My Daily Quest as a Momma: Oprah and I

Not to sound cliche but ever since I began staying at home I started to DVR Oprah. I've always liked her show but never could call myself an "ultimate viewer". Now that she is in her Farewell Season she keeps talking about these "a-haa" moments and this weekend I had two of my own...I realized that Oprah and I (and all mommas) are a lot alike. Now I have to admit the frigid temps outside have left us couped up inside for the last 4 days so I may be pulling at strings here, but stay with me.

The other night I was watching Season 25: Oprah Behind the Scenes and they were filming she and Gayle's trip to Yosemite. At one point in the show the producer explained to her that her last morning they would go fly fishing for an hour and then mule riding for an hour. Oprah was not pleased at the length of time and requested that they just get the shot for the mule riding and then call it a day. At first I thought, well isn't she a poor sport, you wouldn't have to twist my arm to do those things. Then Oprah said to the camera (I'm para-phrasing) "...this is still work to me, I would love to go fly fishing and mule riding...by myself without you (pointing to the cameras) all around me, this is work and I'm ready to go home." A-haa!! it hit me, Oprah and I were living parallel lives! Well not exactly parallel but I totally related to what she was feeling at that moment. Although I love what I do, staying home with the kids all day, this is still work for me. Often (well everytime) Jason gets home from work he changes out of his "work" clothes, changes gears and gets to unwind and relax. I never get to have that experience, I'm not complaining, well maybe just a wee bit but I know he sometimes looks at me with the expression of "well I wish I could have stayed home all day and not gone to work." I know this is a normal feeling for both working out of the home as well as in the home mommas because I remember having the same feelings when I worked full time.

My second moment came today when I was watching her episode from Friday. Oprah is in Australia on and had a slew of Ausie born Actors and Musicians on. She was interviewing Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban and they were discussing the flight over, when Oprah brought up that she played Scrabble on her I Pad. Nicole simply asked her what her highest score was and Oprah's whole face lit up and she looked at Nicole and said "403, thank you for asking, I've been waiting for someone to ask me that" And once again I felt like Oprah and I could sit and have coffee and I realized that I am the Oprah of my house. I'm sure that most people don't ask Oprah questions about herself, they probably ask things about all the frills that surround her. You could tell that her response to Nicole was so genuine and so authentic. There are days when I crave for someone to ask me something about Christy. I realize now that I sometimes go days without ever hearing my name. My favorite name of all is momma, but there is a part of me that still needs the identity of Christy. This is one of the reasons I started this blog, to talk, to relate to have Oprah moments in my day to day life.

So I think for the rest of Oprah's Farewell Season I will look at Oprah a little different and realize if you put the fame, the fortune and all of the frilly stuff aside we really aren't that different. I will never know what it's like to be hounded by the paparazzi but my kids sure know what it feels like to be stalked by the mommarazzi!