Greener action, mama.

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Mark Twain

We are in a war that many believe is about oil, our planet is warming due to the amount of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere, and we daily drive our families all over communities designed for the automobile. That's enough to send anyone under the covers, swearing off NPR forever.

So when we noticed this month's Working Mother Magazine, GO GREEN, we got excited. The issue features green companies, tips from environmental stars and ideas to help "ride the earth-friendly bandwagon." The article "Eco-family: Too busy to be green? Take small steps that make a big impact" gives a long list of 1st steps. And we all know that 1st steps lead to bigger steps . . . and those eventually lead to cultural shifts. It all starts with commitment.

This month's MAU action is to make a pledge to take substantial "green steps" between now and Earth Day 2008 (April 22nd). Be bold and look at: how you shop, how much you throw away, driving habits (including sports practices), etc. Involve your family in crafting the pledge; we’re talking around our dinner tables at night, working together toward sustainability. One ten year old declared, "We have to reduce our trash!" (partially because it's his job to take out the garbage) and he's right, so that's on his family's green pledge list, joining that of another of our family’s wherein “playing compost” and Community Garden is a favorite game of a two year old. When you gather as family—perhaps even over the holiday feasting in which many of us will participate over the coming weeks and months—what will your children contribute to the mix?

Click here and submit your commitment to MAU

Receive a green MAU bumper sticker! (Good for Volvos AND Radio Flyers, bicycle helmets, strollers, stainless water canteens and guitar cases!)
MAU will also post a variety of these ideas on the MAU blog to inspire others to change habits.

From our personal commitment, we will engage our communities, influence decision makers and VOILA! create cultural shifts that ensure a secure and sustainable planet for future generations.

Hop on the green bandwagon, change habits and enjoy the wild ride!

And for sustaining your commitment all through the year, purchase the 2008 MAU Handbook for tales of inspired and story-changing individuals, tools for engaging in mother activism and issue based actions each week of the year: www.mothersactingup.org

Changing the Story: YES!

It's time to shop, reflect, give thanks, eat! During the upcoming feasting and holiday celebrations, may we celebrate in particular the individuals who are changing the world's story with the strength of their commitment; a story in which currently every other child lives in poverty, almost half of all war casualties are children, and global warming threatens every child's future.

Let's take time to honor mothers like the late Dame Anita Roddick who said, "I want to connect with people who share my outrage…But I also want to tell — and hear…stories that lift our spirits, that celebrate how glorious our planet is. Outrage and celebration — let's run this gamut together." Inspired leaders like Greg Mortenson who says, "When I look into the eyes of the children in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I see the eyes of my own children full of wonder. I hope that we each do our part to leave them a legacy of peace." Mamas and community builders like Tiffany Bellah, who says, "Having a baby changes everything. Since that wonder-filled day 6 years ago when Grace entered this world, I have been reaching out of my comfort zone. She has made of me a responsible revolutionary, and my role as her mentor and mother has propelled me to take an active part in forming the world she will be inheriting."

People who, when our common family is threatened, find the courage and strength to change the story. This holiday season, Mothers Acting Up* cheers, stomps, whistles and in every other way honors the individuals around the world who are taking action on behalf of our future generations. YES!!!!

Purchase the 2008 MAU Handbooks for story-changing individuals,
information and actions: www.mothersactingup.org

*mothers and others, on stilts or off, who exercise protective care over someone smaller

Mamamade is tomorrow!!

I'll be on hand all day tomorrow at Mamamade 2007 to sell (and give away to new mamas as per a sponsor gift) MAU Handbooks (think of it as the Passport for the Movement, honoring the promise of our children's lives!). I'll have Nashville MAU aprons and recycled tees (see photos here for examples-- each is different!) and I'll have MAU bumperstickers, too: they're green and round and look great on strollers, water bottles, guitar cases, and wagons (both the Volvo and the Radio Flyer version). You can go home with a bumper sticker for a buck and a pledge (of your choosing) to lessen your carbon imprint and do something to green up your family's life.

With me through the day will be my boy, Ziggy, and a few of the Nashville MAU mamas; we'll be ever so glad to answer questions about our local community, help you fill out voter registration cards, sign you up for national and local action and news of community building, and in general, cheer you on... You go, mama!! Remember, being one of many Mothers Acting Up takes on many forms and is not so much one more dang thing to do, but just part of the fabric of how we live....

The 2008 Mothers Acting Up Handbook: YES!

The world's children have found a brilliant new advocate: mothers*. We're stretching our traditional roles to include publicly advocating for children and the world's children shout YES!

The 2008 Handbook includes the inspirational voices of Marion Wright Edelman (founder of the Children's Defense Fund!), Anita Roddick (The Body Shop), Harry Belafonte, Dolores Huerta, Ann Crittenden, Joan Blades (Moms Rising), Patricia Foulkrod, Muhammad Yunus, Representative Jan Schakowsky, Massouda Jalal and a whole cast of mothers* sharing their personal insights. Designed to uniquely appeal to mothers, the Handbook addresses two of the biggest challenges to mother activism: lack of time and how overwhelming the problems seem. By offering a daily entry point (with simple actions and accessible information set in a beautiful, inspirational and lively format) the Handbook provides tools in a language that engages everyone, policy wonk and new activist alike!

Full color, 6.5 X 9 inches, soft cover & spiral bound, two year-at-a glance section.

Price: $20.00

It's just that good.

Briefly, I had my back turned after having made the boy one of his cherished PB & J sandwiches and putting on his recent favorite Hackensaw Boys CD, Love What You Do. (We've been fans of these guys since fairly early in what they were doing, and while the band has changed a lot with no original members taking full part, we celebrate them !! Love What You Do is sort of last of the old guard and serves as vehicle for a lot of David Sickmen's really sweet and funny and gentle songs.... we dig it but good. Ziggy's been singing Dave 's "Alabama Shamrock" and dancing to Rob Bullington's "Cannonball" all morning.)

Between the jigs and the singing and the sandwich making I turned ‘round, and this gorgeous Mixed Berry Spreadable Fruit face was peering back at me. He’d tried to drink from the jar!!

Halloween, revisited.

This was following the last day of Mother's Day Out.... note the tear-streaked lion whiskers....

A weem away, a weem away....

This morning's record party.....


( I ADORE the look on My Beloved Mister's face here.)

Moving onward: no more Mother's Day Out program for us.

Eastwood Christian Children's Center (EC3) in East Nashville is absolutely a wonderful program.

That said, my little one just didn't take to the separation from mama right now. His discomfort escalated at each parting, and while he got something out of going and genuinely liked the other children and the staff, he cried each day and because he's so ding dang verbal, could tell me: I do not want to go to school. I just want to be with Mommy. I am sad. I miss Mommy. I do not like the classroom. I do not want to stay here.

If it'd been manipulative crying or discomfort, that'd been one thing, but this became increasing and genuine distress and in order to get him to stay, I'd have had to peel him from my body daily. Yes, it broke my heart. Yes, it wore me out. And I wish it'd have worked for him, and for us. But I don't want his lasting memories of the experience to be traumatizing or to be one wherein I didn't listen to him and didn't maintain his trust.

As a dedicated homeschooling / life learning parent, I'm okay with this. But as the wife of a spouse and co-parent gone seven days a week and as a working mother (aren't we all, I know!) with increasing need to earn and growing professional responsibility, I'm a little on edge w/r/t juggling my time. I KNOW it will all work out, I just can't see yet what it looks like.

What I do notice is that with my escalating work schedule, my child's neediness is also ramping UP. I understand that. And thank heavens his father and I are share the same viewpoint on this.

I'm trying to stay focused on patience and letting the most right thing reveal itself.

So we're done with this experiment for now and will be finding our way to the next ones. I don't see it as a failure on any of our parts, more as a learning to be applied to how we do things as a whole.

The loves of my life.

On Hallow's Eve. My Beloved Mister & Ziggy as "lion cat," with Thomas the Tank Engine. We visited only one home for tricking and treating, that of former next door neighbors and dear friends, Bill & Kaki.

The whiskers and red nose remain....

Listen Up.

Last week I went into the studio with Nashville's own Liberadio(!) hosts, Mary Mancini and Freddie O'Connell. They made it so fun, and pretty easy to talk the talk.... Check it out here, and tune in Monday mornings on WRVU or for syndicated airings on AM Fridays and Saturdays. It won't be long before this dynamic duo goes national. Really. They're smart, funny as hell, and in general just well informed and interesting as well as interested.

Yippee!

Thrillingly, my project proposal to the Case Foundation's Make It Your Own Awards for Mothers Acting Up made it to the TOP 100 out of nearly five thousand applications! This is hugely exciting for MAU, and for me. See the kind of amazing company I'm keeping in this list, and click on my project Mobilizing Mamas to see what it's all about! You can see the widget right here (under the about me photo) at Ms. Booty Homemaker Explains It All To You. More on that soonest!!