Cool Mamas Club
Hello, Cool Mama! I’m Deidre (Deydur), but you can call me D. Mom to 2 crazy creatures. Thanks for checking out this little corner of the web! Cool Mamas Club welcomes every single kind of mother that exists. If you’re a mom or have a maternal heart, then you’re a Cool Mama!
Still doubting whether you belong here or not? Here’s a checklist. Tick everything that applies. Five checks, and you're a Cool Mama! Though, I’m pretty sure you are.
I carried a tiny human in me for nine months (or so).
I went to multiple OB-GYN visits in a matter of nine months.
I dreaded IEs.
I looked forward to the ultrasound sessions.
I barfed tons while housing a tiny human in my belly.
I used my pregnancy to overeat (Fun fact: Medically, you only need to add 300-350 calories to your allowable count during pregnancy. How much is that? 350 calories is roughly one piece of breaded fried chicken (rice not included)/one siopao/two pieces of hopias/one regular pack of chips. That's it.)
I swallowed those big a** pregnancy pill vitamins, day by day.
I had that beautiful pregnancy glow.
I pushed a tiny human being out of me.
I took a tiny human in and raised it as my own.
I used Science to grow a tiny human in me.
I was miserable for nine months because I could not eat sushi and/or drink wine.
I breastfed.
I bottle-fed.
I bought a sh** ton of breastfeeding gizmos and gadgets and later realized all I need are my boobs, nothing more.
I stressed over which brand of bottle best mimics a mom’s nipple.
I own the roomiest bag where I can stuff, essentially, our whole house every time we go out.
I cannot remember the last time I slept well.
I have, roughly, eight trillion photos of my child/children on my phone.
I got monthly shocks hearing how much all those vaccines and boosters cost. 3 in 1, 5 in 1. Plus pedia fee. Gosh.
I was excited for my child/ren to walk, then when they walked, I wasn't excited anymore.
I survived/am surviving Terrible 2s, Troublesome 3s, Frightful 4s, Frustrating 5s, Shocking 6s, Severe 7s, and so on…
I parent tweens.
I parent teenagers.
I cried because I was so tired. I'm tired right now.
I wake up at ungodly hours in the morning to cook food and prepare and pack snacks and lunch.
I drive sleepily every day to transport tiny humans to school.
I brave school zone traffic every single day for months.
I make sure to comply with the time that the School Bus operator dictates for my child’s pick-up.
I check my child/ren’s class schedule to see what they’re doing at that hour.
I have a love/hate relationship with dismissal time, weekends, holidays, and class suspensions.
I am an active parent in school.
I couldn’t care less about other parents in my child/ren's school.
I had numerous fights with my child/ren about homework.
I keep my cool during HW time.
I feed on classroom gossip. Who’s friends with who? Who misbehaved? Who didn't line up well? Who made Teacher mad?
I let my child/ren solve problems on their own.
I tend to hover when my child/ren deals with a problem/issue.
I operate like an internet browser with 99 tabs pulled up. All active.
I am pathologically tired.
I am already tired for tomorrow.
I worry about the future, a lot.
I already know what kind of mother-in-law I would be.
I try to keep up with millennial speak. Slay, lit, fire, sigma, flex, etc.
I am raising humans hoping they turn out to be good citizens of the world.
There’s a lot more Mama-isms that I missed, I’m sure. As I write this checklist, I realize that it is also a pre-intro of myself. 97% here, I checked. What are yours?
My Story
Happily married for eight years now, I am a Mama to a big sister and a baby brother. Before assuming the roles of Mama and wife, I was a professionally licensed teacher (still am, and will always be—BS in Early Childhood Education, Masters in Special Education). Throughout my decade and a half of teaching, I proudly became an advocate for kids who learn differently (widely known as kids with Learning Disabilities, check out my education-related blogs/articles here to know more about these conditions). With years of partnering with speech and occupational therapists, fellow educators, doctors, and specialists, I learned a lot about Learning Disabilities that’s why it became so dear to my heart.
In 2017, with some savings and a lot of help from my ever-supportive and pushy husband, I put up a Preschool and a Reading Clinic. We help kids with Dyslexia, ADHD, Autism (to name a few) be better at their overall reading skills and consequently with academics. Look us up, we’re The Reading House.
Now that you know who I am as a teacher, let me now tell you how I am as a Mama. Let’s put it this way, if God asked me to make a dossier about my motherhood journey so far, I would surely label the file folder “Hodge Podge.” I made (and still do) things up along the way. Like every single (fairly) new mom like myself, I entered this (mother)hood clueless. But you know when concerned adults and society tell you that you will figure everything out when you become a mother, that sh** is true. I mean the generations before you can teach you how to bathe a newborn or what to do during your child’s first ever fever or what to do when your three-month-old can’t pass gas and won't stop crying. But when your child goes home for the first time because she was not invited to someone's playdate, you have to make up your own “instructions” and process on how to handle that heartbreaking situation. For these kinds of “mother-ing” woes, I did what other sensible Gen Xer would do, I turned to Google, who in turn pointed me to the direction of motherhood blogs. To find out that someone out there goes through the same heartaches, triumphs, laughter, and tears as you do, feels nice. Coincidentally, I have also been writing a lot lately, for work as well as my mental health. I figured, writing is a huge part of a teacher’s job, so why not use it to connect with my fellow Mamas. Cool Mamas.
This blog is for the “raw and uncut” Mamas. The bits and pieces that I picked up along the way being a Mom, Teacher, Wife, Sister, Daughter, Friend I’ll have a crack at, here in Cool Mamas. My goal is not to inspire or epitomize an ideal mother but rather just present to you the “behind the scenes” of this one-of-a-kind mission, called motherhood.
