Super-Mom Heather Mitchell Jefferson

When Taylor asked me to be “super-mom” of the month, I thought, how amazing, the last time I saw her it was the 1970s. We were 13. Now I have two teenage daughters on the brink of adulthood. A generation has passed, and the best part of my life has been creating a loving family with my darling husband, Bob, and being “mama” to my two beautiful daughters, Hannah (18) and Chloe (15). Hannah and Chloe are lovely. They are thoughtful, hard working, creative, and compassionate. They have healthy boundaries, they are empathetic, and they are funny. They are incredibly talented but humble. I am so proud of them. I love them fiercely.

When Hannah was born, my mother said, “You finally have your baby.” I planned to be an elementary school teacher because I loved children but soon realized I really wanted to be a mom—the best mom I could be. I don’t mean a perfect mom but one who is there for her children. I embraced mothering with dedication and love. I was fortunate to have begun a career as an editor; after becoming a mom, I established a successful freelance editing business so I could be at home full time.

In their early lives, it was tricky finding quiet time to edit my books while also taking them to preschool, doctor’s visits, library times, ballet lessons, playgroups, and countless walks around our beloved lake. But balance I did find. I shared my values and passions. We read a lot of books, took a lot of hikes, traveled to see family, ate healthy food, and hung out as a family in our house, where their creative spirits developed during their endless hours of doll play and drawing. As they grew, we began to travel. These trips became the highlight of our year—we spent hours planning and looking forward to our new destination, never going someplace twice. During these blessed trips, we created memories that our family cherishes.

As our girls have matured and become teenagers, their activities and friendships have gained importance. We offer them a safe place to bring their friends, we buy a lot of pizza and Redbox movies, and we listen to and love their friends. I have never missed a play or a dance recital because, as I always tell them, “What else would I be doing while you are sharing your gifts?” I am here when my girls are proud of/worried about their grades, I am here when they are happy/worried about a friend, I am here when they are happy/frustrated about a boy, I am here when they/their friends need a ride, I am here to pay the dance bill/buy a new pair of tights, and I am here to feed them a healthy breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And now I am here, watching with amazement as my girls have become mature, healthy, funny, responsible adults pursuing their passions, loving others, getting ready to leave our cozy family nest. I am proud that my girls know that I am always here for them, and I look so forward to the day when they become super-moms and I become a super-grandma!!

Super-Mom Catherine Crews

Tupelo, Mississippi

When invited by Taylor to be Super Mom of the Month, I said to myself, “No, thank you. I don’t consider myself to be a super mom….I’m just a Mom that did what she was supposed to do. What could I have to offer?” Then the more I thought about it, I decided that I have indeed been a good mom…a super mom…with some assistance from my husband. ; )

I read what the most recent Super Moms had to say and decided that what I have to contribute comes from being a 53 year old “Super Mom” with three “grown” children. I have a 28 year old daughter (who married in 2008), a 27 year old son (who married in 2009) and a 20 year old son who is a sophomore in college. I now consider myself a super mom of five. = )

Here are seven tips to assure you a seat in the Super Mom stadium: = )

• Taking care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually…will help you to take better care of your children.

• Treat your children as individuals.

• Listen to your children. They have a lot to teach you.

• Let them do their own homework, school project, pack their own overnight bag…It will help them become more responsible.

• Do your personal work! Stop the generational dysfunction that gets passed down in families.

• Model good behavior…physically, emotionally, spiritually… They are watching and absorbing, even when you think they are not.

• Show them that there is a world outside of your family, that we are part of a larger community… that others might need our help.

I’m sure there are other things that could be added to this list, but most fall under these 7 things, I believe. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I’m looking forward to becoming a Super Grand-Mom someday soon! = )

Super-Mom Betsy Bragg:

What is a Super-Mom?

When I was asked to write this article about being a super-mom, my first thought was I am far from being a super-mom. Being a super-mom is not always a hallmark card model. For those of you who do not fit the hallmark model, you can be super-moms as well. I worked full-time and depended on my children to help run the household without much time for them to play. Like many of you, during my children’s formative years, I wasn’t there for them as much as I wanted and thought I should have been. I didn’t meet their emotional needs.

Perhaps like me, many of you feel you are not super-moms to your children. But, the strengths you have, you might not even notice. Let me tell you what my children pointed out as my strengths. Most important is my love for them no matter what. My children tell me that I always believe in them and encourage them to follow their own dreams. Furthermore, I accept them as they are and give them the freedom to be what they wants to be. My son says that I always turn the other cheek. He loves my enthusiasm for life and my drive. I am also open with my faults and work to correct them and live according to my principles. My daughter tells me that I showed her how to be successful in the face of self-doubt, how to be persistent and make a difference. In addition, they say they are proud that I have always focused on what I can give to the world.

Mothering is not something done just when children are growing, but is a lifetime process of building relationships. I learn so much from my children and am very impressed by how well they are bringing up my grandchildren. Perhaps you feel your own mothers were far from perfect. Only now have I developed a loving and accepting relationship with my own mother through spiritual dimensions in the eternal now.

While my kids were at home I was away often and didn’t always support them emotionally when I was there; however, I find that here’s an opportunity to develop better relationships now. Why don’t you go back to your mothers if they are still alive and if you are older mothers, go back to your children? Come back and experience being a daughter to your mother and realize that you can still be a mother to your children. There’s always hope that we can make up for the mistakes that we’ve made. We just need to learn to forgive and be forgiven. Take the mistakes your mother made with you and forgive her. Ask forgiveness for the mistakes you’ve made with your children. Then we can all be super-moms.

Betsy Bragg is the Executive Director of the non-profit (501c3) Optimum Health Solution (OHS) (www.OptimumHealthSolution.org) dedicated to eliminating obesity, chronic disease and malnutrition, especially in children through the education and advocacy of healthy living. OHS offers six 10 week courses a year, Life Force Energy – The Hippocrates Approach to Optimum Health, with Raw New England Community, features national and international monthly Dinner Speaker events and publicizes a monthly newsletter.

Super-Mom, Stephanie Connaughton

I recently had the opportunity and honor to meet Taylor in person. When she suggested I contribute to SuperMom, I immediately thought to myself: “is she kidding??? What would I possibly have to contribute!!!” You see I have never considered myself a super mom. The physical act of taking care of my children (especially when they were little) has never given me much personal gratification. And the shrill sound of “MOMMY” so often heard has been known to make my skin crawl. Terrible, isn’t it?

I have recently come into my own as a mother. It became 18 months ago that my daughter had some learning differences – the most distressing part of which was that it was dramatically affecting her self-esteem. Despite my own drama unfolding at my full time job simultaneously, I could see her slipping into an abyss before my very eyes.

On some level this was a relief to me. To be sure, she was bright and clever – I knew that – but there was just something different about the way she thought. It seemed that my husband and the educators around me had all adopted a “too early to tell” attitude. But deep down I knew.

Suddenly, like all parents who go through this, we were plunged into a new world with new vocabulary and new norms. I decided to rely on the thinking process that I had honed as a marketing director for Gillette for many years. I assessed the situation, had meetings with everyone relevant I could think of, and networked. I worked with the incredible team at her school to create a clear set of objectives and goals. I put together a plan (not unlike a launch marketing plan I had constructed numerous times) with immediate interventions designed to boost her fledgling self-esteem and longer term strategies to build the skills she needed. We then sold the plan to my daughter (the hardest part btw). We crossed our fingers, hoped and believed.

And slowly but surely, through the hard work of my daughter and the amazing educators, who care deeply about her, it worked. Just the way I had hoped it would.

I like to believe it all had to do with that plan I constructed. Now I think the true magic was that by doing what we did, we told her we believed in her, that we understood what she was going through, and that we were here for her.

A happy ending you might ask? Well, yes in fact. By the middle of 4th grade, my daughter had even been “kicked out” of language arts tutoring because she didn’t need it anymore. My daughter recently said, “ Well 3rd grade was really bad, and 4th grade was a bronze medal year… And with a gleam in her eye, she continued, “I haven’t had my gold medal year yet.”

And with my daughter on solid ground, I now have looked inward to seek my old gold medal moment – I am starting my own business.

Super-mom, Yolanda Taylor

Four under four – my husband and I said the words over and over when I announced that I was pregnant. If I carried this pregnancy through, we would have four children under the age of four. It had been less than five years ago that we were actively pursuing adoption, mentally and physically exhausted by our futile attempts to have a child naturally. I always expected having children might be difficult. Perhaps it was my personality – assume the worst, and you could only be positively surprised. Or perhaps it was my years of over exercise and chronically low body fat. But when the reality hit, I was not prepared for the mental and physical anguish we would endure.

We spent a year trying the old fashioned way. When I finally sought medical help, I lied and said we’d been at it for three years. Before long, after a multitude of tests, all of which revealed nothing, we were at Mass General, receiving instructions on the many particulars associated with IVF. The injections had to be done at precisely 7 a.m, and again at precisely 10 p.m., the drugs had to be mixed just so. I wasn’t concerned. It was like anything – a task with instructions. I wasn’t prepared for the burning pain I experienced in my legs after injecting myself each night with the think oil based progesterone shots. I wasn’t prepared for the allergic reactions I had to the medicines, and the months I spent covered in hives, in and out of the emergency room, seeking any help I could get. I wasn’t prepared for the long-term damage that would be done to my legs, taking away my favorite hobby, running, forever. But most of all, I wasn’t prepared for the likelihood that it wouldn’t work.

After multiple IVF attempts I was ready to give up. I plowed my energies into the adoption process, researching every agency, and attending every session I could find. Darn it, we were going to have a baby, somehow/someway, and I was now on a mission. I freed my mind of the stresses the IVF had created. Once we were officially on the adoption waiting list, it would only be a matter of time. Our quest to have a baby had finally become inevitable; I felt defeated and embarrassed that we couldn’t do it on our own, but I was happy and excited.

With my stress now lifted, it was no surprise that our last IVF attempt (done more to placate myself mentally) finally worked. We would have healthy boy/girl twins. My husband was happy and fulfilled – Kyle & Ashley were the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to us. But for some reason, I wasn’t done. I had spent most of my life as an only child, until my dad remarried and I had a half brother at the age of 12. I wanted a big family, and wasn’t willing to stop yet. We agreed that despite the medical odds, we would try naturally for a year before returning to our fertility doctor.

I was again not prepared. I wasn’t prepared for the pain and anguish associated with having a miscarriage. It was nothing like the inability and feelings of inadequacy I had experienced when we couldn’t conceive. My emotions were a roller-coaster. I was now on our third pregnancy, following a week ten miscarriage. I was eighteen weeks pregnant, and not at all prepared when the doctors informed me my baby had both a chromosomal abnormality and a heart defect; the odds of even going to term were low. The image of the abortion clinic, the code name I had to use to enter, the picketers we had to push through to get in, will forever stay with me.

Kaden was born, a healthy baby boy, when Kyle and Ashley were two years three months old. The spacing was perfect, and I began to block from my mind the horrible path we had gone down to get to where we finally wanted to be – a happy family with three healthy and wonderful children. I returned to work after my maternity leave, feeling content that our dreams had been fulfilled – I had a great husband, three terrific kids, and a job I loved.

The shock, fear, and eventual joy that came about from an accidental pregnancy against all odds, gave me a belief in faith I had never been willing to concede. I was on the birth control pill, something my doctor had even told me was probably not necessary given our history. But I wanted to be safe; we were done having children, and it was a small effort to make. I truly believe we were meant to have four children. Arden Madison rounded out our family – giving us two boys and two girls, all within four years. To have four children in such a short period of time, one would never know that five short years ago we had resolved that we would never have a child on our own.

Arden is now two, Kaden will be four soon, and Kyle and Ashley are 6, about to enter kindergarten. Although they can fight like all siblings do, they are best buddies, and I feel so blessed to have children close in age who can grow up and go through similar challenges in life at the same time.

Super-Mom Dina Rovere, mother of George 7, Charlie and Karsten 4

It may be said that the power of positive thinking is over rated but as a fast paced highly driven super mom I can assure you it works. Finding out you are pregnant is exciting enough but when there are 2 it accelerates your anticipation to higher levels. After listening to all the naysayers speaking about premature birth, bed rest, C-section I was bound and determined to go full term with a drug free normal vaginal delivery and not be on bed rest. My pregnancy was wonderful and at 40 weeks and 2 days I was induced at 7:15PM. (The doctor broke Karsten’s. sack). Much to the anesthesiologists dismay I declined an epidural. ( Note: I had come to the hospital 5 cm dilated after walking my Golden Retriever for a mile up steep hills-yes I was trying self induction!) I had to lie in bed for 1 hour then was able to walk the floors. At about 9:15 I started to have some pain and Karsten emerged at 9:26PM all 7 pounds 9 oz of beautiful boy. Feeling a sigh of relief, Dr. Farber informed me I was only half way there-but I didn’t care all pain was gone. Next he twisted and turned Charlie – who was breech and decided he WAS going to be born that way. He arrived weighing 8 pounds 4 ounces at 9:43 PM. The experience was tremendous, the hospital staff amazed, me-all I said was if you think it can be done then it will come to pass. Put your mind in a positive place and your possibilities are endless. Go supermoms Go!

Super-Mom, Lori J. Bruce

Am I a super-mom?  What I know for sure is that I try super hard.  For me being a super-mom means the following:

A super mom opens her heart to her children and lets them in completely.

A super mom knows the difference between disciplining because of fear and disciplining because of love.

A super mom will take care of herself so she can take care of her children.

A super mom reads the labels of food containers but does not label her children.

A super mom knows leaving her alcoholic first husband was the lesser of two evils.

A super mom can express the importance of balance.

A super mom does not care what the neighbors think; she cares what her children think.

A super mom knows that her child’s relationship with the universe is their path and cannot be controlled by a mother.

A super mom promotes peace and love through modeling.

A super mom practices how to breathe through a difficult moment.

A super mom forgives herself when she looks back and notices she could have handled a situation much better.

We are all super-mom’s if we keep trying not matter how hard it gets.

We are super-mom’s when we remember to find a reason to laugh, smile and bring happiness into the world of a child.

We are all super-mom’s when we are guided by pure honest love.

I will do my best to be a super-mom everyday!

Dakota Rose Callahan came to this planet on Christmas day 2009 at 4:18 am, and I will always remember that moment because she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

To create life is the greatest gift I have been given.  Every time I look at my baby girl, I am humbled.  It’s like you imagine what it’s going to be like, being a mom, all your life, or at least I did…  but when it actually happens it’s more beautiful than you could have ever imagined.

One thing that amazes me is that I can’t really remember what my life was like before Dakota.  When I think about it, the best way to describe it is that I was living in black and white, and now my world is filled with color.  I have been blessed to be able to stay home and raise her. For me, staying home, meant being her first teacher, her support, creating a little haven in our home for her, and most importantly to me, not missing anything.  Maybe not glamorous, and there are definitely days when I miss my share of adult conversation, however, I wouldn’t do it differently.  It’s all perfect.

Thank you to all the Supermoms who I have been able to watch and learn from. I am grateful and blessed to have crossed/walked paths with all of you!

Super-Mom Ali Frydman

When my daughter eats breakfast, she likes her booster seat to face me so that her toes can touch my knees. Once her toes meet my knees, her meal can begin. It was this way when she first began that famous rice cereal and breast milk concoction and it is this way now as she spoons her oatmeal, yogurt and applesauce all by herself.

For a while, my husband would ask me why I had to sit down with Ava as she ate. “You sit with her when you read to her, when you play with her, when you nurse her. Now is our chance to “get stuff done.” “Quick! Let’s move before she needs us again! There is laundry to fold and she won’t stay strapped in one place forever.” The minute I would rise, Ava would keep eating, but the rest of the day wouldn’t flow as well. So, I’d sit with her. Knees to toes.

When I do sit with her, I gain the most wonderful treasures – smiles, laughs, lots of first words, and even some sweet potato stained clothing. Amazing bonding times. A few weeks before Ava’s brother Noah was born, I was sitting with a fifteen month old Ava, but thinking about how our life would soon change, wondering how Ava would react to her new brother. In my mind, I saw her loving him with all her heart, but I began to worry about giving Ava a sibling when she was only sixteen months old herself. I was sitting there with her, but I was not as present as I could have been with my baby.

At that moment, Ava looked at me and pulled me in with her little hands for a big hug and sighed in her sweet little voice, “Oh Mama. Love you. Hug.” She taught me what my own super mom and yoga teachers had been trying to share all along. We did not need the perfectly manicured home, with instantly folded laundry. We did not need to drag our babies to a million different developmental classes. We do not need to fix our entire house right away. We just need to learn how to stay present with our children and each other. The rest will fall into place.

My daughter is now twenty-two months old. Her brother just turned six months old. She adores him. He idolizes her. We all work hard to stay present each moment. With work and other responsibilities, we all might not be able to sit together for every meal and love each other without external distractions, but we have set our intention to stay present. Sitting with my children, knees to toes, now serves as a daily physical reminder for someone who tried every way to become a super mom, but learned that truly being there in heart and soul was the authentic goal.