WINNER-Confessions MOM
By Sian on Jul 27, 2009 with Comments 53
NOMINATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED, BUT VOTING IS OPEN UNTIL AUG 31/09. WINNER DECLARED SEPT 01/09.
CLICK HERE TO SEE FINALISTS AND VOTE, THANKS!
We all know that being a mom isn’t always easy. In fact, we think it’s one of the hardest, most unappreciated (and definitely lowest-paying) jobs in the world! But we do it anyway and we do it with love. Sometimes the only reward we get for changing diapers, cleaning spit-up, calming down a tantrum and the endless loads of laundry is…more laundry, more tantrums, more spit and more diapers! We all know it’s well worth the effort, ’cause the little darlings really do love us (and won’t they really appreciate us when they have their own kids!).
But some days, well, we really are lucky to survive the day. Some days, everything seems to go sideways…
When my son was just a few months old, I had one of those days (actually, I had many of those days but this one stands out in my mind). My son was on the change table and he’d been crying a lot that morning. He wasn’t a crier (unlike my poor colicked first-born), so I knew he probably wasn’t feeling well. Right when I pulled off his diaper my three year old daughter came in, chasing the cat. At that exact moment, the cause of my son’s crying became apparent when there was an explosion of epic proportions. I’m talking about a huge geyser of the foulest-smelling liquid poo ever. It shot out of my son’s tiny bum straight across change table covering me, the rug, and everything else in a six foot radius. The pressure was so intense that the spray of poo actually hit the far wall.
It happened so fast that my daughter (the above-mentioned colic queen) slipped in it. Down she went, coating her whole back side and I swear she was screaming even before she fell on the cat. Our poor cat, wild at being trapped in the small room with screaming humans, had turned tail to get out but he wasn’t fast enough and he got squished like a poopy pancake under my daughter. The two of them were a flailing pile of the yuckiest arms, legs and whiskers you’ve ever seen. The poor cat wouldn’t go near any of us for over a week. My eldest still carries a grudge against her little brother years later.
Yup, I don’t know who cried louder – my son, my daughter, the cat, or me.
Boy, those were the days…
Now my kids are older. My eldest is a tween and now we’re dealing with wild hormones and moodiness. And those are just my emotions, never mind the kids. They’re in a league of their own.
So if you are a mom who has recently had an incident of craziness, zaniness or just plain unluckiness, we want you to know that the GGS girls feel your pain. We’re with you, girlfriend, we’ve been there too! We do have one small piece of advice: if you can only hold onto one thing to get you through days like these, let it be your sense of humor. Your sense of humor is what will help you make it through the tough times, and come out the other side as a STRONG MOM. These hard days will pass. We promise!
In the meantime grab a glass of wine, summon your sense of humor and sit down and share your story with the rest of us. We’ve put together a groovy prize pack worth $400 from our generous award sponsors. The story you share will enter you to win our GGS STRONG MOM Award. Or, you can nominate a mom you know who deserves it by sharing her story. (See full instructions below).
Here’s what we’re giving away on behalf of our wonderful sponsors in our Girlgetstrong STRONG MOM Award Prize Pack:
- A $100.00 gift card from Smallfri.com
- An engraved silver heart necklace from SimaG Jewelry
- A $50 Starbucks gift card from Scrapbooker’s Delight
- A Dispose-a-Diaper Bag from mod momME
- Decorative cel phone dangle by New York Designer Kathie Stamou
- The White Noise Variety 3-CD Pack from Pure White Noise
- Mary Kay Skincare line valued at $78 from Michelle Pacello
- Turquoise-dyed jade and cobalt blue sea glass necklace by Designs by Kari
You’ll find all the prize details and links to the GGS STRONG MOM AWARD sponsors below. Be sure to visit the award sponsors’ websites and let them know you appreciate their prizes!
It’s easy to enter, here’s how you do it:
HOW TO ENTER:
In the comment section of this post:
- Tell us who you nominate (yourself or another mother) to be awarded the GGS STRONG MOM prize.
- In the same comment on this post, share with us your humorous mom story (or the story of the mom you nominate). You have until Sunday August 23rd, 2009 for nominations. One entry per person.
After August 23,09:
- After the nomination period closes, we’re going to narrow the entries down to a group of six semi-finalists that we’ll announce on our site and on our Facebook page on August 26/09.
- Then you, our wonderful and wise Girlgetstrong readers will be able to vote for YOUR choice of the winner of the GGS STRONG MOM award here on our site. The final award winner, as voted by our readers, will be announced on September 1/09.
- Stay updated and post your opinions about the nomination stories by visiting our Girlgetstrong Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/girlgetstrong. Become a fan of our page so you don’t miss an update or contest – GGS also runs contests that are exlusive to our Girlgetstrong Facebook page that you won’t find on our site!
GGS STRONG MOM Award prize info:
$100 gift card – Smallfri.com
Smallfri Announcements offers hundreds of stationery products for many of life’s most special occasions.
Our new collection is full of hip and stylish photo birth announcements, baby shower invitations, birthday invitations and custom designed stationery that adds a touch of elegance to your event. We pride ourselves on bringing Mom the most up-to-date colors and trends from the fashion world, right to your birth announcement or invitation.
With our “always on” RUSH service, most orders ship within 1-3 business days of proof approval. And if you are not completely satisfied with your order, return if for a full refund.
We’re so excited to award the GGS STRONG MOM a $100 gift card to our site!
Engraved Sterling Silver Heart Necklace – SimaG Jewelry
♥ My Heart is FOR YOU my dear ♥
My Heart is FOR YOU my dear – necklace wit your name, or your loved one’s name engraved on it.
Hand crafted with love for the GGS STRONG MOM award winner, by SimaG.
Dispose a Diaper Bag – mod momME
These adorable bags are my own creation and are exclusively at mod 
momME. As a mother of little ones still in diapers this bag is a must-have accessory. Dispose a Diaper Bag © key chains are very practical, convenient, and stylish too.
Each Dispose a Diaper Bag © key chain:
~ are approximately 4 1/2″ x 3 3/4″
~ are virtually weightless at ¼ oz empty and 5/8 oz loaded with bags
~ have a small split key ring making it easy to attach to your keys, diaper bag, or anywhere else you can attach keys to.
~ hold up to 15 plastic disposable diaper bags (I recommend purchasing the bags from Dollar Tree as you can get 100 for $1, they are environmentally friendly, and you can even order online!)
Phone Charm Dangle – New York Designer Kathie Stamou
New York designer Kathie Stamou collects eclectic materials from all over the world to incorporate into her inspired accessories. She is known for her innovative use of materials and inventive style. Her phone pulls are just one example of her creativity and skill. Longer and stronger than your typical charm, it allows you to dangle it out of your bag and give it a tug when you need it. Made from metal, it also acts as a counter weight for tucking into your waistband, boot or cleavage! It comes in a little organza bag with a cute poem. Loads of colours and style variations available. A great accessory for the GGS STRONG Mom Award winner!
When you hear that tuneful tone
This will help you find your phone
Attach this bauble to your mobile
Searching is not longer futile
Out your purse or pocket dangle
You’ll no longer need to wrangle
White Noise Variety 3 CD Pack – Pure White Noise
White Noise Variety 3 CD Pack – featuring three of its most popular white noise sounds, this set enables you and your child to benefit from soothing white noise for sleep, relaxation, stress reduction, meditation and blocking out noises. White noise, a gentle hiss or ‘shhhh’ sound like a whispering wind, waterfall, ocean wave or radio static, is nature’s soothing antidote to the disruptive, noisy and stressful world we live in.Play each 73-minute single track CD on your favorite stereo or mp3 player to immediately soothe your senses anywhere, any time, with the peaceful sounds of white noise to create a remarkably tranquil mood. Babies, even the fussiest ones with colic, amazingly stop crying and relax to white noise, too! Includes the gold standard of white noise Pure White Noise®, the all-natural true rainfall sound in Restful Rain, and the comforting steady hum of a running Calming Electric Fan.
Mary Kay Skincare line valued at $78
Michelle Pacello, Independent Beauty Consultant, 585-506-2282
At Mary Kay Cosmetics we have a one of a kind skincare line that is rivaled by none other. I’m a live-every-day-to-the-fullest mother of 2 1/2 year old twins myself and I live for helping women see their inner beauty while putting their best face forward. It’s an overwhelming feeling to see women fall in love with their skin and I’m contributing $78 worth of skincare products to the GGS STRONG MOM Award winner, including 3 sets:
- Tropical Pineapple Gift Set
- Satin Hands Set
- Satin Lips Set
Turquoise-dyed jade and cobalt blue sea glass necklace by Designs by Kari
Measuring 18″ long, this necklace has 12mm of turquoise dyed Jade and 6mm Cobalt Blue Sea Glass. A bright silver chain and simple toggle clasp finish this handcrafted piece.$50 Starbucks gift card from Scrapbooker’s Delight
Scrapbooker’s Delight has a great selection of the cutest scrapbooking supplies on earth. We have everything from digital progamming to simple handcrafted card making supplies. Scrapbooker’s Delight is pleased to give the GGS STRONG MOM award winner a $50 gift card for Starbucks.
Filed Under: Maybe Next Time
I am going to nominate myself on this one ..I don’t think i have told ”my life mishaps” online before..But after reading yours and others,here i go.
I think my whold life has been a bit zanny,or unlucky you may say.I was raised mostly by a single parent mom,whom i love and look up too,because my dad liked to drink more than be dad or hubby.Was not that he didn’t love us but he had an addition that he loved more i guess you could say.I am oldest in a family of 4 and with mom working all the time by age 10 i could cook,clean,watch kids,drive our station wagon,and anything else i wanted to do,or so i thought.
At 16 i was married to a wonderful guy that i thought i’d be with all my life.A few days after our one year anniversary i found out i was expecting a baby!We were both thrilled and scared.A few month’s later,at age 21,he was killed in an auto accident and i returned home at 17 and 4 months pregnant.I was so devastated but the one thing i held on too was my baby whom i had not yet met ,faith and my sence of humor.I had to be strong for him.Darrell was born that august and i was at the highest point in my life.
1 1/2 year’s later i remarried to a man that was so sweet to me and my baby.Thinking now id still have a happy family ,6 mos later i was pregnant again and by the time rita was born he was turning into a monster.One that i was terrified of.He was very abuseful to me and at times my son.Laws were different then,not like now,and we were stuck.I worked,took care of the kids,and got beat on sevearal days a week for 11 years. All this time people who i was around said i was the life of the party and i always made them smile.I kept as much of this mess inside of me as possible.I could cover bruises with makeup and walk out smiling and laughing.I had to,only way to make it through.The people turning to me for advice never knew what i was dealing with at home and i didn’t say.That was ambarrassing to me and scary.One day i woke up to the screaming and hollaring and i had had enough.I told him i was not the weakling he had married and if he was there when we got home at 4,that i would kill him,This time he knew it was done.I went to work with my usual smiles and when i got home,he was gone…not too return…
Through the years lot’s of things bad and good have happened..both are accepted with a smile and still laughter.I have too say the older i get the harder it gets but…People still come to me for advice and help.I have been there and done a lot of it and i am still here and can laugh at it.That is encouraging.I help raise my grandchildren now,due to some problems my daughter had.At this time i write with a 14 month old in my lap,a 7 year watching tv,and a 4 year old that just broke my glass fish so i must end this…lol…
Life can be hard and it can be good..But in the end if you can find faith and humor,it will carry you through..Through with happy memories instead of holding on to the bad.That is what it is all about.What we do and how we do it while here and what we leave behind…
thanks for allowing me to share and thanks to all of you for sharing yours..
alwaysatryin at gmail.com
i am 22 and am finishing 4 years with the USMC.i have a 17 month old son aiden.i would like to believe i am as strong as any man i come across or most of them anyway.i had to do all the RUNS AND PT JUST LIKE THE GUYS.BUT MOST GUTS DONT HAVE TO also keep up with the demands of a baby while working the wife does it.plus they dont have to keep a house spotless,on top of all of this i have a husband to keep happy.plus cooking for all.plus a babys dirty clothes can be a big job no matter who yo are.i get out of my job on aug.28,2009,this first week in august was the funniest for my son and mother anyway.my parents ,aiden and myself were are at disneyworld.the one ride on space rockets is so high you need to take a elevator just to get there.the first time we rode this dad and i took 1 rocket and aiden and mom took the other.the ride starts and i knew i didnt want any higher than i was so i didnt let my dad pull the wheel back,mind you i still had staples in from 3 different surgeries so this was kind of hard.meanwhile we look up and mom and aiden are flying as high as you can.i couldnt believe it my 17 month old son pulling back as far as he could laughing his head off.me, his mother scared half to death.we rode the ride a 2nd time later myself.mom and aiden.i had aiden and was going to take him with me but as we neared the rockets to get on he held his hands out saying wants go high,he wanted grandma as he knew she would go high.and high they did go i never touched my wheel so i was at bottom level and they were as high as they could get and that little man of mine was laughing at me and pointing at me.But my heart was aglow as that was my son and i was so proud!
I am nominating myself because this story, which everyone seems to find hillarious, must mean I am strong, I made it through, and lived to tell the tale! (although I admit there may have been some wine or Bailey’s occasionally involved in the weeks of survival!)
My story takes place over a few weeks in February 2008, but it is a story of trying to move a family of 5 from Rutland, VT to Hamburg, NY. This was an awful mother/wife/human being experience for me. Hubby’s job was relocating to Ohio, so we left his company to move from VT back to Western NY where both of our families are. He had to be here for work (6 hours away from VT to NY) a couple of weeks before the kids school break, which is when both closings were, so I was at home with 3 kids for the last two weeks, trying to get everyone to and from school, activities, feed them, pack, etc etc.. Tom had 2 cars break down on him on the weekends he tried to come back to help, and I got a stomach bug the last week for 2 full days. Then we had an ice storm two days before the move, so we couldn’t get the moving van into our long country driveway (I tried and ended up nearly sliding down the hill into the yard – fortunately a tree stopped me LOL then had to spend half a day getting the truck unstuck from the side of my driveway – side note – ALWAYS take the insurance on a moving van! It was worth it!) and had to move things from the house into pick up trucks/SUVs and drive them to the truck in the “road” and unload, reload. UGH!!!!
I got to the new house with a few things in my SUV with kids and some family to help (Tom was still packing the truck with friends when I left). Everyone was tired, cranky and confused. We ordered dinner from around the corner. The pizza guys took an hour to deliver from two blocks away, and on top of it, screwed up our delivery and we didn’t any plain cheese pizza for the kids who were all a mess anyhow from moving and stress, as we tried to unload what we had shoved into my truck and my parents’ car. My daughter Mara lost her first tooth soon after we arrived and was dripping blood over the nice new white carpet (note cleaning supplies were in moving van somewhere between VT and NY), my other daughter Caitlyn threw up an hour later (also on the carpet) and my 3 year old son, Finn was miserable and confused as to why we weren’t at “our house” anymore. Tom got back at 3 am, he ended up having to get a trailer to attach to the 36 foot moving van because there wasn’t enough room for our stuff. The next morning, my dad, nephew and niece showed up to help us unload the moving van, my mom took the kids to my parents’ house to play, and we got to work. Emptied the trailer, and Tom took the truck for a drive around the block (we have a horseshoe shaped street) to drop the trailer off on the street so that we could get into the main truck and doesn’t the stupid truck BREAK DOWN about 1/4 of a mile away from our house, down at the opposite end of our street. DEAD not moving truck in the middle of the street. Now we had to grab my SUV, my nephew’s and a friendly new neighbor’s and unload the truck and drive the stuff to our house again because it was going to be “a while” before they got to help us from UHAUL. We ended up going to buy a hitch, hooking the trailer to my truck and moving some of the bigger stuff that way. At one point my dad was driving our snow blower down the street and riding a bike down the street in February in Buffalo. I am sure some year we will look back at this and laugh, but not yet. Feel free to laugh though, everyone else who I tell that story to says it seems like a tv sitcom episode. I do have to admit, the sight of my dad, 70 something trying to ride a bicycle in the snow was somewhat amusing…He ended up deciding to walk it…
That is why I am nominating myself for this prize.
I would like to nominate myself. I have made many great decisions in my life showing my strength — one of them being is going through University while I was raising my three children. When I first started attending University I only had one child but by the end of my 4 year teaching degree (which took me 6 1/2 years) I was raising 3 children (I am proof that birth control isn’t 100% effective!!). With my last child I was writing a final exam and could barely fit in the desk unless I sat sideways. During the exam I was writing down how far apart my contractions were — my classmate/friend was mortified!!! She wanted to drive me home after the exam but I told her not to worry that I wasn’t having the baby today that I was going to take a day off and then the next day I would have him. This is exactly how it happened!!! However, I was mortified when I was standing in my front hallway and my water broke (it didn’t happen that way with my other 2 children) — it was then that I realized that I went to school up until almost the last minute and that in fact my water could have broke at the University:( Also during my attending University a challenge was my second child who was extremely colicky and my husband at the time had a demanding job that sometimes kept him at work from early morning until late at night. Going through this also made me strong and independent — I now know I can accomplish anything I put my mind to. In fact she spent a many nights up with me studying for exams!!! Being an educated women is important and I hope that I can instill this into my children and students. There isn’t a day I felt more proud of my accomplishments — the day I graduated with my degree and my mom and husband were watching. Being a strong mom has also shown in my decision to work only part time throughout my teaching career. Yes it would be nice to have more money but there are more important things in life such as spending quality time with your children — this is why I made this decision in my life. In fact recently I even made a more difficult decision to resign from my job, which I loved, to be home even more often. Even though I worked part time my kids still felt I worked too much. Being a teacher you bring home work and so I made the choice to be a substitute teacher so that I am not bringing the work home. I also made this decision to do this because my youngest child was having health issues that I needed to deal with. This worked out really well because I also helped my mother who was going through chemo. She lives with us and I helped take care of her while she was going through her treatment. I am proud to say my son is healthy, my mom is on the road to recovery and I am enjoying spending more time with my family. Thanks for the opportunity to win such a great prize
I am being conceited and nominating myself!
the reason is, I am a mom who blogs, I have 4 children, maintain my home, I have been through a lot in life and I think I am pretty darn strong!
My humorous story ?
Each and everyday is humorous to me. It has to be or I will be insane!
I use humor to survive having 4 children, lol
The funniest thing recently (funny now not then) was my daughter (age 3) was ahem picking her nose digging for gold the other day and I told her that was gross and to stop, her reply was, “Mommy them’s (referring to her contents of her nose) not gross them’s good ) UGG ICK!!!! I know gross humor but thats what is sticking in my head as latest funny story.
My 2nd friend i’m nominate is Heather Siebens.
She has been so much in her life. A bad marriage
Ugly custody battle with her ex. She is a great
mom. Very inspirational to me and other. Heather
all so has Epilepsy and has had several brain operation.
Threw all this she hasn’t lost faith and is all ways
smiling and encouraging others. She is an awesome person.
I’m honer to know her and be her friend and a friend.
I’m nominate Marie Wikle other wise
known as spreadingjoy on twitter.
She is a very strong person. She is all ways
bring joy to others. She a goal
to raisemoney for 1,000 back packs for kids but
at this time her daughter Megan got sick.
She has Gastroparesis and she will battle
this the rest of her life. Even throw Marie
was taken care of Megan she never for
got about her goal for a 1,000 back packs for kids
she tweeted on twitter and other places
even throw she didn’t reach her goal she was still
able to raise some funds for school supplies
for the kids. The hole time her own daughter
was sick she still thought of others and bring
joy to them. I’m very honored to have Marie as
a friend.