Ok we’ve all had our moments. How are we supposed to keep it all straight? Good mom, good wife, good friend, good volunteer, good school helper, good samaritan, good daughter-in-law, good sister-in-law…? It’s impossible. Here’s what happens when you can’t keep it all straight:

(In Amy’s car, with 6-year old Sam, after school pick-up):

Sam: Guess what? NO mom showed up this morning for Centers to help us with our project.
Amy: Oh, bummer! That’s too bad.
Sam: You know why? Because YOU were supposed to be there.
Amy: What? Oh sweetie, don’t be silly. My calendar is right here, I would know if I needed to be there…
Sam: Ok, then look at it.
(Amy looks and sees “CENTERS, 9:30″ in red marker.)
Amy: Oh no. No. Really? Oh I’m so sorry Sam.
Sam: Maybe you’re doing too much, Mom. We really needed help. That was not good.

And just days later:

Pierce (Trisha’s 7-year old son): Mom, we had our last baseball game and we WON and we didn’t have any snacks after the game.
Trisha: Oh no, why?
Pierce: Because YOU were the snack mom. And you forgot. We were really hungry.

Really? Wow. Now not only are we loser moms, but our kids know it, too. They’re old enough to figure out who’s got it all together and who doesn’t. And we’re on the ‘doesn’t’ list. Argh!!

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So we are big proponents of escaping for a day or two (or four) on a mini vacation without the kids. In fact, we just returned from a girls weekend to Miami (details on that another time, oh my..). Is it terrible to say that we barely (if at all) missed our kids? That it allowed us to truly, totally, fully escape emotionally and physically from our day to day lives, stress, craziness? That we kind of, sort of cringed when we dropped our kids off at school this morning wondering if any of the other moms were looking at us cross-eyed for getting out of dodge without our little darlings?

We’ve each made it a priority to run away from it all, even for 24 hours, with our husbands or our girlfriends pretty regularly, and have learned to shed the guilt associated with it. We’ve finally given ourselves permission to run away, because now we know how beneficial it is. It’s an incredible feeling to come back to your life re-charged, re-energized and really appreciating the day to day lives we have. And we hope that other moms will embrace this for themselves, too.

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Some days you just want to hang out with the kids but are too exhausted to even think about playing another game of Candyland. So here are some guilt-free games to play with your kids. These are loads of fun for them but secretly they provide lots of rest and relaxation for you. We each played at least two of these just this afternoon.

BABY: This is one of our favorites because you might even get to doze off somewhere in the middle. You are the ‘baby’ and they are the mommy and/or daddy. You lay down, preferably on a really comfy couch or a bed, and they provide a soft blanket for you. They fetch all kinds of things to soothe the baby, like a pretend bottle and snacks (e.g., jellybeans, malted milk balls or your other favorite trans fatty treat). But the key is that for the’ baby’ to be happy, it needs to be very QUIET. This could go on for like an hour. Seriously, heaven.

HAIR SALON: You are the ‘client.’ They are the stylists, and they brush your hair, put in barrettes, pony tails and generally treat you like a queen. Best of all, the service is FREE. Both genders like this one, FYI.

NAIL SALON: Again, you are the ‘client.’ This one is a favorite. Tools required: Lotion, for massaging your feet, a warm wet towel for cleaning your feet afterwards and a makeup brush for the pretend polish. Sitting on a comfy couch is required as well as People magazine for your reading pleasure. **Bonus points if you get the salon owner to massage your shoulders.

RESTAURANT: You are the ‘customer.’ They serve you all kinds of real and pretend snacks, take your order, all while you are on your laptop researching recipes and other restaurants to ‘try” (and maybe checking a few emails as well). **Important note: the little ‘busboys’ and ‘busgirls’ do the clean-up. Voila!

Anyone have any other made-up ‘games’ to add to the list??

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Being on Oprah was one experience, and now five days later, it’s fascinating watching the boards on Oprah.com and hearing the fiercely passionate points of views moms have from all over the country, good bad and ugly. Moms are also mobbing us with their thoughts, confessions, feelings of relief, etc. At the end of the day, just opening the dialogue is so huge. We may not all agree on all of the topics, and obviously we are still judging each other pretty harshly for our choices, but wow– what an open door there is to talking openly and honestly now! We’ve also heard from lots of moms that they’re watching the episode with their husbands to give them a better understanding of what they go through and the pressures they feel. And the results are astounding — since watching the show the husbands have been much more appreciative and supportive.

We were just talking with one small group of moms who were thankful for the show, and one of them mentioned that one of their mom friends with 2 kids committed suicide as a result of feeling overwhelming pressure. She didn’t tell a solitary soul how she was feeling – like she wasn’t living up to what she should be doing as a mom. That she was failing at her ‘job.’ That she must be the only mom in the world feeling this way. No matter what, knowing that we’re all in this together — despite where we live, what we may or may not ‘have,’ how many kids we have, if we work or stay home — is just imperative. Knowing that when someone says “how are you today?” you can answer honestly. And have a comrade right there with you.

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Here’s our clip from The Today Show Friday. Check it out!

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We’ll be on The Today Show Friday morning. Please tune in—we hear we’ll be appearing around the 9:00 hour. And don’t forget: Monday is Oprah!

In the meantime, check out this great link about our new book on MSNBC.

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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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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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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 do it all, and do it all well. As Meg Newcomer, a family therapist, explains, “Men feel unappreciated sometimes. They think, ‘I’m providing, so why am I getting yelled at? I would rather be at soccer.’ There’s a lot of talk about Supermom, but what about Superdad?”

The truth is, the same stuff that keeps women off balance and axious in motherhood has made fatherhood difficult for men. They have no reaodmap to show them how to be a good husband and a good dad. They feel pressured to provide. They feel pressured to be “present.” Men feel so many pressures from so many different places that many are caught off guard when their wives start insinuating that husbands today are getting a better deal. So if you haven’t clued into this already, it’s time you do: Many contemporary fathers are feeling lost, unsure of who they are and even who they’re supposed to be. For our guys, too, gender roles are less clear-cut than they were a few decades ago. That leaves our husbands bumbling around, getting banged up by all the demands they put on themselves, and making up their roles as spouses and parents as they go along.

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