Kellie Martin's Blog: Say What?

Kellie is an Emmy-nominated actress who recently appeared on Lifetime’s Army Wives, and is perhaps best known for her work on ER and Life Goes On. She has assumed a new role with her takeover of ROMP, an online modern children’s boutique. Kellie is mom to 5-year-old daughter Maggie and hopes that ROMP will "inspire conscious, thoughtful parenting practice and will, in turn, help moms feel confident and fulfilled.”

I've been an actor for a very long time. And one of the most important aspects of my job is to support the other actors with whom I am working.  That means no matter how strangely an actor decides to deliver their line of dialogue or how intensely they react, I just need to work with it. My acting teacher described it as "Yes, and... " Whatever is thrown at you in a scene, you keep going and build on it. That's part of the excitement of being an actor, you never know where a scene will take you.

Raising my daughter is shockingly similar. Except with Maggie, she is more committed to her intention than any actor I've ever worked with, and her highs and lows are infused with more drama than any diva I've run across. As her mom (or her costar, if you will) I am constantly being tested on how supportive I can be in a various array of situations (or scenes). My task is to respond with, "Yes, and... " Let me give you an example:

Maggie: “I’m making cookies."
Me "That's nice sweetie. What kind?"  
Maggie:  "It’s called sugar brown mixed with playdough cook.”

Just because I've never heard of sugar brown mixed with playdough cook cookies, who am I to say that they don't exist? If I am to be a supportive member of this scene my response should sound something like:

Me: "Yes, and I bet those sugar brown mixed with playdough cook cookies taste as good as they sound."

As parents we can spend so much time correcting our children that we often forget to enjoy the amazing yet bizarre things that come out of their mouths. Let their imaginations run a little wild. Just think of where we'd be if Shakespeare's mama told him that his iambic pentameter hullabaloo was just a bunch of nonsense? 

More from Kellie Martin:

• Planting Seeds
• The Loneliest Number
• Curly Joe and the Meaning of Life
• The Sky’s Not the Limit
• That Montana Swagger

You can find Kellie on Twitter, Facebook and at her awesome online shop, ROMP.