From the monthly archives:

March 2009

The Oprah Diaries

by Trisha-and-Amy on March 31, 2009

Hopefully you watched the Oprah Show on Monday April 6. Here’s a little diary of our experience. Even our kids were excited – as Trish’s son said, “I’m gonna be on Opera!”

Sunday, March 8
Harpo crew arrives at Amy’s house.  We wear our favorite comfy shirts and were promptly told that the microphones won’t ‘work’ with them. Oh okaaay, plan B! 6 hour shoot. Takes most of footage in messy kids playroom with us sitting on kid chairs.  Every shot has to have all 5 kids in it—are you kidding?  The kids somehow knew we had no control over them on this day and took total advantage of it. As little Julia now says “when you go on Oprah, you have to run around your mother in circles and you eat popsicles and you go to Amy’s house.” We talk about our journey, what led us to write the books. Shots of us in backyard, typing, front yard, kids running around. Includes video of Amy giving kids a bath, Trish & kids in hospital with Julia born. Video ends up being 2:40 and has Oprah’s voiceover:  ”Amy & Trish were long-time friends who went on a journey to find out if everyone else was feeling the same way….wrote books…”

Somewhere in the back of our brains we are trying to comprehend what this all means—that we have a huge opportunity to help moms learn to love motherhood as much as they love their kids. Our original goal was to help just one mom do this. Amazing.

Tuesday, March 10

On the plane, 30 Rock with OPRAH airs – what?! Our hearts start beating really, really fast. Harpo limo picks us up, go to Omni hotel in downtown Chicago.

Immediately we go downstairs to hotel bar with our publicist Andrea Burnett and Christina Loff, and they tell us that we’re on starting in segment 3 for the ENTIRE SHOW, ON STAGE with Oprah!  We order martini’s and start to freak out as Andrea asks us if we’ve ‘reviewed’ our books adequately. Uh….Martini tastes excellent.

In the room, we start to freak out, pacing around, and call our “energy lady” to ground ourselves, and ‘set our picture.’ It’s a 30 minute session which is great, we are breathing very deeply, eyes closed, on the couch. We feel so relaxed and grounded—we’re finally ready. Until we suddenly get snapped out of with her comment—”so you’ll send a check, then?” Uh, yes, we’ll send a check.  ”And since you’ve achieved your goal, some people like to send me a bonus, so I’ll leave that up to you.”  UH REALLY?  REALLY?  Seriously?? We collapse on the floor in peels of laughter, yet again, not believing where we are or what we’re doing! Oh well….we needed a good laugh.

We pack a little suitcase with our outfits, shoes, Andrea Fohrman jewelry, no makeup.  We pop an Ambien around 11 with our books strewn around us.

Wednesday, March 11 — OPRAH TAPING!

6:15 a.m. — We choke down a few bites of oatmeal with blueberries and brown sugar.  Most Amy’s eaten in 4 days out of sheer nervousness.

7 a.m. — Harpo stretch limo picks us up, with Andrea & Christina in tow. We are nervous, excited, it all seems extremely surreal. 20 minutes later we stop at HARPO Studios. Is this really happening??

We enter, and immediately feel the warmth of everyone—an incredible, calming, wonderful energy.

Around 7:30 a.m. — we pick out our clothing. Trish chooses a seafoam green flowy shirt and Amy really wants to wear her short sleeve turtleneck, and we go with those. Our makeup gets done—airbrushed foundation, (to try to shave maybe a year off of our ages) and slightly smoky eyes. Then, it was time! We are led to the stage, gripping each others’ hands (white knuckles!) and sit down, next to Oprah. Every audience member is a mom—and it’s an incredible feeling. Here we go!

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My Real Friends Are A LOT Nicer Than You

by Trisha-and-Amy on March 31, 2009

One of our friends was driving with her husband and they were talking about how they hadn’t had sex in awhile and they were living more like roommates than husband and wife. They were sitting in the car being short with each other and she said ‘we’re kind of like just friends right now. And my real ‘friends’ are a LOT nicer than you are.’ They laughed about it —an ‘oh my God!’ kind of thing. But it was an eye-opening comment that begs the question—why are we not as courteous to our own husbands as we are with our friends? Your husband walks in the door and you WANT to say hi as the kids go running up to him, but instead you fume at the counter waiting for him to ask YOU how your day was. What is THAT? Why do we have resentment towards him before the poor guy even makes eye contact As we’re sitting here in our office talking about this topic, we realize that we each do this, too. How many times have we rolled our eyes or not given our husbands the common courtesy and respect we give to our girlfriends? If a friend walked in the door at 6 p.m. at night, we’d give them a big hug and hello, yet we turn our back to our husbands.

No matter where the feeling comes from, we do have the power to shift it. We can go with the mood that is growing—we can choose to ignore each other and wait until the other person gives us the response we want or ‘make a move’—or we can create the mood WE want. Right?

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Men: Their Perspectives, Their Pressures

March 29, 2009

Husbands and fathers today face a lot of pressures that we don’t necessarily understand, or ask about, or give them credit for. We’re so wrapped up in all that we need to do—our whole “perfect mom” trip—that we fail to appreciate that they, too, might be feeling overwhelmed. Like us, our guys feel obligated to […]

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Six Ways to Keep Your Expectations in Check

March 27, 2009

Ask yourself what your expectations are for a good marriage. Do these expectations match those of your partner? Are your expectations realistic? What expectations do you have of each other as a husband and a wife? Sit down with each other and talk about them (you may be surprised at how many expectations are imaginary). […]

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Three (Not So) Easy Steps to a Happier Marriage

March 25, 2009

Know that there’s no such thing as a perfect marriage. Stop focusing on what you think your marriage should look like and start thinking about what will actually make you happy. There’s no set formula for a good marriage. At least half the job is figuring out what a “good marriage” means for you and […]

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