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Anissa Mayhew

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About

Anissa Mayhew was a Babble Voices contributor who wrote about parenting and her life experiences of being a mother of three, a cancer survivor and a parapalegic. More of her work can be found on her personal blog Free Anissa.

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Posts by Anissa Mayhew

i’m a mean, horrible mommy AKA why my kid doesn’t have a cell phone

My 8yo was on the phone with a friend. A landline. How archaic! I heard my daughter’s classmate ask, “Do you have an IPhone? So we can text?” “No,” my daughter answered mournfully. “Well, what do you text with?” the friend asked, obviously bewildered at this answer. “I don’t have a cellphone,”….you could almost hear her...

Babble Voices

How to Play Food Bingo

This is a game you should be able to play with any of your friends who are parents. It’s better if they drive a minivan, but an SUV or regular car will suffice just fine. This can also substitute as a valid zombie apocalypse strategy.You can survive on the food supplies mentioned for weeks. To...

Babble Voices

Building a generation of dreamers

My first day of kindergarten I came home from school and announced, “They didn’t teach me to subtract or to write. This is a waste of time. I’m not going back.” I went back. My relationship with math never got much better. I learned to write. I fell in love. When I was small, it...

Babble Voices

10 things I don’t enjoy about being about a girl

Being a woman definitely comes with it’s advantages. Guys will open jars for you, they’ll (usually) hold the door for you and there’s just something so RIGHT about the smell of good shoes. From the time you’re born a female you have the innate ability to weave magic with a swish of your little fingers....

Babble Voices

5 things to just accept about your beautiful self

It’s a hard lesson to learn to appreciate yourself. There’s always that five pounds you wish you could lose. A zit that pops up like a daisy at the most inopportune time. That picture circulating Facebook where you look terrible but EVERYONE has seen because your friend looks great and the douche-biscuit won’t crop you...

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Letting your inner child come out and play with “The Lorax”

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Blissdom and “The Lorax” party that took place there. It’s hard to explain the fun of friends and music if you aren’t there to enjoy it for yourself. But I can tell you how fun it was to reach down and let my inner child come...

Babble Voices

Let The Lorax Help You Get Your Bliss On at Blissdom and 5 Ways To Be Blissful At Home

You still have time to get involved with the Blissdom conference in Nashville hosted by our very own Babble Voices writer Alli Worthington and Barbara Jones. February 23- 25 Nashville, TN – Opryland Hotel They say “Get your Bliss On” as a slogan. It could be kind of cheesy. But you can take it from...

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Valentine’s Day Was Just Another Day

A friend of mine texted me. She had been dating T. for 4 months, they were having a lot of fun, the relationship seemed so natural, she’d never been nervous before. Then February 14 struck with its unrealistic expectations and grand gestures. With the flowers and candies and cards that were supposed to distract from...

Babble Voices

5 Reasons I Love Dr. Seuss and Chocolate Mousse and Reading @Dooce and Wild Monkeys On The Loose

Ok. It isn’t a fox with a box wearing green socks. But what is? With my 14yo we read “Hop On Pop”. EVERY NIGHT. Sometimes three times a night. With the 10yo it was “Are You My mother?” EVERY NIGHT. Sometime she still reads it. My 8yo was enraptured to see the story she’d been...

Babble Voices

The Strength Of Your Positivity

One of the things that I truly believe we can do for ourselves is surround ourselves with as much positivity as possible. In words. In how we fill our minds. In the message we feed our soul. Whether it’s music I enjoy, pictures that speak to me, by Karen of Chokooloonks and our own Babble...

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Why didn’t I Realize My Mom Would Get This?

I have my mother’s permission to write this post. It wasn’t just my story to tell. I have talked about the many ways my mother is different from me. As much as I love her, there are just times she shakes her head and wonders HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? My mom has had to have...

Babble Voices

Not Every Adoption Is The Same

When I was a kid, I used to taunt my siblings, “Mom and Dad HAD to have you, they CHOSE me!” Yeah. It started way back then. But as an adopted youngest child with two older sibling who were my parent’s natural-born children I didn’t struggle the way a lot of adopted children do. There...

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What You Have Done VS What You Have Been Through

I am a mom. More than anything, I am a mom. I feel the responsibility that comes with that title. OH I FEEL IT! I feel it like a mack truck in the spleen. I recently wrote about the difference between being “pretty” and “beautiful“. Then another difference hit me at the same time these...

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What I Do When I Have To Say Goodbye To My Kids

As my family begins gearing up for the upcoming year, one thing we can anticipate is a lot of trips and events that separate me from my kids. Filling up the calender means there are things to reorganize and work around. Those are the easy things. For parents you can never schedule separation anxiety and...

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Why Santa Likes Rich Kids More Than Poor Kids

When I was a kid, my best friend’s family was poorer than mine. I didn’t know that, though. Then one year Corrie told me “Santa doesn’t like us.” Apparently the previous Christmas she’d asked and begged for one particular gift. She’d been super good. Santa didn’t bring her the gift she asked for. But that...

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Today is World’s AIDS Day: How Can You Not Support Babies?

I hope you see this picture as I do. The absolute trust. The unfailing comfort. There could have been no purer and all-consuming love than what I felt. Most mothers I’ve been honored to know put their child’s needs before ANY of their own. As a mother of three. The mother of a child that...

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5 Ways We Make Movietime Interesting

When it comes to movies it is a chore to find one “old enough” for the 13yo, yet “young enough” for the 7yo. Don’t forget that whatever they agree on the 10yo is sure to hate. So short of shooting them all in the butts with tranquillizer darts, we’ve had to think up ways to...

Babble Voices

Diary Of An Angry Pusher

I recently traveled to the BlogWorld conference out in L.A. from my home in Atlanta. I always take a “pusher” with me. A wheelchair pusher who learns the ropes of helping me. It’s been my live-in aide Jackie, my friends Amanda and Robin, and sometimes it’s Peter (my husband). Sometimes we have the incredible experience...

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October is National Domestic Violence Month and @VUnsilenced is here to help every month

As a mom I want to put my kids on Craigslist some days. Or Ebay. Or FreeCycle. But that’s me and my kids. Anyone else lays a hand on my kids, verbally attacks them or abuses them in any way and I WILL MAKE SURE THEY NEVER FIND A BODY. I have pretty strong feeling...

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The “Bad Mom” Race Can Start On The Couch

Reading Megan’s post about “Bad Mom’s” and Catherine’s response to her questions made me throw my hat in the ring. Maybe because they brought up Aiming Low and it seemed very important to me as founder of that site to make sure it was said YOU WON’T SEE US CALL YOU BAD ANYWHERE. This isn’t...

Babble Voices

NOT Interviewing @RalphMacchio about being the parent of teen drivers

I was supposed to interview Ralph Macchio (Karate Kid, Outsiders, DWTS) but there was a screw-up on MY part about getting the days mixed up. Note to self: Make sure to check that DATE and DAY match. So, I did what any self-respecting adult does in this situation. I wallowed in my agony. Then he...

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Being A Hospital Parent: Part 4 Siblings

When you spend a lot of time at the hospital getting care for one of your kids you find that that other thing in your life suffer from inattention. Dishes don’t get washed. Laundry piles up. Grass gets really freaking tall. Your non-sick kids get less attention. They do. You can’t help it even if...

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Being A Hospital Parent: Part 3 Patients

I’m crossing my fingers that your kid’s trip to hospital involves flowers and then going home. But, for too many families, there are medical issues that lead them to being in-patient at the hospital. There are two kinds of patients 1) acute OR 2) chronic, and some tips are for one or the other. (for...

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Being A Hospital Parent: Part 2 – Visiting

I’ve had the GREAT chance to be in medical situations with my kids. Children’s hospitals, ICU’s, therapy hospitals, nursing homes, hospice, you name it, we’ve probably done it. If you’re lucky, these post will be the biggest waste of space. I will NEVER tell anyone that we have all the answers to how to make...

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