B.C.

To most people, the term B.C. when related to telling time refers to Before Christ.  But to me, B.C. means Before Children.  For example "Those boots are gorgeous!  I would have bought them B.C., but instead I'll be buying these much less expensive boots."  To say life changes after you have children is an understatement.  So much so that sometimes I have a hard time remembering what life was like before I became a mom!

I will admit that I was one of "those girls" that wanted the realistic looking baby dolls for Christmas, loved babysitting so I could "play house", and had baby names picked out long before I began dating, or even menstruating!  But wanting to have kids wasn't my entire life.  I mean, I loved softball, camping, water skiing, fishing, and Nintendo.  In fact, many would (and have) described me as a tomboy.  Nor did I rush to get married and start a family young.  I went to college, then grad school, and started a career before I settled down.  In fact, I guess I must have hid my dream of motherhood well enough that even my own father expressed surprise when I decided against going to law school because I was worried that a career in law would prohibit me from being the kind of mother I wanted me to be.

Then in June 2007, after a complication riddled pregnancy, including 15 weeks of bed arrest (I refuse to call it bed rest, but that is another blog) my dream was fulfilled.  I had two precious, healthy baby boys and was more in love than I could have ever imagined!  But motherhood is not as clean, and beautiful, and pretty as it was with plastic baby dolls dressed in white lace dresses.  It is chaotic and dirty, and often thankless.  Sometimes I just want to tell motherhood "I will always love you, but I don't like you very much right now."

Listening to the radio on the way to drop the kids off at pre-school this morning, I heard the deejay discussing a recent poll asking Americans if they would rather A) spend a week away from their family or B) have their cell phone taken away for a day.  And he acted genuinely shocked at how many people (47%) chose A.  He seemed to think it was a sad commentary on American families or something.  I, on the other hand, know exactly why I would choose A:

Spending a week without my family would increase my productivity!  Do you know how much housework I could get done?  How many scrapbook pages I could finish!  Finally touch up that paint in the bedroom.  And I'd still have time to grab a mani/pedi!  They didn't say they'd give up their families forever, just one week!  Besides, absence makes the heart grow fonder.  One of my favorite things is that first day home from a few days away at a work conference.  I miss them.  They miss me.  For one day we are all on our best behavior and momentarily forget how crazy we make each other.

On the other hand, you take away my cell phone and my productivity decreases.  Now, not only do I still have to do all of the normal things I feel like I don't have enough time for, but throw in the fact that I'm having to search for a land line phone to make any necessary calls.  Oh, and when I get there I don't even know the number to dial because it's stored in the address book on my phone!

You know the old saying "If momma ain't happy...ain't nobody happy."  Since, I know no one is going to take my kids for the week I decided that I still need to do something just for me.  So I decided to think all the way back to B.C., what did I love?  I used to love to write.  I wrote short stories, poems, prose, blogs...you name it.  Once upon a time, I even had aspirations to become an author.  But between work, and marriage, and children, my writing has fallen to the wayside.  In fact, the most writing I do these days are my 420 word limit Facebook statuses.

So, thanks to inspiration from a friend, I've decided to start out 2011 by starting this blog.  I'll warn you that it won't be pretty (I haven't written in a long time).  And it will be dominated by talk of my children (I told you, I do love motherhood most of the time!).  But whether or not anyone likes it, or even reads it, doesn't matter.  As long as I am writing again, getting it all out there, doing something just for me...Momma will be happy.