The Momoir Project

For those of you who have always wanted to learn to write your stories of motherhood, but can’t afford the Momoir classes, here’s your chance. The Momoir Project is offering its first-ever scholarship to two deserving moms.

The first scholarship is open to any moms who want to join the fall online session of Writing for Moms. The second scholarship is open to Vancouver-area moms who want to join the fall session of Writing for Moms. These classes begin Thursday, September 16th and run every other Thursday evening for six sessions. The classes run for 6 sessions, spread over 12 weeks and will introduce you to the basics of writing a good memoir. Through readings, in-class writing assignments and sharing your stories with other moms, you will connect with other moms, get inspired and learn a lot about yourself.

You must legitimately not be able to afford the classes, and be able to articulate why. You do not qualify if you have already paid for the classes, or if you’ve been a student before.

Winners will be chosen based on need and the quality of the writing in your essay.

Entry requirements:
All you need to do is write a personal essay explaining why you want to write and why you can’t afford the classes. Only those essays posted as a comment to this blog will be considered. Deadline is: August 30. Winners will be announced on September 5, by email. Only those who win will be contacted. Please remember to note which scholarship you are applying for in your essay.

Good luck!

By Lizabeth Pirstl

Like many new moms, the allure of textured papers and delicate adornments tempted me. Friends showed me their elaborate and stunning scrapbook pages. For months I resisted – until the day a friend casually mentioned how much her five-year-old daughter loved looking at her baby scrapbook.

That’s when it hit: mommy guilt.

A week later, I crossed the line – from non-scrapbooker to scrapbooker – but I was determined to go on my own terms. My daughter’s book would be simple and inexpensive. A complimentary background here, a butterfly sticker there, maybe a caption or two.

With a plain scrapbook and some simple paper, I went to my first crop night – an evening for moms to get together to eat, drink, gossip and work on their scrapbooks. Overwhelmed by a sea of papers and tools, and intimidated by the foreign lingo, I panicked. I cropped until I had sliced each photo to within an inch of its life. Back home, I stashed my supplies away.

A few months later, Monique was nine months old and finally, got her first tooth. I asked a friend about her four-year-old daughter’s first teeth. She had no idea when they popped up. I couldn’t imagine forgetting these details, but I knew they would eventually become foggy. I decided to try crop that night again. At the end of the evening, I had mounted one picture and had a headache. That night, I decided to become a solo scrapbooker.

But when my daughter turned one, I still hadn’t gone beyond the first page.

To scrapbook or not to scrapbook – moms face this decision alone. Dads just don’t go there. They don’t lose sleep over which background papers and embellishments to use on the zoo trip page.

My daughter turned two, and I still hadn’t gone past the first page.

My husband suggested I just put the pictures in albums. A friend offered to buy my supplies. But I wasn’t ready to throw in the paper trimmer and admit defeat quite yet.

My daughter turned three, and I still hadn’t gone past the first page.

Today, Monique is five. Her sister, Claire, just turned one. A week before Christmas, Monique announced, “We should make a scrapbook with lots of pictures in it. When I’m at school and you miss me, you can look at my scrapbook. And when you go out, I can look at the pictures of you.”

“That’s a great idea,” my husband said, not suppressing the sarcasm. “I bet Mommy would love to help you make one.”

We gave her a scrapbook kit for Christmas. Before breakfast on Christmas morning, she had everything spread across the kitchen table. I tried to guide her, but she had her own design ideas.

Theme pages? Uh-uh. Chonological order? No thanks. Complimentary page spreads? Too dull. The first page has a photo of a local high school student she doesn’t know running in the Olympic torch relay. There are pictures drawn on post-it notes, Halloween stickers next to birthday party photos and a picture of her with a parrot at her old daycare is on the same page as a professional photo of her when she was three weeks old.

She diligently worked on her scrapbook over the Christmas holidays and had it filled by the time school started up in January. It has a prominent place in the family room, on a shelf low enough that she can reach it, but high enough that her baby sister can’t get to it.

And she was right. Once in awhile she takes it down and looks through it. And occasionally, when the girls are out and the house is quiet, I take a quick peek at the random family moments and my older daughter’s unique take on capturing our memories.

Writing Start: Scrapbooks

By Cori Howard

I am lying in bed with my 8-year-old son, rubbing his back in the dark, trying to help him sleep. He tosses and turns, sniffles and snuggles. This is our time, our few minutes alone. His 5-year-old sister is already asleep and as he we lie together under the warm blankets, he interrupts long stretches of silence to tell me about his day, his fears, his dreams.

And yet, I am resentful about having to be here in the dark with him, knowing the longer it takes, the sleepier I will get, and the harder it will be to rouse myself to go downstairs to do the dishes, the laundry, make lunches. The longer it takes, the less time I will have to finish my work, read a book, decompress, talk to my husband.

But sometimes – not often enough — I remember to be grateful for this dark, meditative time. When my children were babies, I used to sit for hours breastfeeding or with a sleeping child on my chest, unmoving for fear of waking them, keeping still until body parts went numb, thinking and thinking. For a writer, all that free mental time was restorative, calming and incredibly creative. I would come up with story ideas, plan new book projects, start letters to my children.

Tonight, I am trying to be grateful, trying to use this quiet time to clear my head. But as I stare up at the ceiling, I am wide-eyed with the fear that I have forgotten something. The list rattles off inside my head: remember to pack swimsuit for Jaza’s class, is there enough food in the fridge for two dinners and lunches, when will I get to the grocery store, who will drive Ty to soccer on Saturday?

My brain is firing questions I can’t answer and it’s making me hyper-ventilate. Stressed, I jump out of bed, give my son a quick kiss goodnight and head downstairs to stare at the calendar. This is the only time I feel like an organized mom: looking ahead at the next day and knowing what’s coming. Motherhood has made a good Buddhist out of me. I live day to day, moment to moment. If you ask me about my weekend, I will say, “I don’t remember.” If you ask me what I’m doing tomorrow, I will say, “I don’t know.” Unless I’m looking at my calendar. (For those of you who are wondering: I haven’t bought an iPhone yet. I can’t imagine adding that to my to-do list right now, and can’t even afford my cell phone bill.)

Tomorrow - my big, antiquated paper calendar reminds me - I teach a class at night so I must try to prepare dinner in the morning, along with breakfast and school lunches. I have to remember to register my kids for summer camps. I have to call my mother, write a chapter for my new book, update my website, cancel the dentist, check my emails, have a shower, pick up the kids.

I close my eyes, standing there in the cool, night air of my kitchen, and I think: tomorrow, I will lie with my son and breathe. Deep breaths. In and out.

By Cori Howard

Here’s the difference between our baby culture in the West and baby culture in, say, everything other country south of the US border and many others:

I was babysitting my 7-month-nephew and my 2-year-old niece. It was a gorgeous late summer afternoon in Vancouver, so I decided to take them for a walk to the beach. My own children, ages 5 and 9, came along and so did my mom, so that I wasn’t too outnumbered.

So there we were, a rag tag team of harried adults and crazed kids running down the street, enjoying the sun. Of course, it took about 80 hours longer than I expected to walk the six blocks and by the time we got there, the kids were starving. We stopped for sushi and I sat with the baby on my lap, trying to eat and watching my own children run around the restaurant misbehaving. The toddler was on my mother’s lap. I was grateful that I hadn’t listened to my instinct to have more children because clearly, I couldn’t handle it.

But I’m getting to the point. The dinner was fine. We all ate. Nothing was broken, except the quiet of the room. It all started when we went to leave. As all parents know, the meltdowns come quick and this night was no exception. The baby started mewling, the toddler escaped and ran down the hall for the open door to the street, my 5-year-old daughter ran after her and my son was in the bathroom. My mom went to get him and to pay the bill. And I went after the others.

I got them into the side room where we had stored the two strollers, and somehow, managed to carry one stroller up the stairs with a baby on my hip and a toddler following close behind. I put the stroller beside the packed outdoor patio and tried to get the toddler into her seat. But no, she took that moment to decide that she wanted to play ball. She started to empty the contents of the stroller bag and when I attempted to abort her efforts, she started to cry. But still, with the child-free patrons looking on in disgust, I got the crying toddler into the seat, got my 5-year-old to buckle her in. Took that time to run back into the restaurant for the other stroller. Up and down the stairs and back up again and the girls were still there. I put the baby in the stroller – he was easy — and then ran back again, leaving the three kids outside alone, to claim the rest of our stuff: the two diaper bags, my purse, the jackets.

It wasn’t more than a few minutes later that my mom and son appeared. But in the intervening moments, no one so much as raised a hand to help me. No one offered to help me carry the two strollers, help watch the kids, nothing. Instead, I was watched with mild to fierce disgust, as if I was some form of bad reality show entertainment.

Now, I would wager that in a country like Mexico, that would never have happened. Someone would have taken the baby, held the toddler’s hand, asked me some questions, started a conversation, helped me to feel as though I was human, a mother doing a good job of handling all these kids and making sure they didn’t run out into the busy street. Not here. Here, in the highly-coveted city of Vancouver, I get silence and steely stares. I get disrespect and disgust. And I don’t get it. How can we continue to devalue motherhood in this way? And, what are the consequences of raising children in a culture that is so un-baby-friendly?

The recent and gorgeous movie, Babies, brings out some of these cultural differences without so much as a word of dialogue. But if offers no solutions, no creative ideas, about how we, in the West, can emerge from our very disconcerting hatred of mothers. We are, at once, infatuated with motherhood (celebrity pregnancies on the cover of every tabloid) and, at the same time, horrified by it. Mothers in our culture are left to fend for themselves in isolation. (The same could be said of our elderly, but that’s another story.)

I wish I had the solution, but I would never pretend to be so wise. What I do know is that the vast cultural abyss in the treatment of mothers and their babies in Western culture is hurting everyone. I know the answer has to start with our own children. We must teach them to help other mothers, to respect other mothers, even just to be aware of other mothers and the contribution they make, every day, to raising the next generation.

Instead of inwardly hissing the next time no one helps me, I might just ask for help. “Here,” I’ll say, kindly. “Take the baby, for a moment, will you? Oh, that’s great. Isn’t he cute?”

Writing Start: Baby Culture

(*Please send any writing submissions on this topic to cori@themomoirproject.com. The top three will be posted on the blog in the coming weeks.)

by Jen Andersen

We are locked and loaded. Two loud sons snugly nestled into their car seats. The nonstop chatter and infant squalling are only slightly softer in the smaller space of the car with the anticipation of adventure. We are on an adventure, yes, in your dreams, sweet ones — literally. I slowly turn the ignition and quickly switch the brain-embedding kid songs to my radio station, dialing it to a soft pitch and, smiling, I look back to check. My 3-year-old looks at me with his impish grin and shining eyes. He has that look of tiredness, but he is fighting it with unbelievable strength. His body is moving about trying to keep himself awake. His baby brother lets out another shriek.

I slowly dial the heat up to a cozy level. The warmth slowly comes out and overtakes the cool air. Pushing the guilt back, I put the car into gear and pull out, my mind darting. I don’t yet know our destination.

Ten minutes later, I am driving slowly through a nearby neighborhood, looking at the homes mine aspires to be – the inviting verandas, the crisp landscaping, the lack of toys littering the yard. I notice suddenly the volume has dwindled behind me. I dare a look back. Jackpot. They are fast asleep. I find a nice spot to park and pull over. I leave the radio on low, its music lulling my brain from its bedlam.

Out come the book, the journal, the mommy snacks and…. breathe. An escape so profound, so newly defined by motherhood. The kids are still here but I’ve found a loophole. While they are safely and sleepily ensconced behind me, I can catch up on the one paper a week I get (yet never have time to finish), write a few thoughts and eat a treat solely for me. I gaze out at a new vista, armchair traveler that I’ve become. If I’m lucky, I will have sourced out a drive-thru that delivers me a steaming coffee I can grasp my hands around while enjoying this rare me moment, my urban getaway, ignoring of all the dust and pesky tasks at home.

I watch carefree-looking, well-rested people walk by and wonder when I might feel that look of calmness again. I relish in this one moment of feeling unattached, free of grabbing hands and goo and spit-up and dog hair. I am me. Again.

Perfect mom I am not. Environmentally friendly? Two strikes. But this is what I need on the occasional gray day when my patience has sapped, the coffee pot is empty and I’ve tried uncountable times to a) find mutually entertaining, yet educational activities, b) clean house, c) complete just one task uninterrupted, or d) stay sane. It is a slice of time, a step back I savor, that allows me to plunge back into the full throttle of motherhood, with a smile on my face and a breath of fresh air.

Jen Andersen is the winner of The Momoir Project/Movies For Mommies Writing Contest. When Jen is not escaping with boys in tow, she juggles motherhood and attempts to write.  She is also a high school teacher and career counsellor.

Writing Start: ESCAPE

By SuZ Besecker, blogger @ Not Your Typical Mommy

www.notyourtypicalmommy.com

As we pulled out of the driveway, a heart-wrenching fervor broke out inside me and tears filled my eyes. I turned to look at my husband and told him in a whisper, “I don’t think I can do this.”

Friday night we did something we hadn’t done in 18 months, we went on a date. Alone, without our daughter. We left her in the very capable hands of her godmother, so there were no worries. Just the worries of a mother who is very attached to her girl and feels lost without her.

At first my husband and I were short-tempered towards one another and a bit confused about how to function without our team-mate. During dinner, we couldn’t help but notice the other kids at the restaurant and we felt sad. We nursed our wounds with stories of how cute Roo was and admitted how much we felt like a ship lost at sea without our navigator.

It was very tempting to head straight home after dinner (which we ate faster than we’ve ever eaten dinner before). But I was determined to prove I could do this. So we wandered around aimlessly. We walked around the park we went to on our first date over 10 years ago. We raced each other on go-carts and ended up at the art center where we got married.

I admit, it was a hard night for me, but I enjoyed spending time with my husband. I enjoyed reconnecting with him. It was fun remembering who we use to be, and who we are now.

As the night went on, thoughts of our daughter didn’t flash in our minds every ten seconds. It was more like every ten minutes. Every ten minutes, we’d laugh at something or say something and our eyes would meet and we would remember.

We would remember that we were so in love with not only our daughter, but each other.

This was the winning entry in the Urban Mommies/Momoir Project writing contest.