The More Moms, The Better

Beach days, family photos, & everything else that’s just better with friends

I don’t know if it’s because California decides to have a second summer in October, or because I have a wild toddler running amok, or because I’m at the age where I regularly forget how old I am, but this fall has flown by.

I typically journal a rambling mess of prayers before bed, but I shocked myself the other night to see that I hadn’t written anything since September. My very regular habit of solitude and prayer at night had turned into me muttering a few words as I grasped at consciousness.

Part of that is because of the desperation in these last long evenings of the year—squeezing in playdates, dinner with friends, and a walk around the neighborhood while the golden light pours down our streets and into our windows. Soon, it will be terribly dark and cold, and we’ll all be trapped inside, so we soak up these last few weeks like kids on the day before school starts.

Another reason for this interruption is that I decided to start this Substack, and I really would like to write weekly, but I can’t devote every evening to writing and rewriting and reading and rereading like I did for that last post. Even though it was quite fun, it was also emotionally exhausting, and I haven’t watched TV for like two weeks. I still haven’t finished Wicked Night on Dancing With The Stars—your girl needs a break.

So this week, and probably most weeks, you’re not going to get a profound essay or my innermost thoughts. Which is why this little thing here is called Mother Memos, anyway—it’s just a weekly-ish reflection on motherhood, faith, and everyday life in the style of your best friend’s rambling voice notes.

Emphasis on the rambling!

Except here, I can cut out all of my filler words and sound slightly smarter than I do when I talk.

This week, Elizabeth and I “borrowed” sand from the beach for our sandboxes. I am regularly, gently teased for how many excuses I will make to avoid going to the beach despite living 20 minutes away (I know, I am disgusting!). But I have to say—loading up her truck with our two boys, her two dogs, and ten ten-gallon buckets was actually completely amazing and reminded me of one of my favorite truths in motherhood: The more moms, the better.

I can easily isolate when I’m feeling overwhelmed by the endless everything—laundry, dishes, snacks. But it only takes one more mom to turn a task you dread into an adventure. In one day, a group of five of us moms entertained eight children, filled an enormous sandbox, and made a cardboard train for a Halloween costume—all of which would have sat on my to-do list indefinitely had I tried to do them myself.

(It does help to have very talented friends.)

The children were amazed by our workout for the day—carrying buckets of sand up my driveway and across the yard.

Another moment from this week: Family photos (insert shiver down my spine). This is your reminder that it’s almost too late to get a photo you like for your Christmas card, and it’s also a reminder that you should keep your expectations extremely low if you hope to get a photo of your one-and-a-half-year-old who doesn’t yet understand how to be bribed. Thankfully, my photographer is a mom who took the five good minutes we had and ran with them!

Photo by the great Tiffany Nieman. You’d never know Oliver was acting as though he’d been kidnapped.

The rest of my days were spent in the magical monotony of motherhood—changing diapers and making towers and knocking them down and all those moments that I’ll sob over remembering!

And now, somehow, we’re onto a new week—this one where I try to keep Oliver away from Halloween candy and survive the time change just as I’d nailed down our new schedule. But when I start worrying about all of the things I can’t control or the things I haven’t finished or the things I’ll never get to, most of the time—instead of battening down the hatches—all it takes is another mom (and a coffee) to get swept right back up in the wonder of these years.

The more moms, the better.