Lost in Suburbia

Lost in Our Nation’s Capital

I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day yesterday and no one got a vacuum cleaner as a gift (unless it was a really good vacuum cleaner).

I got breakfast in bed, lots of hugs, and the chance to be on stage with 19 amazing women for the New York City Listen to Your Mother Show. Everyone’s stories were incredible. Some were hilarious… others were heart-wrenching. We read our essays to a packed house and bowed to a standing ovation. It was a pretty spectacular Mother’s Day, for sure! Additionally, all the cast members did an interview before the show. You can read mine here.

This morning I hoped on a plane (again) and flew to DC. This is the last week of my 6 City Cool Mom Book and Blow Dry Bar Tour and I’m both glad to be winding down and also sad that the fun is about to come to an end. But we are definitely going out with a bang!

Here’s the schedule:

Tomorrow morning I will be appearing on the Fox 5 Morning News (WTTG-TV) at 9:15am to share some of my tips for getting your cool back when you’re a new mom. (Of course, it took me 5 years to get my cool back, but we won’t tell them that).

Then, later on at 7pm, I’ll be signing books at One More Page Books in Arlington, VA. If you live in the area, please come by! It’s always a lot more fun when friends are there!!

Wednesday night is my Cool Mom Book and Blow Dry party in Bethesda for local mom bloggers (You can see pics of our LA event here!). If the past 4 Blow Dry Bar parties are any indication, this should be a lot of fun. I have to give a big shout out here to Julia Beck and Vanessa Birch of the strategies firm, Forty Weeks for all their help pulling this event together. So excited to celebrate with them, my DC friends, and our sponsors, Theraderm Skin Care Collection, Living Fresh eco-friendly, hotel-quality sheets, Office Candy home office accessories, and our newest sponsor, Fat Boys Cookie Dough who will be warming up their fresh baked cookies in the oven at the party for hot, gooey chocolate chip cookies to have with the wine!!

Thursday morning, my tour partner Holly Rosen Fink and I are back on the plane headed to Chicago. This is one of my favorite cities (and not just because I love Chicago pizza!). Chicago is the home of one of my big newspaper groups, Gatehouse Media. I love being out there and seeing my Gatehouse family! No sooner do we get to Chicago then we have our Last Cool Mom Book and Blow Dry Party. All the sponsors will be back for that one, AND we are having pizza from Bella Luna cafe. too. YES! I get my Chicago pizza!!

Friday morning I will be appearing on WGN TV at 11:40am and then shoot over to Barbara’s Bookstore, a Chicago institution, for a book signing at 12:30pm at the Willis Tower (Sears Tower) on the Lower Level 1. It’s truly a phenomenal bookstore so bring the kids and stop by!

I know it’s a lot to keep track of, but if you are in the DC area or Chicago, please come to one of these events and say hi!!

And don’t forget, all the stops on my tour celebrate my book launch, but I’m also trying to raise awareness for the group, Dress For Success, which provides professional attire for low-income women, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.
Please check out my fundraising page here.

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WHO’S WRITING ABOUT LOST IN SUBURBIA?

*My friend Sharon writes about her own experience losing her cool with her six (!) kids on her blog, Mom of Six. She talks about how her experience parallels mine (times three). You can read her post here.

*Erin also posted about her personal journey becoming a mom and losing her identity on her blog, Mommy on the Spot. She writes, “I took great comfort in the fact that [Tracy], too, shared the feeling of insanity that cleaning wipes was an acceptable topic of conversation. In fact, those kinds of conversations are the exact reason why I started a blog.” It’s a great, touching post. Please check it out here!

*My friend Tricia, of she-who-helped-me-throw-the-world’s-greatest-party-in-Charlotte fame, reviews my book and is also doing an INSANE giveaway on her blog. You can enter to win my book and a ton of other goodies on her blog Southern Spark.

*Gene Myers is an editor of one of the North Jersey Media Group newspapers that carry my column, Suburban Trends, but he is also a phenomenal poet and writer in his own right. Gene has been posting about his own parental awakenings on his blog, Joy of Life, ever since his son, Owen, was born several years ago. We had a great chat recently about my book and both of us being Lost in Suburbia. You can read that interview here.

*I did a radio interview with two wonderful women who are part of a five sister radio team known on the web as the Satellite Sisters. Lian and Julie Dolan and I talked about everything from Kim Kardashian’s pregnancy to connecting with other moms in the ‘burbs.
You can listen to that interview here!

I LOVE the ladies over at the O-Mamas. They are Opinionated Mamas who provide a platform for America’s moms to be “the voice of reason” in our nation’s most important conversations. I was truly honored when they selected me to be their “Hot Mama” for May! Please check out my page on their site, and then click around and see some of the other discussions going on at Opinionated Mama.

*I did one more radio interview over on Break Thru Radio where I chatted with Kory French for his show, Book Talk. Kory and I just started talking and I didn’t even realize at some point he had pushed the “on air” button and we were live. You can check out that interview here! I come in around the 7 minute mark, so you can either listen to some other slightly strange things and a little bit of cool music before me or fast forward ahead!

By the way, just in case you were thinking I might be getting a swelled head from all this attention, CVS pharmacy printed out a coupon for me when I stopped in at the drug store this weekend that brought me back down to earth:
xo Tracy

Lost in Los Angeles

The next stop on my Lost in Suburbia “Six City Cool Mom Book and Blow Dry Bar Tour” was Los Angeles. But before I could fly out there, I had an appearance on Fox 5′s “Good Day New York” with Rosanna Scotto and Greg Kelly. And when I say before, I mean, an hour before I had to be at the airport to fly to Los Angleles.

I was really excited about the appearance because I think Greg and Rosanna are a hoot and you never know what is going to happen on that set. I was also excited because I knew that the group, Take 6 was supposed to be on the show that day, too, and I LOVE them and was hoping to meet them.

But mostly I was excited because I heard Fox has really good snacks in the green room.

Not that I’m shallow or anything.

In case you don’t know Take 6, they are a phenomenal acapella singing group. I have a special place in my heart for them because back when I was in labor with my son, we played my favorite Take 6 album in the delivery room.

Anyway, while I was waiting in the green room for my segment, eating muffins and trying to keep my dress from riding up because it seemed to be shrinking with every passing minute (which might have to do with the muffins I was eating), the sound of six-part harmony filled the hall and suddenly, Take 6 was in the room. I jumped up enthusiastically and yelled,
“Oh My God, YOU’RE TAKE 6!! I gave birth to you!!”

One of the members stopped and said, “You don’t look like my mother.”

I regained my composure, explained about the delivery room, and then gave them all hugs, because I’m friendly like that.
Then we sang together and took a picture.
Now that we were such good friends, I asked them if I could be part of the group and go on tour with them. They apologized and said that if I joined them they would have to change their name to Take 7 and all of their stuff already said Take 6 on it. I said I understood and it was fine because I had to finish my book tour anyway.

Anyway, after that, I did the appearance with Greg and Rosanna and it was a lot of fun. You can watch it here!

After the interview, I did a quick change, got into some comfy plane clothes and headed to Los Angeles!

The party in LA was at a fabulous place called Blow Angels in Santa Monica. We had some incredible sponsors for this event, including a hot new LA cookie company called Love Bites, a new line of Pure Natural Botanical Perfumes from the Pure Natural Diva, Tania Reuben, and wines from boutique vinyards in Napa courtesy of The Wine Sisterhood.

Our tour sponsors Theraderm and Living Fresh were also on hand with samples and door prizes for two lucky guests.
Sarah Auerswald from MomsLA won a gorgeous sheet set and lotions from Living Fresh and Elizabeth Peterson from the blog Traded My BMW For a Minivan won a three month supply of Theraderm skin care products. They also both got great blowouts! Not a bad way for a mom to spend a night!
Did I mention we also served Cool Mom Margaritas, had chocolate mousse shot glass desserts, gave out all natural sunscreen samples from KINeSYS Performance Sunscreen, gift cards from Ann Taylor, and, of course, gave everyone a free copy of my book, “Lost in Suburbia: A Momoir. How I Got Pregnant, Lost Myself, and Got My Cool Back in the New Jersey Suburbs.” It was so much fun to celebrate with my LA friends!

The party ended with a bang, or more accurately, a large shredding sound, when I sat down and ripped the inside of my dress from my hip to my thigh. Fortunately it was the lining and no one noticed, but I realized I was definitely going to need to cut down on muffins in the green room for the rest of the tour.

Thanks so much to everyone who came and to my sponsors for helping make this such a wonderful event!

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Listen To Your Mother!

Tomorrow at 5pm I’ll be reading an essay from my book as part of a one day, off-broadway show called, Listen To Your Mother.
Showcasing moving, socially relevant and humorous stories about a range of modern mothering experiences, the Listen To Your Mother Reading Series is a unique national event taking place this May in 24 cities across the United States. My castmates include former Editor in Chief of Redbook Magazine Stacy Morrison (now Editor in Chief of BlogHer.com), comedian Jaime Fernandez, the fabulously funny NYC blogger, Marinka, actors Laura Pruden and Elizabeth Robinson, and many other incredible women. The show is directed by Amy Wilson (When Did I Get Like This) and Shari Simpson (Dusty Earth Mother) and produced by Varda Steinhardt (The Squashed Bologna) and my book tour partner (!), Holly Rosen Fink (Culture Mom Media).
As Holly says, “Their stories will make you laugh, make you cry and make you reflect on the institution of motherhood. Whether you are a mother or a daughter, you will experience a deep connection to our show.”

Do something nice for yourself this Mother’s Day and come see the show! It’s TOMORROW, Mother’s Day, Sunday, 5/12 at 5pm at Peter Norton Symphony Space (2537 Broadway at 95th Street). Tickets are $25 (advance), $30 (at the door) and can be purchased in advance online HERE.

Hope to see you there!
xo