It has come to my attention that there are some readers of this blog who are not moms. That is terrifying. Why you ask? Because (I’ll answer) I feel as if I may have been a little (ahem) overly-honest about the job of motherhood.
I mean every other post is about the chaos that swirls around me every day or about how grossly out of shape and unfashionable I have become since I entered the mommy game. When I am not whining about my unglamorous life, I am questioning my professional self.
Oh sure, you can reach deep in the annals (is that what it’s called on a blog?) and find this post which does show I have some heart. Heck, you can probably even tell when you read about each kid that my descriptions are laced with love and awe. There are even entries like this one on here that wax romantic about my current career choice.
But mostly I bitch and moan or at least laugh and roll my eyes at the life I have both as a mom and as a business owner.
What I hope, is that in my snarkiness (someone else’s word for me-am I snarky?) I have not turned off all you perfectly good future moms and sent you running for the child free hills.
If I have-here’s a little story:
Once upon a time a girl who was having a bit of an emotional comeapart decided to randomly upload a very old, very creaky resume to a giant internet jobs database. Now this girl had been her own boss for quite a few years, so she was new to and just a little clueless about job searching in the new millennium. So she uploaded and promptly forgot. I mean really, who reads these resumes? Aren’t they just lost on the interweb somewhere?
Then the girl’s phone rang one day and a lovely lady in Philadelphia made a fantastic offer that had her head spinning in millions of directions. Not only had someone from the Interweb actually read her resume, but they wanted her to come and work for them doing a super-duper cool job that would allow her to maintain some flexibility in her life AND utilize a part of her brain that frankly she thought had died years ago.
Breathless and excited in a way she hadn’t been since…who knows when, the girl started to plan and scheme and call around for council. She designed her new life and it was dreamy.
In the middle of the scheming and planning and imagining, the girl’s three little friends piped up. One friend said, “but you have a job why do you want a different one?”
The other friend said, “who will pick me up from my new school?”
The other one said, “momma, kai kiss you?”
Then the girl remembered something. She chose the chaos that was her life for one very important reason-because she wanted this job more than anything in the whole wide world.
She wanted sticky jam hands. She wanted to pick up and drop off from school-every kid-every day. She wanted to make lunches and do homework and go on field trips and volunteer for homeroom mom.
The girl had chosen this life and she loved it. She gets paid for an actual job- that she loves and that she gets to do only after she is a mom every day.
Sometimes she forgets how great her life is. Sometimes it takes the threat of change to remind her.
So for today the kids of The Circus take precedence over the kids in the Newark Public Schools.
And that is okay with the girl.
So Future moms and current moms-ignore the snarky and remember this-my life is beautiful and I love it-every crazy, sticky, messy little corner of it.
P.S. Looking for more parenting guidance and tips for self-care? Check out From Chaos to Calm a guided training to help you feel better in this tough season.
Aunt Julie says
Heck, your stories and your kids actually make me re-think my no kids choice:) Than of course I wake up and realize I am way to old to have kids, so I'll stick with being an Aunt:)
smiles4u says
You describe motherhood so well. Yes it is messy and sticky and we have our share of not so fun days but more than anything it is a wonderful beautiful thing.