DJ’s by day and moms always. Meet three of the Q102 moms that live their life on the air every day!
Jenn Jordan
Here’s a poem i’d love to share.
c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved
I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability – to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this……
When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome to Holland.”
“Holland?!?” you say. “What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy.”
But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.
So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around…. and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills….and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy… and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes, that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned.”
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away… because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.
But… if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things … about Holland.
Best advice you mom ever gave you? Well, the best piece of advice I can remember my mom actually giving me was when I was 17 and had a serious boyfriend. She said, “sex is very messy and overrated”…she had a point 
. Other than that, mom never really so much taught with words, she taught with her actions and her attitude. Mom never got all worked up over anything. She could handle any stressful situation with ease. Always calm, always cool and always spending her time not dwelling in the problem, but searching for the solution. That all has come in so handy with Jakob’s Autism diagnosis and everything that has come with it.
What is the best thing about being a mom? For me, it’s the moments when Jakob is really connected and interacting with me. He spends a lot of time in his world of Autism, doing his own thing. But those times when he leaves that world, makes eye contact with me, smiles, laughs and we really know what the other is thinking and saying, it’s magical.
What advise would YOU give a new mom? Remain calm and follow your intuition. No one knows your child better than you. If your gut is telling you to do or not to do something, listen to it. Trust yourself.
Holly Morgan
Best advice your mom ever gave you? My mother made it clear in many ways that I should always have the skills to live independently and support myself financially. Never lose your self respect.
Be very careful with your credit score….it is priceless…. I love this quote from her, “Your husbands snoring may be driving you crazy, but think how you’d feel if his snoring was no longer there because something had happened to him and HE was no longer there.” I NEVER complained about his snoring again.” LOL
What is the best thing about being a mom? As small children they give so much unconditional love that it sometimes made me breathless, but for those of you who don’t yet have grown children seeing the magnificent caring adults they have grown into, and knowing that your love and compassion had to do with that still fills me with awe! I can’t wait to see the man I have raised in the future I know he will be amazing; my daughter has made me So Proud. These are the best blessings of my life!!!!! This is our rule in the house-We make sure to always say “I love you” when we leave the house, are going to bed and before hanging up the phone.
What advise would YOU give a new mom? That you will not be perfect in raising your child, but the main goal is that in the end your child will know they are loved and know that you did your best and everything else is rolling with the punches. And lots of WINE!!! Haha
Laura Powell
I will start with an e-mail that was forwarded to me in back in 2005 by one of my best friends who had just had a baby boy. I have never deleted the e-mail, and cry when I read it.
Subject: Fwd: Being a Mom
We are sitting at lunch one day when my daughter casually mentions
that she and her husband are thinking of “starting a family.”
“We’re taking a survey,” she says half-joking. “Do you think I should have a baby?”
“It will change your life,” I say, carefully keeping my tone neutral.
“I know,” she says, “no more sleeping in on weekends, no more spontaneous
vacations.”
But that is not what I mean at all. I look at my daughter, trying to decide what to tell her. I want her to know what she will never learn in childbirth classes. I want to tell her that the physical wounds of child bearing will heal, but becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will forever be vulnerable. I consider warning her that she will never again read a newspaper without asking, “What if that had been MY child?” That every plane crash, every house fire will haunt her! That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die. I look at her carefully manicured nails and stylish suit and think that no matter how sophisticated she is, becoming a mother will reduce her to the primitive level of a bear protecting her cub. That an urgent call of “Mom!” will cause her to drop a soufflé or her best crystal without a moment’s hesitation. I feel that I should warn her that no matter how many years she has invested in her career, she will be professionally derailed by motherhood. She might arrange for childcare, but one day she will be going into an important business meeting and she will think of her baby’s sweet smell. She will have to use every ounce of discipline to keep from running home, just to make sure her baby is all right. I want my daughter to know that every day decisions will no longer be routine. That a five year old boy’s desire to go to the men’s room rather than the women’s at McDonald’s will become a major dilemma. That right there, in the midst of clattering trays and screaming children, issues of independence and gender identity will be weighed against the prospect that a child molester may be lurking in that restroom. However decisive she may be at the office, she will second-guess herself constantly as a mother. Looking at my attractive daughter, I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she would give herself up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish theirs. I want her to know that a cesarean scar or shiny stretch marks will become badges of honor. My daughter’s relationship with her husband will change, but not in the way she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with him again for reasons she would now find very unromantic. I wish my daughter could sense the bond she will feel with women throughout history who have tried to stop war, prejudice and drunk driving. I want to describe to my daughter the exhilaration of seeing your child learn to ride a bike. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog or cat for the first time. I want her to taste the joy that is so real it actually hurts.
My daughter’s quizzical look makes me realize that tears have formed in my eyes. “You’ll never regret it,” I finally say. Then I reached across the table, squeeze my daughter’s hand and offer a silent prayer for her, and for me, and for all the mere mortal women who stumble their way into this most wonderful of callings.
Please share this with a Mom that you know or all of your girlfriends who may someday be Moms. May you always have in your arms the one who is in your heart.
Right?! Okay.
The best advice my mom ever gave to me was not advice at all. She simply told me, about a thousand times, that she enjoyed raising my brother and me. She said she couldn’t wait to hear about our days at school. She loved everything from the way we watched our favorite shows to the way we chewed our food. I say, lesson learned:)
Advise I would give new moms… Always park close to the cart return at the grocery store. There is nothing worse than the feeling of leaving an infant in the car while you trek across a huge parking lot to return a cart. Especially during a downpour of rain or a snowstorm. Also, potty training will happen whether you freak out about it or not. Just ask yourself, “will he be in pull ups when he’s 18-years-old?” Ummmm, no:)
Best part of being a mom? Moms get to live two lives. There is nothing like reliving life through your children’s eyes. I rediscovered how a worm moved the other day. I have been reminded that cooking frenchtoast is fun, losing front teeth are awesome and that everything is better with bubbles.
