Things Nobody Wants to Admit...

If I were to write a book about motherhood it would be titled: Things Nobody Wants to Admit About Being a Mother. Ever since making the unexpectedly hard transition from a "dyad" to a "triad" as my husband likes to say, I have kept little mental notes to myself about the things you just don't find in books, and none of your friends with kids really tell you ahead of time. These are the things you assume no other mother at the park is thinking or has ever felt, because strangers don't talk about these things. Only close friends will usually admit them to each other.

Lately, on the scale of minor evils, I've been finding myself desperate for the moment my son takes his nap or goes to bed, literally counting down minutes. And the irony is that he is more fun and wonderful than ever. It's not his behavior that's driving this in me. Being that he's nearly a year old (and oh my god how did that happen??) you'd think I'd have the hang of this whole motherhood thing. While aspects of it do come much easier and pretty much any stage past newborn is a walk in the park in comparison, after a year of spotty sleep and obligation and not being able to exercise, write, think or make love to your husband without either guilt or rush, you start to crave wider expanses of time. And I'll confess that my son goes to a babysitter 12 hours a week (in which I work, write, exercise, eat, call friends, read, etc) and I still feel this way. And my dear friends with multiple children will laugh when they read this and say, 'honey you 'aint seen nothin'...but these are MY confessions after all. Confessions of the unprepared mother of one child.

(And the really weird part is, even as I write this, my son is pulling tissues out of a box and making himself laugh and I just want to scoop him up and hold him for hours.)

Confessions

I did not get my brother or sister a birthday present. I have not yet made any plans for a mother day gift for my mother. I have stuck my kid in his roundabout walker so as not to have to try to entertain him more times than I can count these past couple months as we have grappled with the bizarre and frustrating process of trying to buy a home.

We walked away from one home, and I'm relieved and glad about it. The mojo was just bad. Bad no matter which angle you looked at it from. But we had to let go of our attachment first.

Now we've entered the new reality of home loans--one in which, thanks to all the scummy mortgage practices of the past few years--they're dotting more than their i's and crossing more than just their ts...we are literally at the last few feet of the race and suddenly some guy with a stop sign and a badge has sprinted out onto the track and he won't let us finish until he decides a certain thing.

I know I'm lucky to even be in this position. I don't want to become an entitled person. But I am so frustrated with the process.

JPR