mom-me time

Here's a post from our partners at BabyCenter! Every week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle stories from the experts at BabyCenter, including this post about what we give up for our kids.

On Facebook, I reconnected with a former co-worker from my newspaper days and found out he'd become a dad to a little girl.

He stuck with the newspaper game (I got out, by the skin of my teeth) and occasionally writes about his parenting journey for his current paper, the Erie Times-News. Today, he posted a column about missing out on movies and how as a kid and even an adult he made sure to see at least all the Oscar-nominated movies for that season, if not all of the movies released in a year.

Oh, how it made me laugh.

I'm about five years ahead of my friend in this parenting gig and this year I considered myself lucky to have seen the three flicks my husband and I managed to sneak in on a few hard-earned date nights. Back in the day, pre-kids and pre-spouse, I'd spend my weekends in a darkened theater, watching back-to-back feature films. Sitting there in the dark, losing myself in the fictions and true stories playing out on the big screen, offered me the same kind of nourishment for the soul that a great book provided.

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My friend Gerry is grateful for the hole in his life where movies used to be, he says, and he knows that someday the hours spent engrossed in a big screen will come again.

I'm not exaggerating when I say that movie-going was one of the great pleasures of my pre-parent life. It was part of the bond forged between me and my husband, early on in our relationship, when we discovered with delight that our paths had crossed many, many times in a movie theater, even in Boston and Cambridge when we were college students who had not yet met, studying at two universities on two sides of the Charles River.

Now, I don't even really miss it.

Gerry's column made me think about all the things I've given up for my children—reading until 1 a.m., late mornings laying in bed doing The New York Times crossword puzzle, dry-clean-only clothing, my career, hot meals, regular bathing…the list is endless.

I bet your list is, too.

Sometimes I look back at the life I led before motherhood and it baffles me. Who was that sharp-dressed lady with the library account in good standing?

Then I look at my kids, their faces smeared with chocolate from the brownies we baked together, and that memory disappears, only to be replaced with one that is so much more meaningful, so much more beautiful.

My life is a movie now, one filled with terrorizing beauty and a plot I have yet to fully grasp.

For that, I would gladly give up just about anything. Anything, that is, except for my kids.

More great reads from BabyCenter:
Is a baby scale that connects to Facebook awesome or outrageous?
Thank you to the moms in my life
Is baby-making making you crazy?
12 mouthwatering brownies for your Valentine
14 modern bassinets (and some you won't believe)

We're excited to bring you a new post from mother and actress Tori Spelling! Every other week, we bring you the best parenting and lifestyle advice from ediTORIal by Tori Spelling, Tori's daily blog about everything from food and fashion to parenting and relationships. This week, Tori shares the hilarious tale of her child-free night on the town.

Hello, my name is Tori, and I'm a Kid-a-holic. It's true. I have real issues leaving my kids. Because of my issues, Dean and I rarely go to parties, dinners, a date, or anything adult-driven. Seems that if there's not a kid's menu, I'm not interested.

But, it didn't start out that way. Before we had kids, we lit up the town. Social card filled nightly. I swore up and down that kids wouldn't change us. That we would be awesome parents but still take time for ourselves to have adult fun time. And then came Liam. And, then Stella. Hattie and then Finn. We haven't been out without our kids past 7 p.m. in probably two years! No joke.

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So, when my good friend Jess's wedding invite arrived in the mail, I started to sweat. I love Jess, but not only was it an adults-only wedding, but (gulp) it was also out of town. The wedding was just in Santa Barbara, which is an hour from us, but how would this affect the kids, aka me! I immediately started looking into multiple rooms at the hotel. In my head I quickly got a game plan in place . . . a sitter could hang with the kids in the hotel room while we attended the wedding, right? It could work! That's when Dean took my hands, wiped my sweat-speckled brow, and suggested we have a much-needed adult-only night away. What?? No chicken fingers? No SpongeBob? No "Wipe me I poo'd"? Hmmm . . . That sounded terrifying!! The quiet alone would probably send me off the deep end.

Four constant offspring voices is like white noise to me. It's my comfy zone. But, after two years of back-to-back pregnancies and four beautiful but loud babes later, my husband and I probably could use a night to ourselves. I agreed, and we booked one room with a king-size bed. We would celebrate my friend and have a romantic night all in one. The day of the wedding, I nervously packed my weekender bag. It seemed empty void of pacifiers, Blankees, sippy cups, and diaper cream. So I distracted myself by planning a night of sheer vintage glamour. I picked an exceptional ensemble and packed it all up. Then I kissed all four kids and kissed all four kids and kissed all four kids. Liam, now the man of the house for "one night only," nervously laughed and finally said, "OK Mommmm," so I stopped the oversharing of affection and blew them a final kiss before leaving. I knew they'd be well taken care of but still had to throw in, "Call me if anything, I mean anything, at all goes wrong. I can be back in less than an hour!!!!" I clasped my hand over my mouth to hinder any further irrational babble. Even I realized I sounded desperate.

Keep reading to see how Tori handled her night out — the results may surprise you — and see more pics from the evening!

Before motherhood, before pregnancy, I went through a pretty intense health phase. We're talking daily hot yoga, a refrigerator stocked with veggies and fruit, a very active My Food Diary account, and a monthly three-day BluePrint Cleanse regimen. I was at my ideal weight, felt lean and strong, and I was a couple of months from getting married. Then came the wedding, the honeymoon, and four weeks later, a big fat positive!

Now, two-plus years and a crazy cute and superactive 17-month-old later, I've been losing and regaining those last seven baby pounds for months, am dedicated to my gym mostly because it has an awesome kids' program, and my fridge? Well, let's just say most of the nutritious stuff is earmarked for my daughter's growing body. So I recently decided to return to my old favorite: the juice cleanse. "We have a lot of new moms who do our cleanse," say the brains behind BluePrint Cleanse. "They love it because they don't have to cook or clean up for a few days, and they love that it's convenient to pop open a juice and get all the nutrients they need. It can also be a great jump start to healthy eating to help lose the baby weight!"

While BluePrint (available throughout the US for around $75 per day) isn't recommended for breastfeeding moms due to its calorie restrictions, I definitely suggest it to new moms looking to get their health back on track. After my cleanse, I was down five pounds and felt like I had readjusted my relationship with food in a profound way. I also learned that I have developed some pretty bad dietary habits since becoming a mom. Keep reading to find out the surprising revelations I had and why I highly urge formerly fit moms like me to try a juice cleanse, too.

If you haven't read it by now, there's a post that's gone viral written by Amy Sohn about a new breed of moms — ones who hit the town or a night of serious partying along with other unmentionables. Sohn refers to how her friends get together once a month and call each other "Hookers, Sluts, and Drug Addicts." She continues to share details about a recent evening full of drinking, moments of nudity, and potential propositions. Her defense? She and other moms are responding to boredom and their lives evolving, and if acting like a 20-year-old for one night a month makes things seem just a little bit better, it's worth it.

Does Sohn take things a bit too far? Or is it becoming socially acceptable for moms to hit the town with their ladies and let loose with a drunken night out? As a mom of a toddler, I get few and far between nights to go out with girlfriends, and, for the most part, they are spent drinking margaritas at a local bar and then bed by midnight. With Sohn's new book, Motherland, coming out next month, is this just a publicity stunt to drive intrigued readers to prepurchase?

Enjoying a girl's night out is wonderful for any mama, providing much-needed time to dish about the ups and downs of parenting and marriage. But do things need to be taken to such extremes to have a "good time"? What do you think? Is Sohn spot-on with her portrayal of the modern-day mama hitting the town for a wasted girls' night out or just downright crazy?

Source: YumSugar

As far as taboo topics go, referring to motherhood as "boring" is pretty high up there. Challenging, life altering, at times impossible? We've heard them all (and probably even been there) before. But flat out boring? According to UK journalist Julie Cook's startlingly honest piece in the Daily Mail UK, becoming a mom hasn't been all it's cracked up to be. "Before Alex, I had a demanding and fulfilling career working in women's magazines as a freelance writer. My days were spent working hard, my weekends spent playing even harder . . . Then Alex arrived and overnight my role changed. I was no longer myself; I was a mother," Cook writes.

The dissatisfied mom attributes much of her frustration to the transition of going from having a fulfilling career, surrounding herself with intelligent friends and colleagues, and access to disposable income to the monotony of "mum friends" and having to allocate the family's earnings to childcare and other baby-related costs. She goes on to share the mixed reactions of friends after confessing her "secret":

At first their tired, sleepless eyes would widen in shock at my topic of conversation but then, usually after a couple of glasses of wine, they'd begin to nod, guilt streaking their faces . . . But then there were the other friends I pitched this idea to; the ones who'd look at me with utter contempt or horror. Their lives seemed to revolve around little Jacob's swimming lessons or Harriet's art classes.

What do you think of Julie Cook's "confessions"? Is she being selfish, or realistic? Have you too felt bored in your role as a mom? What do you miss most about your preparenthood days?