Melissa Radke Archives - American Greetings Blog

Our friend, Melissa Radke, is back, just in time for the holidays! This time of year can be emotional to say the least. We are excited to share a bit of how Melissa kicked off the season, in this heartfelt and honest guest blog. Enjoy!

Melissa Radke Guest Blog

As I write these words I am sitting on my couch, the Christmas tree on twinkle, next to my eleven-year-old daughter who has squeezed in as close to me as humanly possible and lightly snores. We will move her to her bed in a few minutes, but for this moment she is here with me. Just like she has been every second of every minute of every hour of every day of this recent holiday break.

Mama, needs some space. Don’t get me wrong, I adore her. But we are invading new territory right now with all her emotions and all her feelings…of which there are sooooo very many.

On Monday, she cried because she “felt dead inside and was growing up entirely too fast.”
On Tuesday, she screamed because her brother “accidentally” burnt down her Minecraft house.
Wednesday, she slept till noon.
Thursday, she was awake by 6am.
And Friday, she prayed that time would stand still so she could figure out which boy she liked.

I know how she feels…and I’m nowhere near 11.

I have cried at the thought that my baby is growing up.
I got emotional because the Spinach Salad I made on Thanksgiving was soggy and tasteless.
I openly wept at three different Christmas movies.
I raged when the new sweater I bought a few months back for our family Christmas pictures will now not even go over my head!
And I tossed a perfectly good Christmas tree in the trash because the lights. It’s always because of the lights!!

Melissa Radke

And now, as I look at this baby of mine, this sudden tween, lying in her Santa footy pajamas beside me, I cannot help but think to myself of all the things I want to tell her, all the things she might need to know someday. I want to whisper them, quietly of course, as to not alarm her…but I need her to always have these words. To look back at them a few years from now. So, I go to my stack of cards that I buy throughout the year and find the perfect one. I open it up and here is what I write:

Oh, Remi. It doesn’t get much easier, my love. I mean, Minecraft houses won’t continue to be a problem and chances are you will eventually figure out which boy you like, but the emotions – the tears, the laughter and the love – will only continue. It will continue until you are my age and then beyond.

You will be emotional on a Valentines that you spend alone.
And you will laugh hysterically with your girlfriends in your first college dorm.
You will miss your brother someday, even though right now that seems impossible.
And you will want to crawl up in my bed, right by me, after your first broken heart.
You will squeal with excitement when a ring is slipped on your finger and when you find out the child you’ve been hoping and praying for is on its way.

But you will shake with fear when the news is difficult and the doctor’s reports are bleak.
Don’t even get me started on adult friendships and how freaking hard they are! Sometimes you’ll be good at them and sometimes you’ll get hurt…sometimes you’ll need to forgive and other times you’ll need to hope they can forgive you.

There will be days you laugh until you cry; moments you experience profound joy, times you wish would last forever, memories you will treasure for a lifetime. There will be other times you hope to forget; pain you will find hard to erase, grief you will almost not be able to bear.

And it is that way for all of us, Remi, not just you. You are not alone in your joy and your pain, in your loss and your memories! Every person who has ever lived and loved and lost and learned has been subject to these things. They are the things that grow us, teach us, make us, heal us. And so tonight – my Scooby-Doo loving, Shawn Mendes listening, Fuller House watching, bubble bath taking, French fry eating, smoothie drinking, tweenager – I want you to know that everything you feel is real and wonderful and totally acceptable. So, feel it all! I’ll be right here with the tissues and the cookie dough, waiting on you, right by this twinkling tree…forever.

Love,

Mom

Melissa Radke

I close the card, seal it up and slide it under her pillow. Her daddy carries her to her bed and tucks her in and I go to sleep knowing she will find it tomorrow, or tomorrow night, or when she changes her sheets in seven months. It doesn’t matter when she reads it – it only matters that she reads it.

I’m not sure anyone ever left a card like that for you. I’m not sure anyone ever took your face in their hands and dried your tears. I don’t know if anyone let your hormones rage or your fears come crashing in. I don’t know if anyone sat on the couch with you and just let you, be you. So, if they didn’t…allow me.

Oh, friend. This holiday season, give yourself permission in a way that you haven’t in a really long time.
Give yourself permission to eat the fudge.
Give yourself permission to take the personal day.
Allow yourself to go to bed at 8 and sleep in till 10.
Eat cake for dinner and have a burger for breakfast.
Workout like a fiend or Netflix binge for nine hours.
Take a hot shower and curl up in the floor and cry – because no one can hear you cry in the shower.
Have a game night. Or say no to every single party you’re invited to.
Give yourself permission to feel mad and empty and angry and scorned.
Give yourself the freedom to laugh, to give, to heal and to forgive.
Grant yourself acceptance for all the parts you like and all the parts you don’t and make New Year’s resolutions not to change yourself, but to learn to love yourself.

This Christmas, turn the twinkling lights on, slip on your footy pajamas and fall asleep beside someone you love.

This Christmas, decide that you won’t be so busy that you can’t feel what needs to be felt, grieve what needs to be grieved, remember what needs to be remembered.

Melissa Radke

This season, feel it all. Go ahead! Because as bad as it might be you can always rest in the saving knowledge that your little brother did not set fire to your 3-d pixelated block home. And that’s a pretty big deal…when you’re 11.

Merry Christmas,

Melissa

Visit our Season of Joy page for more Christmas inspiration, including Christmas Messaging, Gift Guides, and Wrapping ideas!

Getting to know Melissa Radke

Melissa Radke is a public speaker, writer, entertainer, and vlogger – but even more than that, she is a mom who gets it. We first came across Melissa when her “Red Ribbon Week” video went viral, and we were hooked. Her honest approach to motherhood, paired with her sincerity, compassion, and amazing sense of humor has attracted a dedicated social following and an enthusiastic fan base. We could go on and on about her, but we thought we’d let her introduce herself in her own words…

So I decided to be authentic. I decided to be what I was created to be and it's been the most fun and freeing thing I've ever done - Melissa Radke

Tell us a little bit about yourself:
Hi y’all! My name is Melissa Radke. I am a blogger, a vlogger, and one time in the 4th grade I was a clogger (but I really don’t like to talk about that too much.) I love to write and I do so quite a lot; usually about my family, my faith, my friends and my immense lack of parenting skills. #jesustakethewheel

When did you first discover that people had a connection to what you were posting in your videos and on your social channels?
The first video I ever had go “viral” was called Red Ribbon Week and at this point almost 30 million people have watched that video. Is it because it is the most hilarious thing ever? No. Is it because it is a normal, every day mom just trying to keep up? Yes. After that video I thought to myself, “Man, I didn’t even really try. I just made a video being myself. Maybe that’s the key. Maybe people are drawn to real people who look like them and have no groceries in the house like them and can’t do sit-ups like them.” So I decided to be authentic. I decided that be what I was created to be…and its been the most fun and freeing thing I’ve ever done.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve received about motherhood?
I pretty much think anything Dr. Phil says is the gospel and I adore him and I hope to meet him before I die, so that said I remember him one time saying, “You don’t join a babies world. A baby joins your world.” And I liked that. So I went with it. If we listened to George Strait while I cooked dinner then by cracky, we kept listening to George Strait. It we watched the TV too loud, we kept watching the TV too loud. It made our lives much more enjoyable and guess what? Baby adjusted juuuuuust fine.

Of course all of that is dust in the wind once that baby turns about five and has your number. Then it’s pretty much every man for himself. I pretty much quit watching Dr. Phil as a viewer and now am about three temper tantrums away from being a guest on his show. If he ever has a show entitled “Parents Who Have Burned Their How-To Parenting Books” look for me. I’ll wave at you!

What is the worst piece of advice you’ve received about motherhood?
“Quit listening to Dr. Phil, Melissa.” Just kidding! The worst advice? Hmmmmmm…to be honest, it probably came from a book I read. I won’t name the book, but every single solitary thing in it was so Scriptural. Does that sound horrible of me? Trust me, I go to my faith A LOT as a parent. But it was non-sensical. Almost as if we should apply overtly religious rhetoric to potty training or not allowing corn syrup. I wanted to scream! I just thought to myself, “I’m an adult. I own this house. I make these rules. I will call on my faith in regards to raising kids of character and integrity and giving back to the world, but when it comes to whether or not they can have a 2nd can of soda in the span of 10 minutes….I got that!” Then I threw the book across the room. And then I got busy using the head on my shoulders and the brain God gave me.

What do you wish you could tell other moms who are feeling unappreciated or insecure about being a mom?
Girl! Friend! What did Troy and the Wildcats sing in High School Musical? WE’RE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER! (You’re welcome for putting that song in your head.)

Truth is, I do not have one single friend – not one – who has ever said, “I feel pretty equipped for this. I kinda feel like I’m killin’ it!” Because no one feels that way. And just when you start to think that 10 isn’t so hard and you can handle their attitude, they turn 12 and then you start all over. And then, after their teen years come their young adult years – and that’s another new stage entirely. Once you become a mom you become a part of a club. And its the saddest, weirdest club ever. Its not one of those super cool, neon lights, thumping music, two-drink minimum clubs you used to go to. It’s a club of women in elastic waist pants who wear their hair continually in messy buns and only primer and chapstick. And they stand around saying things like, “How could they have made a C? I stayed up all night working on that Science project!” Or “They found all their teeth in my dresser!! So I lied and said the Tooth Fairy lived in my underwear drawer.” And yet, if someone came and offered up an exchange for that club versus the other one, we’d never switch. Never. It’s like the Peace Corp, being a mom, its “the toughest job you’ll ever love.”

What role have other mothers played in your motherhood journey?
You know, not everyone has the luxury of having a “Mom Squad” so I’m careful not to gloat about mine. Some women are busting their tails doing it all on their own because they are a single mom holding down two jobs and they don’t have a lot of time for dinners with other moms or Bible Study groups or Yoga classes. So as I sit and think about who has played a part in my motherhood journey I don’t think about Girls Nights Out…

I think about the teacher my daughter had in kindergarten who looked my terrified daughter in the eyes, calmed her nerves and pulled her first loose tooth.

I think about the Camp Counselor who loved on my child last summer and harnessed her competitiveness instead of trying to squelch it.

I think about the Little League coach who told my son he was a leader and he needed to act like one, so he did.

I think about the nurse at the Pediatrician’s office who tells my daughter how beautiful she is, and I get to see my child’s face light up becomes sometimes it means more coming from someone other than MOM.

The librarian at school who encouraged their reading.

The Sunday school teacher who checked on them when they were sick.

If we look closely enough, we might just find that there is a village all around us. And thanksbetoJesus, because we need one!

An important note from Melissa:
I would love your readers to follow me on social media, but if they do they need to be fully aware of these things:

I am a mom today because someone else made me one. We had a son who passed away on Christmas Day, 2005 so both of my children are the product of the most wonderful thing ever created: ADOPTION. I am a mom because two young women were brave and selfless and courageous enough to want more for their children and more for themselves. Adoption is not a secret in our home, we talk about it with great respect and sincere thanks.
My son is kind and sweet and laid-back and even keel. My daughter is feisty and dramatic and just like…her daddy.
One of those things in number 2 is a lie.
You will not always find the perfect mom. Heck, you will not always find the perfect adult. But you will find someone that probably tries hard like you, loves hard like you and mom’s hard like you; someone trying really really hard to be the World’s Okayest Mom…and I hate to brag, but I’m pretty much killin’ it.

The Holidays. And all the emotions.

Meet Melissa Radke!