents and huddled nurses and huddled doctors doing their rounds walked around and talked around me. I have nursed to the sound of alarms going off every minute.

- I have learned to stare in rising panic at the monitor displaying his heart rate, oxygen saturation and more above his bassinet.

- I have both been impatient for, and been in fear of the doctors/nurses doing their daily (or was it bi-daily/) rounds.

- I have jumped up, my heart in my throat, every time the phone rang while I was not in the hospital.

- I have spent painful hours Googling medical terms for ailments Des didn't even have a chance of having.

- I have pumped and nursed and spent most of my time in or circling a hospital that was 30 minutes from my home, just so they wouldn't give him formula. I am not against formula AT ALL, but I was in too much discomfort to put my body through time away from him. And mainly, nursing was the only time people left us alone. It was the only time he was mine.

- I have learned that NICU units look for something wrong, even when there isn't something wrong. It's what they have to do because the alternative is far worse. I have learned that my son's heart, lungs, kidney, and more look fab. How many people truly know that about their children a week after birth?

- I have learned that nurses, like teachers, are selfless and heroic earth-bound angels - here to make the world a much better place.

- I'm a NICU mom because I worried and suffered. It was a week and not a month or several months or a year. I was one of the lucky ones whose child was born healthy and just had to take a week to prove that. Yet, I'm a NICU mom because I suffered. Simply.

And I think long and hard and often, of the NICU moms and dads who suffered for far longer than I have. Blessings to all.


** My gorgeous NICU Graduate.

Sun Halos and Loose Moose.

First of all, thank you everyone for the support and wisdom you gave me on Facebook, Twitter and the comments on my last post. It was rather unexpected but I so love when people chime in like that. I am feeling better. The impatience and anxiety faded. For now.

Yesterday, a moose went on the loose in the town next to mine. I live deep in the woods, surrounded by acres of trees, and the moose was out in public like it was nothing. Perusing tag sales, maybe? Lining up for soft serve. I'm talking running through residential streets and lawns, so close to people that the YouTube videos that the locals posted on the town Facebook page picked up the clippity cloppity sound of hooves on pavement. It's one of my favorite sounds that originated from my horseback riding days.

I dream of Alaska. I have driven up to the parts of Maine that aren't even on maps just to see a baby moose drinking from a pond, and large antlers emerging from the trees. I have gotten up at 5:00 am in Jackson, WY to drive to a nearby town called "Moose" that rests against the Grand Teton Mountains and along the Snake River, to see a mother and baby huddled together in a light snowfall.

I have seen moose cross the road in the middle of the Canadian night, so large and dopey-looking that my eyes played tricks on me and saw Eeyore. I have camped out for hours against state parks in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, only to be rewarded with one blurry moose in one blurry night. At other times, I have seen 20 in one long drive. I named them all after Star Wars characters.

The last three moose I saw were on a bumpy road with friends in a pickup truck - and I was so pregnant with Scarlet that I thought she'd come out every time we hit a pothole. That was one of the only times I've ever seen a moose in the middle of the day, and not at dawn and dusk after hours of searching. Sometimes you really have to know how, when and where to look, and with whom. And sometimes, you can be sitting in your backyard with a cold one (beer? soda? ice cream?) and a young moose comes traipsing through your begonias. Right place, right time? Wrong place, wrong time? Sometimes Scarlet asks to see a moose, as if you can just meet up with one in your backyard the way we met up with five bears last spring. And I tell her it's unlikely. I want her to understand the gravity of the situation - of seeing a moose. I had to wait 24 years until my first mere glimpse of a grazing female in a meadow.

Scarlet will not need to wait 24 years. Her time is coming. Whether we work for it or whether one of our area's apparently numerous moose will find its way into our line of vision. However it happens, she will know how big of a deal it is. She will see it in my tears.

It's kinda a big deal around here. Around anywhere. I married the man who idled in a hot car for hours to show me my first moose.


(This is not yesterday's moose. This is one of mine taken with a film camera in late summer, New Hampshire. 2005 ish.)

And meanwhile, during the same time and under (in) the same sky - we had a sun halo for hours yesterday!











It was kinda a big deal too. Look who pounded on the door like a caged animal to get out of the house and see the sky:






He got his way to see the sun halo. And lastly, we recently celebrated the fourth birthday of a dear friend.










Everything's coming up rainbows and moose and cupcakes this weekend.

There Was An Incident.

There was an incident yesterday that let me know that I had lost it. I was done. The rest of the day was spent on auto-pilot.

I kept my kids clean and fed and happy and away from danger, of course, but I was just going through the motions with a very blank look on my face. I think it scared poor Scarlet. At some point in the late afternoon she called out to me, "Why did you get up from your new chair? You waited all day for sunshine." And I snapped back, "Because I can't get the smell of sh*t out of my fingernails!" Not my finest moment, huh? Let's just say a teething baby's digestion isn't ideal and leave it at that. Scarlet schooled me as usual:

"You need to take a long, deep breath and then let it out slowly." So I did. Again and again.

Then we lay in the long-awaited and short-lived sunshine together. She made up a great poem. "People are..farts. No, fart factories. FACTories. It's a fact. People are fart factories. It's a fact!" Oh, how she schools me. I have all of the tools I need to let the petty stuff and the bad moods roll off of my back. I have a three-year-old who is more wise and more funny at three than I probably ever will be.

Well, sorta. I've learned some stuff along the way. And she gets her scream on like any kid her age.

This has been an in-between week. I'm living it with suspended breath as if I'm waiting for something to happen. In between hot and cold, always. Obsessing over two weather apps on my phone and spotting very occasional patches of blue sky between heavy clouds.






I love that this perfect bubble hung out in his mouth for awhile, admiring the view of his eyelashes I'm sure:




I've been in a weird space between anxious and not anxious. Surely I've been better, but importantly - I've been far worse. I woke up a few times with a pounding heart while dozing on the couch during Food Network. It's always an unsettled feeling to wake up that way and not know why. Although it doesn't matter why to me, and it really only matters how - how I choose to cope with anxiety.

I choose to photograph the world when I need the space to look at it through a glass lens. I also choose to put down the camera when I'm ready to embrace it all - the good, the bad, and the funny feelings in between. Sometimes I feel I could go any which way.




This week I've been thinking about friendship. There are all of these facets of interpersonal life - romantic, kids, family, and friendship. Friendship is simply the most fascinating to me at this point in my life. Like romance, friendship requires timing, chemistry, geography, effort. Time. Quality. Quantity. When it works, it really, really works. Like a romance, in a way. Like therapy, in a way.

Sometimes I find it slipping away.

That really scares me. It has happened before and it will happen again. We all spread out. Sometimes at different times, in different places. We don't necessarily go to new schools, but our kids do. Some of us move. Some of us change jobs. Some of us have no time. Some of us have too much time. And where do I fit in right now - with a preschool-aged kid and a baby? A sorta career. Married. Here.

Some people I love, I see weekly. Some people I love, I see monthly. Some people I love, I see yearly. There are these half-friendships on Facebook. There are some I left behind long ago, only to find again in more vivid color. There are some that seemed unbreakable and unstoppable once, and still were subject to the unthinkable. They faded. It's heartbreaking. It's natural. It's sometimes inevitable.

I hope you'll stick around for a lifetime or two.

Eleven Freakin' Months.

Oh, my Des.

My mellow, dreamy, stays-in-one-place Des is now my mellow(ish), dreamy, never-stays-in-one-place Des. Except for once. Last Saturday. He used to always sit on the bathroom floor with toys while I showered. Every so often he'd pull the shower curtain so that I'd look out and we'd exchange grins. Then we'd both go back to our merry toy-playing or hair-washing ways. One day this particular honeymoon ended when I couldn't hear him anymore and looked out the shower curtain and out the open bathroom door to see him high-tailing to another room. Last Saturday for a blessed 20 minutes, he waited for me to finish my shower. Just like old times.

What can I say about him? What can we really ever say about the people we love the most who are changing the most rapidly? My Des is unique and brilliant and loving. His wide smile is still there for strangers (anyone who isn't me, Cassidy or Scarlet) but he makes them wait about a ten minute initiation period in which he looks out at them, and then burrows his head in my neck, and then back, and then forth, and so on. After about ten minutes, the wide grin and jabbering and laughter is widened to include the non-immediate family member in its presence. All is well with the world. Still so engaged, but with limitations. His version of stranger anxiety.

And I like it.

He kicks in his sleep, chuckles "heh" while he scoots, and sticks his tongue out at everyone. He has strong arms, steely eyes and floppy, heartthrob hair. He beats his legs down on the ground like a drum and holds all magic wands and sticks out like swords.

Perched in one hand, he holds them up, beats his chest with one hand and shouts, "Aiiiiiiiieeee!"

He has two (going on three or four or 18) teeth. His bald spot has grown in. He wears 12-18 month clothes. He takes baths with his sister and takes great joy in splashing all three of us. He says my name only when he's upset, but I know he really means it.

Ever-changing Des - always-loving, always-engaged, always-hilarious, always-handsome.










They really do love each other.












And it wouldn't be a true birthday celebration without someone's Doctor Who shirt in the background, right?