Momfidence Is...

I discovered Paula Spencer about a month ago when there was a little flyer in Johnny's Sunday School class announcing that she was doing a book reading at a local indepedent book store to promote her new book, "Momfidence! An Oreo Never Killed Anybody and Other Secrets of Happier Parenting." Paula's not only a Chapel Hill resident, writer, and mother of four, but she goes to my church. I found out that she writes a monthly column for Woman's Day magazine and has written hundreds of freelance parenting articles, the same sort to which I aspire.

I've talked to her twice at church, once when she mistook me for another blonde thirty-something mom with young chidren (that explains the big smile on her face when I walked in the room and sat down beside her to sing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes," only to discover she thought I was someone else).

Then I recently approached her at our church's Halloween Festival to tell her that I was really enjoying reading her book...emphasis on WAS enjoying it...but that it has mysteriously disappeared somewhere into the Cooley Bermuda Triangle, to which she replied, "I understand. Why do you think it took me 10 years to write this book?"

It's a great read, but I'm only halfway finished as I've had to resort to going to Barnes and Noble on my lunchbreaks for a Starbuck's coffee and a couch to catch up on a few chapters since I still can't find my copy at home. I relate to so much of what she writes, like filling the bath water up with bubbles, and letting the kids splash around to clean themselves, no parental scrubbing necessary; or letting them eat candy for breakfast the day after Halloween; and keeping the house just straightened up enough so that one doesn't trip over any UPO (unidentified plastic objects) but not giving a second thought to hospital-cornered-made-up beds, or sending young children to school in adorable preciously smocked outfits.

I relate to and laugh at her stories but at the same time am one of the moms with habits that she eschews, like collecting sea shells on my recent trip to the Outer Banks with high hopes of glue-gunning them to a one-of-a-kind homemade picture frame, or keeping our pantry stocked with organic foods, flaxseed and Kashi's Go Lean breakfast cereal, or, God forbid, letting my child sleep in bed with us.

Paula good-heartedly satrizes "Attachment Parents" who "wear" their babies and do the family bed, and breastfeed through the toddler years while she clearly favors commonsense approaches to making parenting easier if that means storebought birthday cakes and sitting on the benches at the playgrounds while the kids "work things out" on their own. The truth is, I was a sling-wearin, playground-hoverin, grinded my own baby food mom, and we still let Johnny crawl into bed with us in the middle of the night. At the same time, I also Ferberized Grace (it worked!), let my kids drink real root beer once in awhile, and sometimes don't make them brush their teeth every single night. (They're gonna lose the baby teeth anyway, right?)

Paula's blog is snappy, refreshing, and funny, even if I don't agree with everything she says...plus, when I mentioned that I'd like to write for magazines too, she told me that if I ever wanted any help or advice, just to call...

Momfidence is...
Being happy that you're a little bit Carol Brady and a little bit Roseanne Barr
and the wisdom to know when to be whom.