But I don't want to be a Soccer Mom!

Noah Shand at his 1st soccer practice

As a news reporter I've been called a lot of things, many of them not fit to print. Right now I answer to some kinder names, among them Mama, Mommy, Moooooommmm (said with hands on hips and eyes rolling- and he's only 3, Lord help me!), Meemee (when a certain 15-month-old really wants my attention), and on those very rare occasions when I'm able to converse with a bona fide adult, Mona. But there's one name I was called recently that made me shudder. It shook me up and made me stop in my tracks. It rocked me to my very core. That 4-letter word which actually contains 9 letters and comprises 2 words was none other than Soccer Mom.

Now you should know that we live in a soccer town. It's a place where every Saturday morning the town with no real traffic develops a major traffic jam, as hundreds of uniform-wearing, cleat-clad kids, their parents, and their parents vehicles descend upon the fields with one "goal" in mind: soccer. When we first toured our town with our realtor, it was yet another thing we loved. There was even a soccer supply store on Main St., for goodmess sakes! At the time I was pregnant with our first child, and my husband (a former soccer player) and I happily moved to Soccer Town with dreams of the day we'd join the Saturday herds.

A few weeks back we sealed the deal: I signed our 3-year-old son up with the local recreation league and picked up his uniform. "Congratulations, you're now officially a Soccer Mom!" the woman behind the desk called out cheerfully as we turned to leave. Frozen, my brain tried to put together the words "Thank you," but think it came out more like "Whabba wifup." Soccer Mom? Me? I think not.

I tried to brush it off but the frustration began to eat at me, so I took the issue to the modern day therapist's couch: Facebook. "Mona just picked up Noah's soccer uniform and his first practice is Saturday," I updated, "but so help me if you call me a Soccer Mom I will kick your teeth in."

So why does one term, one combination of sport and relationship evoke such a visceral response? At the suggestion of one of my therapists (OK, a Facebook friend), I decided to explore. Wikipedia defines the term as "a middle-class, suburban woman who spends a significant amount of time transporting her school-age children to their sporting events or other activities," (OK, I don't see anything terribly wrong with that) and goes on to talk about the rise of the Soccer Mom as a political force circa 1995 (still OK... power to the moms!), including various permutations like the post-9/11 Security Moms (now we might be pushing it) and the Sarah Palin-inspired Hockey Moms (not my cup of tea, and certainly not my kind of tea party, but OK).

Urban Dictionary is not quite as kind, including in its definitions of Soccer Mom "The downfall of human society," "a waste of body cells," and "usually seen screaming at people from behind the wheel of her SUV." Wow.

While that is certainly extreme, but to be completely honest the real issue for me is that Soccer Mom is a little too close, maybe even synonymous with another term I've been unable to accept: Stay At Home Mom. Believe me, I don't think there's anything wrong with staying at home, in fact quite the opposite. When I was working I convinced myself that I wasn't missing much at home, but now that I actually am home (and only working part-time, mostly at night and on weekends) I realize how wrong I was. It's simultaneously incredibly difficult and incredibly rewarding, but it just isn't how I ever pictured myself. Despite having lived and worked in 6 different countries and nearly every part of this one, the move to Soccer Town and Stay At Home Momville has been the most difficult so far. Try as I might to hang with the SAHM crew, a little voice inside keeps screaming "But I'm not like you!" I've playdated, pampered my inner chef and gone (book) clubbing with the ladies, but the voice is still there. And I'm pretty sure the other women have voices of their own screaming "But she's not like us!" Anyone who says the Mommy Wars are over needs to come spend a few days in my 'hood. But maybe if we stopped screaming at each other from inside our heads and started talking about it out loud, we'd make some progress toward a ceasefire.

As a coping mechanism, I think I've started to subconsciously reject anything that smells of that unfamiliar world. Baking cookies? Gross. (Even though I do in fact love to bake.) Driving an SUV? Disgusting. (Even though I drive the SUV's first cousin, the crossover.) Carting my kids around to activities in the hopes of enriching their minds and bodies? I don't have time! (That's of course because I have to drive my son to preschool and then go to Story Time at the library with my little girl.)

So does Mom + Soccer = Soccer Mom? Does Mom + Home = Stay At Home Mom? And even if that's the math, do the labels matter? In an ideal world, I'd say no, but that's not where we live. For now I'm working on accepting where I currently am, instead of dreaming of being somewhere else. And I don't want to be late for soccer.

How a tea kettle changed my view of motherhood

Must. Have. Tea. These are the only 3 words my sleep-deprived, mommy-fied brain can process in the morning. For the record, it's decaf, and it's also in my genes. Because if there's one thing Egyptians know really well, it's the importance a good cup of tea. It's a culture where tea begins and ends the day. Tea is the only civilized way to greet a guest, begin a friendship or end a meal. I'm pretty sure there are hieroglyphs that depict our pyramid-building ancestors taking daily tea breaks around 10am. Stomachache? Try tea with mint. Rough day at work? Tea with milk. Really rough day at work? Tea with whatever you have in the liquor cabinet.

It's the one beverage that's thicker than blood or water. Just ask my completely non-Egyptian husband who knew he'd been granted the green light to propose when my dad, after a long silent pause, finally turned toward him and popped the ultimate question:

"Mark, would you like a cup of tea?"

So it's only fitting I got a major wake up call from my morning tea. Or my tea kettle, to be exact.

Electric tea kettle #1 was a wedding shower gift and after nearly 7 years of speedily brewing my morning, afternoon and evening delight it one day died a peaceful death. So I invested in a new shiny stainless steel number. So shiny you can see yourself in it. And that's exactly what happened.

I came downstairs that first morning of the New Kettle Era and began my usual routine, which mainly involves impatiently watching water boil. But somewhere between the Lipton bag and the Splenda packet I caught a glimpse of myself in the side of the kettle and here's what I saw: an angry face. A tense face. A face that looked defeated. It wasn't so much the dark circles under the eyes but the sadness inside them that took me most by surprise. Was that really me? Was that the face that greeted my family each morning?

It's been nearly 10 months since I left my job to stay home with my kids. It was the decision so many women before me have faced: the emotional and financial cost of putting two kids in daycare was just too much to pay. And don't get me wrong, I adore my children. I love the sight, love the sound, want to inhale the sweet smell of their skin. But there is a loneliness and isolation to daily life with little ones that can at times feel suffocating. The constant doing and undoing of laundry, the making and unmaking of messes. By the time my husband comes home the best I have to offer is a brief State of the Household address: an exciting summary of who did and did not poop.

"Just make friends with other moms," I've been told. Well here's a newsflash- not every mom out there wants to be your friend, by mere virtue of the fact that you both have children. Sometimes the mean girls from middle school grow up and grow out of it, and sometimes they just grow up and host Bunco night. So (partly by choice) most days the only adult I interact with is the Target cashier, and even she seems a little bored with me. I miss my old life, I miss my old self.

It's enough to make a person angry, even if that person doesn't realize it until she sees it reflected back in a tea kettle. But it's slowly become clear: I've been fighting the Mommy Wars with myself, and I'm losing the battle.

So it's time to lay down my weapons; I am officially giving up the internal fight. It's high time I accept where I am, accept that this is who I am right now. It is often difficult, it is frequently lonely, but it's also what I know deep down to be right. These are my current circumstances, and I can't change them until I fully acknowledge what they are. My family doesn't deserve angry eyes, and neither do I.

So please join me and my morning tea for a toast: Here's to drinking in what life offers us in the here and now. Here's to sipping on what we've been given, and savoring what it is instead of wishing it were something else. Let's stop worrying about whether the tea cup is half-empty or half-full and just taste what's inside.

Cheers to now.