DotMoms

Politically correct parenting

By Kelly

At fourteen, Tyler has a quirky and still-developing sense of humor and wants to express it freely. I had to draw the line with the button he recently wore home on his shirt that said: If they don't get your joke, riddle them with bullets.

When I told him it had to go back to the store for either a refund or an exchange for something less dangerously provocative, he was angry that I would stifle his creative expression. "What's the big deal? It's not like I would DO it."

I pointed out three recent news stories about school shootings and my constant fear that something like that could happen in our so-called safe world. I said that kids thinking violence is funny and parents not knowing it, or not caring about it, is one of the things that makes me so afraid to send my kids out into the world without me every day. I think it's at the heart of why so many kids are acting out with violence. I would not just let it slip by and say, "Oh, he's just expressing his sense of humor." No way.

He teared up and took off the button.

"I just don't understand how you think that's even remotely funny," I said.

"Mom, I didn't think of it like that. It's just a funny play on words. A joke? A riddle?"

"Right," I countered. "Bullets? Death? Killing? Dead?"

"Okay! I know! I'm returning it."

Which he did a few days later, and came home with two new ones that other people might find equally offensive and provocative.

I found Jesus. He was behind the couch the whole time.

A village in Texas has lost its idiot in block letters below Bush’s grinning mug.

So do we have to train our kids to be so politically correct that they can't wear their sense of humor on their sleeves? I'm at a loss. Did I let him keep the new ones because I think they're funny? Because they resonate with my political leanings, with my grain-of-salt attitude about historical religious figures and religion in general?

Yes. Yes I did. And if they don't get the joke? Well, I hope he'll just smile knowingly and walk away.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

Mapping the future

By Kelly

I’ve been all over the map with my work and lifestyle choices. I thought for sure this last time around, the house in the country, the big market garden, home with the kids, homeschooling, working slowly at getting us less dependent on the grid, was going to be it. Forever. Or at least a couple of decades.

But here I am once again, due to my own choices, abandoning what I thought was “it” for something else. Now we live firmly planted on a major power grid and the decision to move means we have to ride out the poor real estate market in the area we moved away from. Two house payments means I’m going back to work, Ty is going to public school, and Lila to a preschool daycare.

But I’ve been in this place of surrender before. Two unplanned pregnancies. Moving to another state. Marriage, divorce, marriage. Stay-at-home. Work full-time. I thought for years that I’d just keep working the magazine circuit, doing design and production work for whoever would have me. But I hated graphic design. Loved the pay, the flexibility, the mostly good and interesting people I met, but the work? Hated it. Every time I sat down to a project, I doubted myself so much.

I have no degree, have never taken a design class, and everything (what little) I do know, I learned on a job. But really, it was just the practical “photo here, big type, little type, fix the kerning, white space is good” sort of work. Rote. Uninspired. I didn’t really know what I was doing, even if I was pretty good at it. I must have been okay, I always had work when I wanted it. But I’m not fooling myself, I’ve never been talented. I feel the same way about parenting!

I’m clearly not a farmer, either. A gardener, yes, but big production growing even on my small scale was too much for one person. Homeschooling isn’t working too well for us either, and Lila is so excited about the prospect of going to “school” that she potty trained overnight. I look at these signposts and think, "yes, we're going in the right direction."

This job I’m hoping I get is copywriting for a huge toy company, and the idea of being able to work with words for a living gives me a bit of a shiver. Words I understand. I know what to do with them, and why to do it. The connection and inspiration are just there waiting for me. The college degree I stepped away from finishing was in journalism and creative writing. I always found it ironic that I spent so many years working for major magazines and never had a single word published in one of them. That I never even tried.

So my life is in major flux again, but I think I might finally understand the lesson this new change is once again wrapped in: never say never, and forever never comes.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

The road to independence

By Kelly

It took most of the day to dump the adrenaline back out of my body and to lift the weight of anxiety and fear I felt crushing my heart.

After a half hour in the late morning, Lila became bored with cleaning out the perennial bed, and walked across the front yard of our new home, towards the neighbor’s house. I tried to call her back, “Sweets, it’s time to plant the flower seeds.” I held out the packet of Forget-Me-Nots to her, “Will you help me sprinkle them?”

She continued to edge away from me. “I’m not coming.”

“Lila, we’re staying in our yard. Please turn around.” I said a bit more firmly.

“NO!” She marched off, but angled away from the neighbors’ house that sits close to the street, next to our very long driveway, and pointed herself towards the road instead. I threw down my claw tool and started towards her, calling, “Lila Grace, you need to stop now!”

She kicked it into high gear and sprinted for the road, laughing and looking back over her shoulder. I yelled “Stop!” as I started running, and my sandals slid out from under my feet, throwing me off balance. She kept running. I tossed off the shoes and ran as fast as I possibly could, yelling “Stop!” over and over again, with increasing panic.

I could hear a car coming up the street, a loud motor, moving fast. She was just about to the sidewalk and the sound that came out of me next was so primal I scared myself half to death, and she hit the sidewalk and turned right, then screeched to a halt as the car hurtled past three feet from her small body.

I reached her a second later, though it felt like minutes, and knelt down on the sidewalk in front of her, holding her shoulders too tight, wanting to crush her body into mine in a giant hug, but afraid that if I did that first, I would never get it through to her to not run from me. My whole body shook and I felt like I might throw up right there on her feet. She stared at me, stricken. “I walk on the sidewalk, Mommy.” My voice had shocked her into stopping, and she didn’t know what I was so upset about.

People came out of their houses to see what all of the yelling was about, and I picked her up and carried her back to our front porch. She continued making a plea for taking a walk on the sidewalk, and I understood that she wasn’t trying to run into the road, at least not on purpose. I sat her down on the porch swing, still shaking. My body felt like ice ran in my veins, and a cocktail of fear and anger swirled through my blood. I told her we were having a time out for a few minutes because she ran away from me and didn’t stop when I asked her to. I told her how afraid I felt when she ran, and how dangerous it is for her to go to the road without Mommy, or Daddy, or Tyler.

I don’t think I got through to her at all. I don’t think her 3-year-old brain is capable of picturing the terrible things that could happen. Unfortunately my 39-year-old brain is incapable of stopping those pictures from playing on an endless repeating loop. It’s all I dreamed about when I finally did fall asleep, and even as I sit here writing this, I want to sit her in a chair and drill the rules into her one more time, just to be sure.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

Looking for home

By Kelly

When I hung up the phone and told Tyler that our loan got approved, clearing us for takeoff to our new house in the city, he ran into the back yard and let out a joyous “Whoop!” throwing his lanky body through space, and kicking dandelion seeds loose. He shook his fist at the endless lawn that he hates to mow.

“We’re out of here!”

During our family meeting about the move last month he told us how he’s really felt from the beginning of what I think of as our Country Living Experiment. “I hate it here. I like the outdoors, but there’s too much of it. It’s too much work. There’s nobody to hang out with.” We knew we wanted to leave, but that settled it.

The kids spend much of their young lives strapped into a moving vehicle. While we love our pickup, we’re tired of driving at least thirty minutes to do anything. We chose to homeschool after a disastrous first year in the school system. All of our connections are in town, where the schools are much better. Tyler will go to junior high next year.

None of us has made any lasting friendships out here, and our experiences with neighbors have only made us keep more to ourselves. People are neighborly enough, and willing to help you out of a bind, but not friends. Conversations are riptides that take us, unwilling and unprepared, into the muddy waters of racism, misogyny, and conservative “values.”

Chris’ commute will go from thirty minutes to three, gaining us an entire month of forty-hour workweeks together each year. We bought a house with enough land for me to get my gardening needs met, and to continue doing the farmers’ market in the summer. Now the market will be just a few blocks away. As will the library, a grocery store, Tyler’s guitar lessons, four families with kids we enjoy, and our adult friends. The house is adjacent to Chris’ parents’ property, so we’ll be more available to help as their need grows with their failing health.

Still, I worry about the effects of all the moving on Tyler, that it has adversely shaped the man he is growing into in ways we can’t see. We’re moving into his eighth home in fourteen years, my sixteenth in twenty. He’s never had a place to settle in and let his roots grow deeply. This may not be the one either, because he’s exploring the possibility of high school in New York with his father.

Gratefully, I know this new property already has some of our roots growing in it, even though we haven’t taken possession yet. The moment we walked in it felt like home.

I hope Tyler feels grounded living there. That he’ll put down some roots, and be happier living in a community. That no matter where his life takes him, he’ll know there is a place he can return to—in body or in spirit—where the people who love him live peacefully and fulfilled. That it’s not too late for him to know that home in his heart.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

For the record

By Kelly

I keep meaning to buy a digital voice recorder so I can start capturing the fleeting moments of beautiful toddler-speak with Lila before they’re gone. She’ll turn three this July, and will abandon that toddler spirit for a bigger girl persona. I’ve done a terrible job of keeping record of the Lila-isms and am kicking myself already for not taking better notes. So many hilarious things she used to say are gone, replaced with the correct pronunciations. No matter how I beg her to say my favorite: “ha-vee-ray!” she'll only give me plain, old “hooray!” It’s so interesting how their growing minds translate the language in such unique ways.

Of course, I’m also relieved that she’s starting to pronounce with a little more accuracy, especially after the spectacle she caused at the funeral for Chris’ grandmother this winter. A coo-coo clock hung on the wall in a back hallway of the funeral parlor, and Lila found it fascinating. She ran the length of the hall announcing to everyone that she loved the clock, the great big clock. Except she couldn’t pronounce the “L.” I ended up having to take her out before the services even began because I couldn’t divert her attention from “The great, big clock. What a huge clock! Just look at that giant clock!”

Tyler’s father and I made many recordings of him talking when he was little, but I don’t have any of them. I’ve been thinking about those tapes a lot recently because I notice that any tension in me softens when I focus on the things Lila says and her particular speach patterns. Like her lilting rhythm — a hint of her Great Grandfather and his Swedish heritage. Or the nod to her Great Grandmother’s French Canadian ancestry when she says “cloud,” or “ice cream,” or “climb.” She rolls the “l” and “r” and I fall instantly in love with a kid I wanted to trade in for a more cooperative model just a moment before.

I’d love to be able to listen to those recordings of Tyler from a decade ago. He’s growing away from me so quickly; each step of the day seems to take him faster into the wide world and away from the safe harbor of our home, and his childhood. It seems like more and more of our communications are a battle of wills, me pulling him back, him pushing me away.

I’m so grateful that I noticed this inroad with Lila, because I can use it with Tyler when we’re locked in a verbal match. I may not be able to listen to the tapes, but I can make an effort to remember that this young man was once a little boy who experienced the world with perfect innocence. And now he’s taking his rightful place as a teenager and exploring what that means, leaving the innocence behind.

Maybe that will help me to find the beauty in the voice he’s developing now. I know it’s in there somewhere.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

To have, or not to have: that was the question

By Kelly

More than a decade ago, I tried, and then stopped trying, to salvage my failing marriage to the father of my 13-year-old son. After that I spent five years trying to make a new long-distance relationship into something permanent and solid. During these tumultuous years, and often for the wrong reasons, I wished for another child. I knew adding another person to the complex equation of an unhappy marriage would complicate my problems rather than solve them. The same factors applied to a partnership in which the parties lived 500 miles away from each other.

Even knowing that, I still obsessed over it. I know now that I believed a successful pregnancy and the birth of a new child meant that I was getting something right. By the time of the divorce, I had miscarried three pregnancies. Looking back, I can't feel anything but relief that I exited the marriage with only one child whose heart needed to be put back together again.

When Chris and I conceived Lila, I was at another crossroads -- ready for a day-to-day partnership again, but unable to make the drastic move across the country that would hurt my son and his father. I guess I hadn't really learned anything from my past experiences yet, because it was nothing short of miraculous relief when I felt the decision taken from my hands and made for me by the pregnancy. And so we moved.

We have all adjusted to the changes and are thriving, and this child has awakened a new level of intense love in all three of us: her parents and big brother. The day-to-day family routine I so craved is enough to handle, often more than enough. Yet, the question of another child has hovered in my thoughts since her birth. Would she be a happier child with a sibling closer to her own age? Shouldn't we just do it now while she's still a toddler, and get the hard part over with before I'm 40?

Well, I turn 39 in May, and I've been doing a lot of thinking about our family and about my past. It has taken me an awful lot of kicking myself in the rear end to admit that the only concrete reason I have for wanting another child is for the pleasure of trying one more time to get it right. Rather than put that energy and love into a whole new person, I am humbly put on notice that I need to give it to the two beauties who already grace my life.

Motherhood is a journey we take across space and time without a map or a guide, often making up the language and the customs as we go. So often it feels like we're traveling solo, even when we're tripping over little people at every turn. How can we pay attention to the landscape when we have so much baggage to keep track of? The path of each mother's voyage takes its own shape on the map of life, even though we all end up at the same destination. I'm just grateful to discover how much smoother my own ride can be because I finally know that what I already have is more than enough.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

Stranger than fiction

By Kelly

I’ve always answered the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” with a nervously whispered, “A writer.” I learned to read and write at age four, and wrote ridiculous, terrible stories and poems through high school. After I graduated, I became sidetracked and it took me close to 10 years to get back to regular writing, and I have just recently allowed myself the pleasure of writing fiction again. I almost can’t believe how much I’m enjoying the process.

Now I’m carrying a small notebook with me everywhere I go, or running for a scrap and a pen in the middle of switching laundry loads so I can scribble down some insight into a character’s motivation. These people I am writing about talk to me as much as my children do, and just like my offspring, the more I pay attention, the more they reveal. They also wake me up to tell me things in the middle of the night, and keep me worrying about details like: How will the protagonist resolve her feelings of ambiguity about her unexpected pregnancy without being stereotypical? How will I show the reader the connection between spring planting and the end of life? What if I don’t have the chops to do all of the research I need to do to make this historically and legally accurate? How will I know when it’s finished? Is there a way to talk about the alcoholism without sending up red flags to all of the men in my extended family? Because, really, a lot of material comes from my own life.

A recent visit from my parents revealed some interesting, lifelong habits that I have inherited; ways of being in the world that always slam me into an emotional brick wall. Sick to death of feeling sick to death of Me, I forced myself to find the space to watch it in action this time. I realized that my whole adult life I have waited for my parents to change, assuming that their doing so would give me permission to change without hurting them.

During this visit I took notes. Too many years have passed, and I’m ready to stop being unhappy with the way I am all of the time. I’m no different from most people I know. I’m a worrier, I’m insecure, I’m jealous of other people’s success, I’m terrified that I’ll never amount to anything, I am often uncomfortable in my own skin, hate my own voice, and cringe when passing a mirror much of the time. Writing plays a major role in keeping me free of serious unhappiness. My mental health stays in a more solid balance when I make time to write every day, and most of those things I just listed take a back seat.

After going through a lot of my scribbles from the visit, it dawned on me that these deeper relationship patterns are what my fiction writing lacks. I’ve been so afraid to write about any of this stuff, but I now see that I’m the only person who can give me permission to use it. I don’t want to write about the unhappy truths in my creative non-fiction or on my blog as much. Maybe that’s cowardice, maybe I’m too nice, maybe my mother succeeded in making me realize that it’s not cool to talk behind people’s backs and that if I don’t have anything nice to say, I should keep my pie-hole closed. But with fiction, I’m allowed to change things enough that I can disguise them. Besides, I doubt I'll be able to fully knock the insecurity, so what are the chances anybody will ever read it?

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

Lessons from "Little Bear"

By Kelly

When Lila was born, I swore I would not use the television as a babysitter this time around, and it seemed like I wouldn’t even have to tempt myself until a couple of months ago when she discovered "Little Bear." Before that she turned up her nose at more than a few minutes of viewing anything except maybe shows about airplanes on the military channel, so she mostly followed me around like a shadow, wanting to help chop veggies, load the dishwasher, switch the laundry, all the while bossing me around and tripping me up.

Now as soon as she’s feeling a bit tired, or I’m busy and she doesn’t want to participate, she howls for "Little Bear." Her interest was a welcome reprieve from the stress of living with a toddler, and a half-hour with her new favorite friend seemed to act like a meditation, she became so calm and still, soft and sweet. So I set the DISH to record every new episode on our DVR. Of course, like any user, she’s become dependent upon the charms of "Little Bear" to get her through the rough spots in the day, and like any pusher, I’ve given her more and more. I’ve gone so far as to let her watch four episodes in a row, twice in one day, when I’m trying to get something accomplished. So much for a television-free childhood.

I try to convince myself that it’s not so bad, at least the show is sweet, has a gentle pace, lovely music, and gives Lila the opportunity to see what a mother who is patient even when aggravated is like. That aspect alone makes for a whole different world from the one she lives in every day. No wonder she wants to disappear into it for hours on end. I also compare it to the addiction that gripped Tyler’s little mind at that age, where he knew every word to every Disney movie. If we were home, the television stayed on for many, many hours, especially the year he was three, when I worked from home and didn’t have the money to pay for a babysitter.

It took years to get “A Whole New World” out of my mental loop, and I suspect Tyler’s current attraction to Anime originated in the wide-eyed-wonderful-world of "Aladdin." "Little Bear"'s not so bad, and it’s a laugh riot when Lila runs around the house, bent over at the waist, chin thrust forward, arms cocked behind her, yelling “Quack, quack! Quack, quack! Look at me! I’m Duck! Quack, quack!”

I’m acknowledging right now, however, that we’re developing a habit around here, and that I am aware of the fact that it’s up to me to engage the kid in other ways. It’s time to quit being the pusher, to encourage her to tag along and be my shadow, work alongside me, no matter how much she distracts and annoys me. I should take a lesson from Mother Bear, and find the patience to get my work done and interact with my kid in a more loving fashion. Sometimes the cleaning, the planting, the writing, the weeding, the cooking can wait for a few minutes while I indulge her developing imagination and walk around the house in search of “The Big Woof-Woof!” 732 times each day.

I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I’m glad this is the one show her little mind wrapped around so tightly. If I’m really honest with myself, I have to say that this mother could stand to watch a little more "Little Bear." And take notes.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

The monster at the end of the hall

By Kelly

Somebody new moved into our house, an invisible and unwelcome somebody. Thirteen-year-old Tyler brought him to the door and introduced him to his toddler sister, Lila, who now spends 75 percent of her time looking for and talking about this somebody: The Monster. Or, as she says with wide eyes, her eyebrows raised right up into her hairline, "Mooonshteeeeerrr… er… er… er."

Our new guest has brought to light our family's need to work on our potty mouths. For the last seven nights, Lila has hopped down from her chair after dinner, stood at the end of the long, dark hallway that leads to the bedrooms, and said in her most pensive, can-you-believe-this voice, "Ho-dy sh*t. Monshteerrr." We try not to laugh, really we do. We deliver many kicks to shins under the table, and attempt to arrange our faces in expressions of questioning acknowledgement.

"Shall we go look down the hall to show you that there are no monsters, Lila?"

"Monster. In my bedroom. Monster in the dark hallway. Under my bed, too. Big Monster."

We make many nightly trips down the hall to look into every closet, drawer, and potential monster-holding crevice, showing her the usual occupants: puffs of unswept cat hair, rogue socks and shoes, teddy bears she hid weeks ago. Then we try to distract her by building towers out of blocks for her to knock down, or sit on the couch in a warm cuddle to read stories, stretching that endless hour until bedtime with calm play. If she hasn't had a chance to play outside, we put on some music and spend that time doing lots of hopping and dancing to get the ya-ya's out. Either way, every few moments she interjects, "Ho-dy sh*t! Monster in the hall!"

Upon rising each morning she sits up in our bed and talks about the man in the closet with his head on Daddy's shirts, and the monster in the sock drawer. She sleeps so soundly at night now, I have no idea if she dreams about these beings I have come to think of as intruders. Lila has such an obsessive interest in them, I wonder if she even experiences them as intruders. Her attention to them seems so gleeful and welcoming. Like they're good friends. Friends who scare the bejeebus out of her whenever she walks by a darkened doorway, but friends just the same. I get the feeling that if we ever prove to her the non-existence of these monsters, she will be devastated.

So we'll continue our endless loops around the house in search of monsters, while shedding light into dark corners to reveal as much of the unknown as we can. We'll continue to beg her brother to stop finding new, creative ways to frighten this little person who still stands between the worlds of reality and imagination, uncertain how to qualify anything. Perhaps more importantly, we'll keep working on helping her to express her joy and wonder at the possibility of monsters living amongst us with more socially acceptable language.

So far she's taken my, "Holy Macaroni, Monsters!" and used it to embellish her favorite phrase, so today we hear her high, husky voice ringing out in the hallway, "Ho-dy sh*t! Macaroni Monshhteeerrrs!"

I don't suppose I should bother making macaroni and cheese for lunch.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.

Author Interview: Jennifer Margulis on "Toddler"

By Kelly

This week I’ve attempted to write two sentences in a row no less than 732 times. I remember this stage of parenting -- what I think of as The Hellish and Beautiful Toddler Years -- from the first time around. I just wish I’d learned some useful coping skills when I did all of this a long decade ago.

I got lulled into a false sense of security with my first child, Tyler, because reasoning and meaningful questions like, “Do you know how you feel all tight in your chest, and like slamming things around when you get interrupted too many times while you’re reading?” have been part of his lexicon for quite a while.

The same cannot be said for Lila, which is why I’m madly typing this on my ancient laptop in the truck, while Ty is at his Kidprov & Socratic Think Tank meeting, and Lila is catching a contorted but much-needed nap in her car seat.

At 27 months, Lila responds best to two- or three-word directives combined with distraction, the success of which generally involves getting up from whatever I’m working on and playing with her. I don’t really know how to play with children, so I’m not enjoying this now any more than I did the last time.

I get it that stirring air with a plastic spoon, and sipping air out of a plastic cup for an hour at a time, “Taste this, Mumma,” thrills my girl’s heart. I just have no idea how to do it joyfully each time, a constant repeat of words and action for so long, without my mind working over the day’s to-do list, or editing my current writing project in my head. I feel like I so seldom know how to be truly present with my children.

Some longed-for inspiration came my way when Jennifer Margulis sent me a copy of the anthology she edited. Jennifer and I are on a small e-mail list of writers, a support group of women spread out across the country.

Reading "Toddler: Real-Life Stories of Those Fickle, Irrational, Urgent, Tiny People We Love" in bed at night, a black T-shirt draped over the lamp shade to tone the light down, Lila’s sweaty feet pushed against my legs, her plump arm thrown across my chest, I feel like I have found a support group for People Who Parent Toddlers. They come straight to bed with me, and give me permission to wish I had more time for my creative life, and to think I can learn to embrace this difficult, but short phase.

Jennifer let me ask her some questions about writing and motherhood. I hope you find some inspiration in her responses. I know I did.

Kelly Ferry: Have you found any resources or tools that have helped you to balance writing and parenting?

Jennifer Margulis: I actually compiled "Toddler" because I was looking for a book like it and couldn't find one. My girls were 19 months apart and my toddler broke her leg when her sister was just a few weeks old. I had two children in diapers who couldn't walk, one who smelled like amniotic fluid. I was exhausted but hungry for help and I realized I wanted to hear other stories by women about parenting toddlers, but there was no book out there about that. The most helpful books for me, both for my parenting and my writing, have been books of real-life stories. I really enjoyed "Mothers Who Think" and "Operating Instructions" because neither book told me what to do or how to do it. They just shared, with honesty and poignancy, what other women were doing.

I think every woman carves out her own parenting and writing space and that configuration looks very different. My husband grew up with an alcoholic single mom who sent him to preschool when he was very small and I was raised mostly by nannies. Probably because of our painful childhoods, when we decided to have children we knew we wanted to raise them ourselves. My children almost always come first so finding time to write is always a juggling act. A fellow writer with three kids, who works from home, sent me an e-mail a few days ago, which read, "Isn't this whole concept of Balance just Bullshit?" I think it's something we are all looking for but it is the rare person who has truly found it.

KF: How much time per day do you spend writing? Revising?

JM: It depends. We are a very deadline-driven family as my husband is also a writer. Usually I drop my oldest daughter at school at 8:30, get home at about 9:00 and write, edit, and do work until noon or one o'clock. Then I take over with the kids and my husband spends the afternoon working. We reconvene at dinnertime. On Wednesdays I only work for about an hour as James and I (with our 4.5 year old Athena) take turns volunteering at Hesperus's school that day and the person not at school is home with the little one.

Although I do not write fast, I work very quickly and I tend to be very efficient. I have so little time that I cannot waste it. I keep wondering what I did with all that pre-kid time. I feel like if I knew then what I know now about how precious time is and how little of it I'd have for myself, I could have conquered the world, so to speak!

KF: Are your children aware of the prominent place they hold in your writing? If so, what do they tell you they feel about it?

JM: I like this question! They are very interested in my writing and Hesperus, who is six, always asks me what articles I'm working on. Then we talk about Capoeira or breastfeeding, or whatever is the subject of my latest research. I recently wrote a column about her called "A Six Year Old Gets a Little Silly" and I read it to her. She laughed so hard and made me read it to her three more times. A lot of her friends' parents read my column and comment to her on it. Strangers often stop me on the street, because they either recognize me from my photo in the paper, or recognize my children's names. At this age, my kids love reading and hearing about themselves.

KF: Do you read blogs? If so, how long do you spend reading blogs?

JM: Forgive me, but I don't usually have time to read blogs. I don't read a lot on the Internet, as I am still an old-fashioned book kind of a girl.

KF: You write a newspaper column, and there are more mom blogs popping up in newspapers than ever before. Have you considered a blog? If so, what factors might compel you to write one? What might inhibit you?

JM: I have not considered keeping a blog but I do want to get my column, "Tales From the Crib," syndicated. Perhaps starting a blog would help with this. The Internet, which I use and appreciate every day, can be such a time drain. I have so little time that I am a little wary of starting down that path.

KF: Is good writing for newspapers different from other forms of good writing? If so, how?

JM: My columns are in sound bytes of approximately 700 words. I think the word count really limits how much you can say. At the same time, I've been surprised at how much substance can go into such a short piece. It really forces you to stay on track and to make every word count.

KF: Talk about where your ideas come from, how you keep track of them, and whether any parts of your life are "off-limits" as writing topics.

JM: Other than the F word being edited out from one story about Athena's homebirth (in the story I scream at my husband, whom I've ordered not to call anyone for hours, to call the f*@#ing midwives,) the only off-limit topic is James. I actually write a lot about him but I have to clear it with him first. We live in a relatively small town (20,000 people live in Ashland) and I once wrote in a column that we met while he was wearing a black cocktail dress. He didn't appreciate all of Ashland learning about that. He doesn't really censor my column but I do have to read it to him -- and get it okayed by him -- IF it's about him, first.

Ideas? I always have ideas. I used to be an insomniac and spent hours up at night with ideas swarming in my head. Thankfully I'm a better sleeper now but I am still full of ideas. I usually have 3-4 columns in inventory at any given time because there is so much I want to write about (and I travel sometimes and don't want to be caught at the 11th hour without a column lined up). When we went to Europe this summer and the start of the trip was a disaster I wrote a funny column about it. Just knowing I would write about it helped me live through the hours of cleaning up vomit in France. My children are always doing quirky, interesting things that I write about. I observe people a lot -- with and without their children -- and those observations give me ideas. I have very strong political ideas and those often become part of my columns.

KF: What impact has your writing life had on your family life?

JM: This is an interesting question, too. I was reading a column aloud to the family and James said, "It's so nice that you are writing all of this down." Writing insures that we have a record of our lives and that we will remember many of the things that are so easily forgotten. We also keep journals; a family journal that we all write and draw in, and invite friends and relatives to make notes in. We also keep a journal for each of our three children.

KF: Do you find it is possible to have a writing life that is separate from the web of a busy family life?

JM: The three hours of work I do in the morning is separate from family life but not really. There are always interruptions. As I am often writing about my children, they are never really far away.

Kelly Ferry lives in Northeast Ohio with her husband, teen son, and toddler daughter. She writes when she can, thinks about writing when she can't, and knows more will be revealed.