Intro The Mama Bubble

     The summer did not begin well.  On the first day of summer vacation, my triathlete husband was hit by a car. He suffered a shattered hip, separated ribs, sprained hands, and several deep gashes but managed to survive the surgery.  His recovery was touch and go, then settled into misery for all of us. So, after months of struggling with a broken husband, insurance companies, a sweltering Texas summer, and three "totally bored" kids, I talked our best friends into a week at the beach. I loaded our Excursion with every bit of beach paraphernalia I could buy or borrow and caravaned the entire group to Gulf Shores. 

     As a Southern California native, I knew the beach and setup required. I dragged umbrellas, newly purchased beach chairs, the newest addition to Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, and a wheeled cooler full of drinks and cut fruit and veggies to the water's edge. I screwed the umbrellas into their anchors and the anchors into the sand, set up the beach chairs for the adults, then plodded back up to the beach house multiple times to retrieve two inflated boats, two boogie boards, and assorted toys. I tied the two boats together with a 100-foot cord, then tied another 150' cord from the second boat to the leg of my beach chair. I caught and slathered each child in sunscreen and adjusted their visors. I spent twenty minutes teaching them how to ride the boogie boards. I demonstrated how to pull the boats past the gentle surf to the soft rocking of the blue-green gulf water, showing the nervous little ones that they were always attached by the cord leading to my chair. I showed them the cooler full of ice and drinks and snacks. I pulled out a kite, threw it into the air, and tied it to the cooler, where it danced in the breeze above our heads. My appreciative friends applauded.

     "See?" I showed all of them, "You will always know where we are because of the kite." They were ready and dashed to the water's edge. I walked over to my umbrella, adjusted my own straw cowboy hat, plopped myself down in my chair, and picked up the novel. Ahhh. Heaven.

      Having never been to the beach, the children were all over me in five minutes. 

     "How do I get on the boogie board again?"

     "She took my boat!"

     "Mama, make a sand castle!" my five-year-old demanded. 

     Ever see a woman lose her mind?    

     "No!" I yelled. "I have given you everything you need, and I am sitting right here watching you. Get off of my feet. Do not touch me with your sandy hands." I got up and made all of them stand in a line. "This…," I said, drawing a large circle around my chair. "…is off limits. Do not enter my Mama Bubble." Noticing my best friend nodding her approval, I proceeded to draw another circle around her towel lying a few feet away from me. "This is another Mama Bubble. Anyone who enters the Mama Bubble gets popped! Got it?" The children giggled, not knowing if they should heed the warning of the insane woman frantically gesturing in front of them. I re-settled into my chair, my glare daring any of them to cross the line. 

     For the first time in thirteen years, I had made a boundary. A couple of them tested it and found themselves sitting on the steps of the beach house for fifteen minutes, but for the rest of the week and for every beach vacation thereafter, the Mama Bubbles remained unbroken. 

     This blog is about boundaries. Boundaries for you as a mother, for your children, for your husbands, and for your extended families and friends. Only a mother's love is endless, but her patience and good humor must be nurtured. You cannot give what you do not have.

     So this is the blog I have been told to write. I cannot decide if my friends and neighbors asked for my thoughts on children affecting marriage because they think my system works or if they just like to hear me rat out my kids. As my marriage is still intact and I am looking forward to spending the last decades of my life with my husband, I assume it is the former and doing it.

     I travel my life searching for the wrong things and stumbling upon the right. I seek and have sought the approval of the unworthy and have been honored with the acceptance by people of great value.  One’s life is never lived according to plan without wrestling it into place, but with flexibility, it can be beyond the wildest of expectations.

     Giving birth to another person does not require relinquishing one's soul to the child. Mothering does require that you demand the child's own soul to show itself and be recognized. How is that accomplished? By stepping back and allowing it to happen.