Birmingham
I’m a small town girl. Like dot on a map small town girl. So when I moved to Auburn for college, I always imagined I would move right back to my dot or somewhere smallish. Birmingham was the BIG city to me. It was full of traffic, overwhelming, and just not my style.
Then I fell in love with a big city boy from guess where . . . Birmingham! We graduated in August and I quickly headed for the city. I fell in love. We had to move to Montgomery for a short year and literally drove back almost every weekend. I was itching to be back in this city where everything seemed possible.
Having been here now 14 years, the “city” doesn’t seem so “city” at all. It feels like home. A place where I am raising my babies, eating way too much yummy food, and planting roots. Roots that I hope one day will draw my children and grandchildren in, just like it did me. This town has given me life-long friendships. My people, my community. It has given my children friends that I hope will stand the test of time. It has also brought about lots of opportunities for our family. Birmingham is where my husband was born and raised and is now raising his family. It is really cool to see that come full circle!
Mom
I am mom to four small{ish} humans. I used to love calling them tiny humans, but three of those tiny people are almost as tall as me and growing into young ladies. My husband, Jeff, and I have been married for 15 (almost 16) years. We met at Auburn University and fled to Birmingham as fast as we could. We have a 12-year-old daughter, a set of 10-year-old twin girls (Lord Jesus, save us), and the wildcard . . . a three-year-old son. I work out of the home part-time but feel like I work 50 full time jobs at home. Thankfully this city has given me a wonderful community to help me manage the daily shuffle between school and activities.
Being a mom in Birmingham is all I know. So I can’t speak to what my life would look like as a mother if I were back in my small town. I do know that being able to give them the opportunity to experience so much color is a treasure. When they were babies my favorite memories were made at the Birmingham Zoo and The McWane Center. We kept those places in business! It was wonderful to be able to hop in the car and be at a new and fun destination in a matter of minutes. Now that they are older, we still visit those places but add in hiking trails, rock climbing centers, and always some friendly competition at arcades. I hope that when they look back on their childhood here in Birmingham they realize the wonders that they had right at their fingertips.
Birmingham has also offered a wealth of educational assistance and guidance. One of our twins has dyslexia. We battled for several years with testing, different diagnoses, and mounds of paperwork. Thankfully right in our own backyard (almost literally) was the most amazing school for children with learning disabilities. We are SO incredibly fortunate to have such a resource right here in Birmingham. Just one more thing to make me cherish being a Birmingham mom.
Collective
Writing is something I’ve been doing since high school. In English when our assignment was an essay, I couldn’t wait to get started. Fast forward many years to the world of blogging. Being able to put your thoughts down and share them with the world was right in my wheelhouse. Having four kids, kids with learning disabilities, kids with mental health issues, twins, tweens, and the list goes on, lends me lots of experiences. I so love reading and hearing of others moms’ experiences. Finding myself in them and realizing I’m not the only one experiencing something is refreshing.
I started a blog in 2010 when we found out we were pregnant with twins. One of our twins had a rare tumor in utero. Blogging became an outlet for me to share my feelings, because there were a LOT of feelings. It also opened up a world to me of other moms who were either walking or had walked this same journey.
I am so grateful to be able to be a part of such a wonderful community of writers in the Birmingham Mom Collective. I know that this group of women will become yet another piece of my Birmingham story. So much diversity, so much insight, so much truth all in one city. My city!
