Meet The Mid-Century Modern Moms

Daisy

"Daisy"is married (20+ years) and mother of two lovely semi-adults known in the blog world as Amigo and La Petite. Amigo is 16 and therefore knows it all, despite the challenges of being blind and having Asperger's syndrome, a high-functioning disorder on the autism spectrum.  La Petite is in college studying to be a journalist or photographer or both, so she knows even more than her brother. La Petite graciously allows her mother to post a few of her photos now and then, as long as mom gives her credit.

"Daisy"also blogs at Compost Happens and It's A Mother's Garden of Verses, at least she posts when she can in between writing lesson plans and correcting papers for her day job as an elementary teacher.

Margalit

Margalit is the single mother of two of the wackiest teenagers in the world, fraternal boy/girl twins born in 1992. The Boy is bipolar/ADHD/profoundly gifted and the Girl has a non-verbal learning disability (NVLD). When Margalit is not sobbing over another IEP glitch by the high school, she blogs at What was I THINKING?, New England Mamas, and What was I Reviewing?  In another life, Margalit worked in the scintillating world of high technology where she first wrote User Manuals bound to put any insomniac to sleep. Rising up the ranks, she ended her career in technology as a company director in 2002, and is now a stay-at-home-mom. In her copious spare time Margalit enjoys gardening, reading, watching way too much TV, blogging, and annoying officious people everywhere. Margalit is also an educational advocate that helps parents of special needs children navigate the various school departments in the Greater Boston area. The founder of Mid-Century Modern Moms, Margalit is proud of her gray hair, wrinkles and bags under her eyes. She sees them all as being a badge won from parenting teenagers. Unlike every other parenting blogger, Margalit has no intention of ever writing a novel. She only likes to read them.

You pronounce her name Mar-ga-leet.

Ora      

Ora is the mid-40-something mama of Abe, who is 17 and Rose (call me Rosie) who is 14. Abe is a special needs kid, who is already full-adult size.  He's really smart, but lazy.  He is diagnosed PDD (on the autism spectrum), so he has emotional control issues on top of some learning disabilities. Writing is really hard for him, but he loves math and science.  He's currently a high school junior but due to hospitalizations has missed so much work he'll be repeating this school year at a residential school. Rosie is also very smart, lazy and has a mouth on her like you've never heard.  She is currently in 8th grade at a parochial school but will attend a high ranked public school next year for high school.

   

Ora is married to J, who is definitely the 3rd child in her house.  J has stage 4 cancer. Ora works  full-time at a job with very few other women in a scientific position at a large military industrial complex where she is not a war-monger. She's just a chemist.  She stays extra busy juggling her "three" kids medical and social appointments, looking and working towards their various futures and trying to find a little time in all of this to maintain her sanity (not to mention her weight).  As a group, she is in the sandwich generation- caught between taking care of her father as he gets older and taking care of her kids.  Ora says she's in the hamantashen generation- squeezed on 3 sides and oozing out the middle.

You pronounce her name Ore-a.

Nina

Nina is a recovering suburbanite and the recently divorced mother of Jaws (21) and Grumble (15). In 2003 Nina and her family relocated from Long Island, where she lived most of her life, to intown Atlanta.  She left behind aging parents and pretty much her entire family and support system.  From the moment she set foot in Atlanta, life took on a bizarre "You Can't Make This Stuff Up" quality.  On her fifth day in Atlanta, Nina was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. Then she got better and relaunched her career. Then Jaws went off to college. Then Mex, (her ex, who is a rabbi) turned 50, had a classic mid-life meltdown and checked out of the marriage right after Grumble's bar mitzvah. 

As she tries on the life of a single southern belle, Nina is also documenting a city-wide project called The Beltline, which will bring together disparate neighborhoods of Atlanta.  Her day job is PR/marketing guru for a large non-profit. Nina watches way too much HGTV, loves live music, yoga and her wonderful new Atlanta friends. The Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts is her "happy place."  Nina blogs at Voted Off the Island.

Ilona

Once upon a time, Ilona was a teacher. She had the big white wedding, married Mr. Right and had three lovely children, who she homeschooled, reasoning, why leave her kids so she can teach other peoples, when she could just teach her own? She decided that teaching prenatal classes, and attending labours as a support person fit in better with her goals and schedule. Sadly, Mr. Right slowly but unstoppably morphed into Mr. Mistake, and one day Ilona found herself delighted to be single once more.

Delighted, but also largely income-free. She turned to her parenting skills to make money, and ran a successful home daycare for the next twelve years. A couple of years into that venture, she met Mr. Really Right, who came complete with five children of his own. After spending nine or so years in unwedded bliss, she finally agreed to marry him last spring. Now Ilona is moving from daycare to writing, and hopes to be baby-free within the next couple of years.

Their eight joint children range from 22 down to 12 years old; three live independently, 2 live full-time with Ilona and husband, and three split their time between households. Ilona blogs at It's Not All Mary Poppins.

Oh, and you pronounce it eh-low-nah.

Janice

Janice was born in New Jersey many moons ago.  She ended up SE of Seattle by way of Michigan, Orange County, Ca, LaJolla, CA, to The OC again, then north to Washington State where she has stayed for over 18 years.  It still doesn't feel quite like home.  Janice has been married to McHub for over 21 years and is the mother of two teenage boys, BPB (19) and BBB (17).  She was a SAHM for 17 years before she went back to school fulltime.  Janice has earned her AA degree and will be entering the LPN program in September.  Janice spent her years at home sitting on the couch eating bonbons........NAW!  Janice was the queen of volunteering in the PTA, Little League, Kent Youth Soccer, room volunteer in both boys classrooms during elementary school and chaperoned dances at the junior high.  She also did 7 years of Bible Study Fellowship.  In her spare time before college Janice read about most everything.  She has at least 2000 books waiting in boxes to be unpacked, sometime in this century.  Her special interests are Holocaust history, psychology and most medical topics as she's a complete medi-geek. Janice blogs at Chasing Myself, and formerly blogged at Twist & Skewer.