The adventures of a girl aspiring to be many somethings, including (but not limited to) a pretty good wife, a passable mom, a decent human being, and a humor blogger whose posts you actually want to read.
I'm a mom. Yep. When I'm alone. When I'm with my kids. When I'm at home. When I'm in public. I'm a mom. I feel it in the depths of my being. It's in every creak of my bones. It's the undertone of every thought I have and word I speak. My kids are the foreground of my life and the background on my phone. They are absolutely everything to me. I'm a mom.
More than once, my 4 year old has screamed as he heads to time out that I have ruined his fun or his day or his life. I've gotta admit, it stings just a little, but when I started to reflect, I realized he's at least partially right. Sometimes I do ruin his fun. And that probably does ruin his day. But I feel pretty confident that none of the mean things I'm doing are gonna ruin his life. So I'm coming to terms with my meanness and telling myself it's okay.
Now, before you prepare my trophy for “Worst Mommy Of All Time”, hear me out. I’m not saying your children suck. I’m saying playing with them sucks. I’m also not saying that spending time with your children sucks. I don't mean playing at the park or going for a picnic. I'm talking quarantine-type games. And colouring. And building stuff. If you disagree with me, congratulations. But if you’re willing to hear me out, I think you'll agree that I've got a pretty compelling argument.
Sometimes it's hard living 3 hours away from my family, especially now that we have kids. I've been fortunate to sneak in a lot of visits with my parents over this past 11 months since I've been on maternity leave with our second baby. After my mom and dad left today, I was reflecting on [...]
More than once, I have found myself shaking my head as I ask myself, Is this what I signed up for? And then I realize that, as a parent, whether I knew it or not at the time, this is exactly what I signed up for.
As the days of sipping lattes while getting a pedicure with your girlfriend while your baby sleeps peacefully next to you in his carseat are long gone, you are likely to find yourself desperate for adult conversation in a more manageable setting. It seems like a no-brainer. Enter the playdate.
A friend of mine recently posted an Instagram story featuring some of the lies she has told her kids to make her life as a parent a little bit easier and a lot more entertaining. When I saw her post, it inspired me to do a little digging to see what kinds of stories other parents are telling their kids to help them get through the day with a chuckle or two. When I originally posted the question, I thought I was going to get a huge variety of crazy answers, but what I found instead was kind of fascinating. Imagine my surprise when, over the course of a couple of days, I started to realize that we are all lying to our kids about the same things.
Some days, it's hard to get out of bed. I certainly don't get paid enough for some of the things this job entails (and by enough, I mean at all), but something keeps me coming back.
I have to imagine that one of the greatest struggles of maternity leave has got to be finding the will and strength to leave the house. Actually, I don't have to imagine, because I know this to be true. When I was on mat leave the first time around, the seduction of Netflix, combined with both my fear of Mommy and Me groups, hatred of cold weather and just general laziness found my new baby and I spending the better part many winter weeks hanging out around the house.
This is neither a letter of celebration, nor regret. This is simply an acknowledgement of your presence; a simple note to say that, yeah, I see you, in all of your loose-skinned glory. I accept that you're here. I know that I spent 9 months cultivating you, eating cheeseburgers when I should have had a salad, taking naps when I should have done a workout. But I was hungry. And I was tired. It's not that I hate you; I just haven't learned how to love you yet.
THE ASPIRING SOMETHING 