Thoughts on Motherhood

Happy Mothers' Day 2011!

1. Cribs make fabulous places to stack clothing. Co-sleeping is much easier.

2. I have exactly zero photos of my daughter drinking from a bottle and continue trying to capture the look in her eye while she nurses.

3. Putting a clean diaper under the dirty one when you change it has saved me a number of times.

4. Rice cereal is disgusting and unnecessary.

5. Wipe warmers, however, are not unnecessary.

6. I sometimes wonder how moms didn't go bonkers with video monitors.

7. Motherhood is a lot harder than it looks. It's a lot more awesome than can be imagined, too.

8. You'll do a lot of things to your kid you wouldn't do for anybody else - like pick her nose and kiss her toes.

9. Baby giggles are like a serenade.

10. Sleep beats sex.

11. There's a reason that the sayings about parenthood are cliches. It's because they are most often true.

12. I wouldn't trade motherhood for any job or career in this world.

13. I better understand the Mother Bear instinct.

14. I really think God sprinkles mommy dust when you give birth. Life changes in strange, wonderful ways.

15. Naps are like a God.

Someday: I do!

Today the world celebrates the royal wedding of Kate and William. Many congrats go out to them. It's nice to see the world stop and celebrate love and devotion. Kate looked amazing and gorgeous!

While I am happy for them, I can't help but pause and wonder when I will get my turn to legally say, "I do." It feels so deeply unfair that I am unable to have the same rights as straight people in this country. Normally, I don't really think much about it. I guess I'm just used to it. But it feels really gross that my daughter can't have both of her parents with legal parental rights. It feels gross that I have to sign papers at the doctor's office saying my partner is allowed to bring her own daughter there.

I don't like it. It's not fair. I guess people have all of their various feelings toward the issue - without much grey matter in between. But ultimately it comes down to a matter of simple fairness to me. Since I was laid off two months ago, the matter of health insurance has been weighing heavily upon me. I've insured our daughter on my plan, because we had no other choice. It's really not right that her other parent can't insure her, and if I go on my partner's policy - we have to pay federal taxes up the ying-yang on it.

I hope that someday my daughter will see her mothers legally marry.

I wrote this post back when they were married, and I got pulled away by life. ;)

It's been awhile

I am not going to lie. I haven't really missed you. Oh, I *know* we spent countless hours together over the past year or so. And let's face it - the time was pretty dang intimate. I mean, just hours and hours of you slaving away for nine months, five days a week, three times a day for 30 minutes a session. It was practically a freaking love affair, but I would be a liar if I said I thought about you longingly these past weeks when I haven't had to drag you to take care of business.

You don't have to tell me that the fact that you and I even still see each other from time-to-time may raise the eyebrows of some. Well, whatever. Here we are again today - albeit for just a short spell. This new-found flexibility to just go once a day sure is nice. That would have helped about nine months ago when I felt like my life revolved around you.

Oh, well. I'd do all of those hours all over again for my girl. She never had a drop of the fake stuff. And I'm really proud of that.

Catch ya later, Freestyle. You've always been faithful to me even when my feelings toward you harbored on dread.

An Open Letter to the Easter Bunny

Dear Mr. Easter Bunny,

This year we dyed your eggs white. Err. Well, uh, I got them hard boiled this year, but I guess they technically didn't get dyed this year. See, try as I do to be "MomTastic," I seem to have MOMMY FAILS every so often. So, I hope you'll understand the special color this year.

Martha would be so disappointed, but in my defense they are the same color as some of the paint she sells at Home Depot - "Glass of Milk" and "Picket Fence." I will do better next year. Promise.

Love, Mom

PS: The Easter Basket tent extravaganza and bunny cake worked out pretty well though, right?!