MamaLaws#12 - It's not that serious

First things first...

A Top Chef update: The judges sent Sam home!? Were they on crack? A crime against cuisine everywhere if you ask me. Not only was he a great chef but he was easy on the eyes too. He could have cooked the pants off of me Marcel anyday.

Now, onto business.

MamaLaw #12: "Lighten Up!"

On the Today Show this morning there was a piece on "Tots and Tonic" -- a story about moms who drink wine or "mom-tinis" while their kids enjoy a playdate. They profiled a group of 3 stay-at-home moms who get their kids together and they moms socialize over a couple of glasses of wine. So of course the show had an expert discussing how this was dangerous for safety reasons and problematic because moms might be drinking as a coping mechanism - duh (just kidding!). But really, I don't see the big deal. Maybe I'm just too laid-back but I don't think a little wine ever hurt anyone. And of course it's not like these moms are getting sloshed at 2 o'clock in the afternoon. No mom in her right mind would knowingly jeopardize her child's safety and as long as it's done responsibly and in moderation then it's all good. As we were discussing earlier this week, finding time to spend with your girlfriends is rare and so if some moms are taking advatage of the opportunity to have girltime while allowing their little ones to have kidtime, then more power to 'em!

Moms can be so hard on other moms. We might criticize their parenting styles or judge their children who reach milestones later than than our own. We try to impose our opinions on them and think that it's "our way or no way" and talk behind their backs. Some moms condone spanking. Others are adamantly against it. Some moms only feed their infants baby food made from scratch (God bless 'em!). Others are happy feeding their kids food off of the grocery store shelves. And then there are the so-called "Mommy Wars." Some SAHMs look down on moms who work outside of the home. And some working moms look down on moms who choose to stay at home. Then there are moms who turn their noses up at moms who put their kids in *gasp!* public school. And public shcool moms think private school moms are stuck-up. The list goes on and on. Let's calm down people! We're all mommies with a passion for parenting and doing what's best for our children. Parenting is a very personal thing and we need to respect each other's choices whether we agree with them or not. It would do us all some good to have a mom-tini Lighten Up!

[Can you tell I just learned how to write the html tags for a strikethrough today?]

** Incidentally, the "Lighten Up" concept applies very well to all aspects of mommying. For example, last night Oldest decided, naturally, that Crayola Marker in Magenta would look much better on her lips than on the huge pad of coloring paper that I gave her. While hubby freaked out at her amatuer makeup job, I wasn't fazed in the least. "Don't worry, it's non-toxic" I told him. "It'll come right off in the bath." He was running around getting washcloths and trying to furiously scrub her mouth while she laughed uncontrollably. I would have laughed too if they hadn't been disturbing Sam's description of his Mascarpone Mousse with Hawaiian Salted Coconut Milk & Citrus Tuile. Oh Sam.