When I was getting married some of my friends from college joked that it was a sign of the Apocalypse. That’s because all through college I vehemently proclaimed that I would never get married and I’d certainly never have kids.

Yes, I eventually learned that I should never say never.

But even after deciding there was a place for a child in my life, I didn’t immediately feel comfortable in the role of mom.  Her infant years were hard for me - I ran back to work as soon as maternity leave was over. I wanted to be where I knew how to do my job and people could tell me what they needed (as opposed to me trying to guess what all that crying was about).

To some of you I’m sure that sounds harsh, but I really think it’s a myth that all women naturally have some instinct for mothering.  Instead of being proud, I resented when my husband would say I was better at some element of parenting than he was.  It wasn’t because I had any more practice at it than he had (never did the whole babysitting thing and was the baby of the family). If I was better at something it was because I poured over books, magazines and websites to learn how.  Something he could have just as easily done.

Toddler years had their own challenges. Getting a mug with “World’s Greatest Mom” on it was still far from my idea of success; but, things at least got a little better once she was able to verbalize her needs and wants. This may still sound uncaring, but to the contrary, I began to realize during this time that I had a love for my daughter I couldn’t explain. It runs deeper and more differently than anything else I’ve experienced. Maybe I do have some sort of instinct after all - like the one that means you never want to get between a mother bear and her cub.

That doesn’t mean I didn’t often wish for the days when going out didn’t take the advance planning of lining up a babysitter. I still cringed a bit when someone would call me a mommy blogger even though I blog here about issues related to motherhood. But, I also found myself becoming more vocal about support for girls and representation by women - not for advancing myself, but in the hopes of better things for women of her generation.

Then, an interesting thing happened the other day. I was watching the news with my laptop in, well, my lap and I saw a couple of guys I follow on Twitter mention that they were heading to San Francisco where the weatherman had just said it was going to rain.  So, I tweeted to them about packing an umbrella and David Armano replied “you’re such a mom.”

And I didn’t flinch. There was no cringe. No resentment.

Instead, I replied with another “mom” retort: “And eat your vegetables young man!”

I think maybe, seven years into this mommy gig and entering my fifth generation of life, I might be finally becoming comfortable with the whole “mom” label.

Photo compliments of Leandro Queiroz via Creative Commons.

Back in August, I saw a note on Twitter Moms about the opportunity to review a new book titled “The BlackBerry Diaries: Adventures in Modern Motherhood.”

Being a BlackBerry-toting mom myself, it sounded like a great opportunity to read something fun - for free - and, who can resist free? (Yes, FTC, I got a free copy of the book to review in this blog.)

The humor book is written like a blog, complete with tags at the end of each short, dated entry. This style turned out to be both a good thing and a bad thing for me. It’s good because the brief entries let you easily pop in and out of the book (you know, like when you have to step away to deal with something that just came in on your BlackBerry). But, it’s also bad because it can be a little too easy to set it aside.

I received my copy in early September and have yet to finish it. But, rather than wait any longer, I figured I should go ahead and earn my free book by writing about it now.

The premise of the book is that toddlers and technology are not so different. “If they’re quiet, you’re constantly checking them to make sure everything is okay. If they’re loud and interrrupting, you just want them to shut up and go away. When they do, the cycle starts all over again.”

There were some observations to which I could relate: “… many BB-using employees will burn out quicker and resign faster as they continue to jam two years’ worth of work into seven and a half months.” But, others that I could not: “The bottom line is this: children and BBSPs [one of the author's acronyms for BlackBerry Smartphone] are all about ownership, one upmanship and petty jealousies.”

And, according to an article in CIO, the author says “she’s sharing lessons learned from her experience using a BlackBerry over the past year to enhance her and her childrens’ lives;” and, quite frankly, I didn’t see any of that in the book. Tips like don’t share your BlackBerry with someone or theyll see your BrickBreaker score, don’t use your BlackBerry at fondue parties and BlackBerries are good for keeping up with neighborhood gossip, yes. But, life enhancements? I’m afraid not.

It’s a nice, light, sometimes funny read; but, maybe because my girl is no longer a toddler or maybe because I’ve added an iPhone (personal) to my BlackBerry (work), I just never could really get into it. Not every book has to be a page-turner, I guess. But, since this one didn’t turn out to be for me, it remains unfinished. And apparently, I’m not the only one who hasn’t turned all its pages.

If anyone out there made it to the end and feels I missed something, please let me know!

From my corner on the sofa, I watch the red maple leaves waft to the front yard outside the living room window. This year, I find the seasonal herald to winter comforting. Brisk tromps in the snow will follow the leaves. Cozy months will pass inside. Now I can look ahead.

I look down at Owen, my drowsy, nursing, one-year-old son. We’ve spent

An equinox birth throws life off-balance.

hours on this sofa corner since his birth last September. From his vantage point, the view is always the same. From mine, with the view out the window, it’s been relentless change.

In the first weeks of his life I watched the maple leaves turn from green to yellow to orange-red. They floated to the ground, leaving stark branches against a cold, gray sky.  I imagined the tree might feel as helpless as I felt as a new mother, powerless to stop its once lush, full canopy from withering and dying.

Inside, I wanted to turn back to our days as a couple, before my husband and I ever conceived the notion of parenthood, let alone a baby. Our son’s care was a chronic round of unrewarding drudgery: Feed, sleep, wake, change, soothe, repeat. After his first week at home, any maternal joy was smothered by anxiety, exhaustion and resentment. Life as I’d known it had withered. The birth that had come, ironically, with the autumnal equinox had thrown me completely off balance. 

Late fall can be cruel, watching the trees’ blazing coats become tatters, knowing that inevitably, all must succumb to the wind, wet and winter. Last fall, it was colic that snuffed out the color in our lives. The crying was worst in late afternoon, coinciding with my husband’s return from work. I became a clock-watcher, willing those wails to wait until Mike at least had got in the door. I usually lost. We played pass-the-baby for four hours, until exhaustion finally led to sleep. Minutes later, we too were in bed, clutching each other for comfort, emotionally as bruised as the mottled gray sky. Oh, how I wanted those trees leafy and green again, as they were during my pregnancy, when we imagined only the fulfillment of becoming a family.

November. First snowfall. Wet, heavy snow, the kind that falls around 30 degrees and melts in two days. It plastered the naked maple branches. One 2 a.m. feeding, a sharp crack pierced my drowsy stupor. I got up from our sofa corner and peered out at the dark back yard. A huge branch had cracked off the old white pine, the heavy wet snow too much for it to bear. Frosty needles wiped the glass of the sliding door as it rested on the patio.

Later I would notice how crazily that branch had grown from the pine’s trunk, jutting out at an unsustainable angle. It was no surprise it yielded to the pressure of the snow, but I never considered it might fall. Nor did I see the metaphor it made to events on my side of the sliding door.

Some time before Christmas. I took Owen to run errands. Snow that was staying covered the streets. An opaque, dirty white sky blurred into the earth at the horizon, giving me the sense of occupying a fishbowl. I parked on the bridge over the river. We ran our errand, then returned to the car, me pushing his stroller through the sidewalk slush. From the corner of my eye I noticed the cold, frothing river. The car seat is heavy. Owen is strapped in. I could just drop this in, and it would all be over.

The thought wandered through my mind. I felt detached from it, like my mind was a marquee and this was today’s message. I felt no urge to act, to actually dangle the car seat over the bridge and release my grasp. I was merely a bystander to the emotions playing in my head. That was the scariest part: Not that such a thought could percolate up from the trough of my postpartum mind, but that I reacted so numbly, as if it were unremarkable. I snapped the seat in the car, shut the door and drove home inside the dirty white fishbowl that was my world.

Winter deepened. We approached the three-month mark. This was the crossroads. Even the few parents who would confide that they, too, had struggled with infancy assured us Things Would Get Better at three months. Instead of feeling like fumbling novices, rushing to our library of parenting books with every question, we would be competent, confident, instinctive parents. We could decode crying, soothe and comfort on demand. Another seasonal coincidence held tantalizing promise. The three-month mark fell on Christmas. If true, it would be the best Christmas present ever. It was also just days after the winter solstice, the return of the light. After living in a world shadowed by tormenting regrets and wishful thinking for three months, I willed for light again.

But those other parents were wrong. Things did not get better. Instead they deteriorated with every January day. My snowbird mother-in-law returned from her Florida home to lend a hand. From my corner on the living room sofa, the world looked cold and bleak. We’d dragged the broken pine branch off the patio into the backyard. Snow would cover it, then melt, exposing broken, dead, ugly branches. As a mother I felt broken, dead and ugly, too. “I want to like it more,” I told my husband one night. Talk about the awful truth. Owen was crying less. He was sleeping more. He smiled sometimes. But though I loved him, I did not like being a mother. Like the pine branch that cracked under the wet snow, I too broke down. I called a counselor and made an appointment.

I never thought I would welcome February. In February, winter becomes wearying. February teases with its thaws and lengthening daylight, yet the knowledge that winter’s grip won’t relent for at least another month. Last February, though, life finally relented. On the recommendation of my counselor, we arranged part-time child care. Owen’s sleeping improved. He started eating food in addition to nursing, relieving the pressure I carried to be his sole source of sustenance.

But it was the child care that was balm for my wracked psyche. These were golden hours, 16 of them each week that nurtured my starved soul. Time to work, to write, to feel competent at something. I started to anticipate the days again. Knowing respite was available, I unexpectedly began to enjoy my hours with Owen.

Spring beckoned. From the sofa corner, watching the maple tree begin to bud out in the front yard, I realized our kinship. All living things need time to replenish. Fertility and dormancy are a necessary cycle. As mother and son, our relationship started to truly flourish as the buds unfurled into the first of the green, green maple leaves. In the backyard a rhododendron, formerly shaded by the fallen pine branch, bloomed this spring for the first time, a gorgeous deep fuchsia.

Like the rest of the landscape, Owen and I ripened together in the warmth of summer. Mother is still the most draining, demanding role I’ve ever attempted to fulfill. But this fall, as I sit with Owen on the sofa corner, watching the maple leaves once again flutter to the ground, I feel no longing to return them to the tree.

* * * *

Dear readers – this essay was written upon my son’s first birthday in September 2006. (That’s him below, blowing out the candles at his fourth

Four years ago, I couldn't have envisioned a birthday celebration

fete last weekend.) My hope in publishing it now is that it will help balance the fairytale so many women are led to believe about motherhood. Unrealistic expectations and the feeling that I was alone in disliking and regretting this life-changing role worsened new motherhood for me.

I’ve recovered fully, and even had a second child, now one year old. With my expectations of motherhood more realistic, I did not experience post-partum depression with her. I hope that also helps women for whom PPD is a real and present threat to their well-being and that of their family. So please forward and link to this post. I’m glad to join This Mommy Gig — and I promise to be shorter in the future.

Three years ago, I was a was single, driven career girl, with an even grasp on the corporate ladder and a swing in my step.  I had a new car, a new town home condominium that was spotless with everything had its place. I shopped at Saks, had “mani-pedis “with my gal pals and relished sushi lunches with fabulous friends.  I worked out five times a week for two hours and was getting back into good shape and good health.  Dates included lingering conversations over meals and movies — as well as the occasional candy and flowers.   Give me just a minute to say, “Ahhh.”

Fast forward to today!  To start with, I am now married to a great guy.  On Friday, our little boy will be two years old.  TWO!  One…Two!  Wow, they grow so fast.   Today, I work mostly from home running my consulting business.  My husband quit his job 18 months ago to stay at home with our son  and pursue ministry work.   So, here we are together… with our ball-obsessed dog, Maggie.   Snug as bugs in a rug.  Life is very different in this new place.  Very good, and very different.

As I have chatted and tweeted, laughed and cried with my other, now married gal pals — especially the ones with children — we have come to an agreement over the nature of a few, key changes in our lives.  My dear friend, Ann, encouraged me to share some of our thoughts with you here.

The new sexy: Hubby doing dishes, laundry and then vacuuming

The new “moo-moo” Yoga pants and a hoodie

The new workout: Picking up toys

The new mop: Calling the dog to lick up mess from floor

The new clean: Dishes out of the sink, everything else stuffed in a closet

The new gourmet: Anywhere kids eat free

The new sushi: Peanut Butter and Jelly cut into triangles

The new sleeping in: 8 am = Heaven!

The new Ann Klein: “Finale Clearance” (say this with French accent)

The new splurge: Expensive shampoo and conditioner

The new mani-pedi: Taking a hot, uninterrupted shower

The new good hair day: CLEAN

The new favorite outfit: Anything that FITS

The new dress up: Wearing a bra

The new date night: Staying awake through the END of the movie

The new foreplay: Kicking off the yoga pants

The new gal bonding: Half -completed thoughts uttered in between shouts of “NO, <insert child’s name> No biting!”

The new teething ring: The dog’s ball (builds immunity)

The new promotion: Transitioning from Pampers to Pullups

The new fabulous: Absorbing each new beautiful word my son says

The new sunset: The peace that comes after bedtime

The new romance: Knowing my husband loves me — even in my yoga pants

In short, life is good.  It’s not always easy. It’s often hard work.  I’ve learned to let go of control and my own “standards” and desire for order.  But in doing so, things have developed a curious order of their own.  I have been released into a life I’d only dreamed of.   It’s a life indescribable… and one I call, “The New Happy.” Memories of the old life aside, I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Erica wears her birthing necklace. Each bead was hand-picked by her closest friends and family as part of the Blessingway ceremony at her baby shower.

When I got the invitation to my dear friend Erica’s baby shower, I must admit that I rolled my eyes a little. Along with the standard date, time, location information, I was to take the scrapbook paper enclosed and use each side – one for Erica and one for BBH (Baby Boy Harbison) – to write a blessing for each. Then, when I came to the party, I was to bring a bead that would be strung on a necklace… the invitation said it was a Native American tradition of some sort.

I didn’t know the event organizer all that well, so had no idea what to expect. But, regardless, there was no chance I’d miss out on participating. Erica and I have been friends for a decade – since our undergraduate days at the University of Oregon – and she’s had a rough year. I would be there, I would swallow my cynicism and be a part of whatever was in store.

What I experienced with Erica and the other women in her life with whom she’s close was tremendously meaningful. Rather than being giggly and goofy about the impending bundle of joy, we spent the time celebrating Erica and the bond she has with her friends and family.

This focus was particularly important for Erica - and really for each of us who were there. Erica and her husband split-up when she was three months pregnant and she was approaching her due date as not only a single mom to her almost-three-year-old, but now a newborn, too.

We all had the opportunity to let Erica know how much we loved her, supported her and were there for her every step of the way. Many tears were shed as we each read our blessings to Erica and her baby and explained why we chose the bead that we brought that day.

I’ll let Erica share, here, too:

My friends created a day that was so deeply moving. Their blessings reminded me how strong our friendship is, and that I am never alone. It also reminded me to remember I am a strong person, and how lucky my boys are to have me as their mom.

As Moms, we don’t often stop and pat ourselves on the back for a job well done. Thank goodness for good friends to write it down so we can read it over and over again, lest we have a lapse again. Needless to say, I was a tearful mess as each friend read aloud what she had written for me, and as they explained how they picked the special bead. I’ll treasure the beads, which will be strung on a necklace that I plan to wear often. Each is so different, beautiful and full of special significance, just like my friends, and reflects the attributes they see in me as their friend or daughter and as a mom. I couldn’t have asked for a more amazing day.

It was a truly amazing day that created an even stronger bond of friendship between us and I’m honored to have been a part. Erica has since welcome Aaron Ryder to her world. A happy, healthy baby boy with an amazing mom with an equally amazing circle of support.

What I found doing some research for this post, is this baby shower alternate is called a Mother’s Blessing or Blessingway and the necklace, a birthing necklace. If you want to know more about hosting this kind of reaffirming (and truly meaningful) event for a woman in your life, you can check out these resources:

• Canadian Women’s Health Network – The Blessingway: An alternative baby shower
• A Mother Blessing: An Alternative to a Baby Shower
• Bella Maternity Services – Blessing Ways

I’m an inadequate mother. There, I said it. And I have to say that I feel a sense of relief saying it out loud or at least out in the open on a very public blog. I’ve felt this deep, burning inadequacy often in the last three years since my daughter was born, but I feel it more and more as I fail to properly navigate the twisted paths through parenthood.

Tonight, my husband is out of town, and my daughter refused to go to sleep. I decided to make things fun for her and to let her snuggle in “mommy and daddy’s bed” for a while, maybe even sleep there with me. I even let her watch a little movie in bed after her regular bedtime to make it extra special. I thought that would be a cool mommy thing to do.

The whole thing backfired on me. When I said it was time to go to sleep, instead of a compliant child, I had a toddler meltdown on my hands. What was I thinking? Of course she’d be overtired if I let her stay up past her bedtime. Why hadn’t I anticipated the errors of my ways? And why did I think my idea of cool mommy was even remotely suitable for a three year old? But what the hell do I know?

I don’t know, and there’s the rub. I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing, a devastating realization for an overachiever who has been good at just about everything I’ve put my mind to do. But not motherhood. I throw my heart, soul and brainpower into being a good mom, but it always seems to backfire on me.

For some reason, I’m not getting the memos on what to do when she refuses to go potty, refuses to eat her dinner, refuses to go to bed. Intellectually, I know she is testing the waters, testing her power as a little individual. I don’t know how much is too much discipline or how little is too little. I don’t want to crush her feisty little spirit, but I can see how this could happen all too easily.

Tonight, after carrying her kicking and screaming into her bedroom when she utterly refused to go to sleep in my bed, I listened to her screeching and howling. Then she came out of her bedroom and back into mine.

“Go…to…bed,” I said in measured tones.

“I don’t want to go to bed,” she sobbed.

“Go…to…bed…now…or I’ll carry you back in your room and shut the door.”

“I don’t want to go to bed in my bed. I don’t want to go to bed in your bed. I want to go to bed in the living room. On the sofa,” she told me.

The living room? Was that okay to do? Was I giving in too easily, I wondered, as I followed her to the living room and tucked her blanket around her as she curled up on the sofa. She wanted to go to sleep in the living room. I returned to my bedroom exhausted, overwhelmed, feeling like I didn’t know what just happened or why. Certain that I just committed Mommy Sin #1285 and creating some new problem by not making her sleep in her own bed tonight.

Then I had to laugh through my own tears tonight as I read Steve Woodruff’s post about Father’s Day, and how men can feel inadequate about being fathers. Who are the parents who don’t feel inadequate most of the time? Or what I really want to know is who are the ones who do, and what denial pill or happy sauce are they slugging down? I want some.

Am I the only one who feels at any moment I might get fired from this mommy gig?

Kate Olson is a mother of 2 toddlers and lives in rural Wisconsin. She balances motherhood & working from home in a semi-functional fashion - you can read more about Kate on our contributors page. She blogs about education and lots of business/tech stuff at Kate Says . Want more? Read all of Kate’s posts!

Me at 40 weeks pregnant with Baby #1 2.5 years ago

PLUS

Pushing 60 pounds of children up and down a mile-long hill once/day this summer

PLUS

The most pitiful dog EVER if not taken for a walk

PLUS

Not sitting down for approximately 1 year straight because I’m just too stinkin’ busy

EQUALS

Somehow weighing almost 20 pounds LESS than I did before kids.

When I ran marathons and worked out ALL the time.

I know.

It makes no sense to me either.

But who’s gonna complain about weighing LESS, right?

Wait, why did I show the pregnancy pic?

Well, I just LOVE that picture! Wasn’t I GIANT? I love to look at it and think of how special I felt because there was a real, live PERSON in me - silly as it may seem, that was honestly the best I’ve ever felt about my body - at 205. Now, at 137, I’m working on achieving that same level of satisfaction. It’s amazing what a feeling of purpose can do for body image, isn’t it?

Anyone else? 40 weeks pregnant pictures? Anyone?

Kelly Phillips Erb is a mother of three children - though she’s still trying to figure out how that happened. A tax attorney and blogger, she blogs at taxgirl.com. You can read more about Kelly on the contributors page. Catch the rest of Kelly’s posts here.

My friends and I have survived a lot of challenges together: being single, grad school, being engaged (and not being engaged), getting married, being pregnant, buying homes… Increasingly, however, it has become apparent to me that there is one challenge that we may not survive together: parenthood.

I used to have a very clear picture in my head of what I thought being a mom would be like. In that picture, there were a lot of lattes and kids playing in parks while moms in cute twin sets looked on. There were play dates and sleep-overs and holiday parties that went off without a hitch. More importantly, in my minds eye, the friends of my children would become best friends themselves and we would all live happily ever after.

Yeah, maybe a little idealistic. But I figured something close, right?

Unfortunately, life kind of got in the way of my dream. Yes, there are play dates and trips to the library and holiday parties.

But there are also incompatible schedules, different priorities, wildly disparate parenting styles and unexpected life events. Little by little, our own lives have crept in and “stolen” those moments away from us.

It was subtle at first… missing a play date because the new baby needed a nap. Then, not making trips to the library because it interfered with the one episode of Backyardigans that one child always wanted to watch. And eventually, staying home to play because the new water table in the back was loads more fun than the climber at the park.

And then it grew more obvious… we chose different preschools for our children and then different elementary schools. Parties became more awkward because cake and playing in the yard didn’t cut it anymore - our friends were scheduling mobile zoos and guest appearances by Elmo and other characters. We began going to different pediatricians, dentists and eye doctors. Dance lessons, swim clubs and league sports drove a further wedge into our already complicated lives.

None of these choices were about separation. The choices were ostensibly about the children - choosing what worked for the children. It just became clear as we each scurried to pick was was “best” for our children that those choices were taking us down different paths.

No matter how different our tastes in shoes or men or drinks, we could always find common ground. But now, when standing on the playground, we search to find things to talk about. It is painful.

Even more painful are the wedges between groups of friends. There are clearly divisions now, even cliques, as between my friends who send their children to private school versus those that do not, those that participate in league sports versus those that don’t do sports at all… Whereas before we could always come together with a good vodka-something on any given day to chat about the latest episodes of American Idol or complain about our husbands, the chatter has now given way to petty commentary about other parenting styles, children’s wardrobes and school choice.

I thought that I would largely be able to avoid that kind of talk - it is not my style and if I have learned anything as a middle child, it’s how to be neutral. But I have found it impossible to escape.

I’ve even found that some of this pettiness is aimed at me. I don’t wear expensive clothes or shoes, my family has one car (a Subaru, nothing flashy) and we live in a modest home in the City. Yet, I have been the target of barbs about sending my daughter to private school (for the record, she’s entering public school next year), taking my kids to dance class, having a room in my house reserved for crafts and more biting, choosing to work mostly from home. In a recent conversation, my one friend turned and said, “But Kelly, you’re lucky because you don’t have to work.”

I do work, thank you very much. A lot. Don’t get me started (that’s another post for another time).

And that’s not what bothered me. What bothered me is that my habits, my choices and my spending patterns are on display as never before - simply because I’m a parent. Before children, my friends would drop $400 on a pair of shoes and not flinch while I plodded along in my Payless shoes without batting an eyelash. Nobody would ever dare mention how much any friend spent on a holiday affair nor how many hours were worked in a week. But kids? They have added a completely different element to our lives. It’s as if, now that we have children, we each have a “Judge me” sticker on our backs.

How did this happen? How did this group of smart, successful, resourceful women turn into judgmental, defensive, resentful mothers?

I’m trying to wrap my head around it.

To be clear, I understand that things change. Life happens. Nothing is static. And I knew that having children would change the dynamics of our groups in ways that I could not imagine.

I just didn’t think it would be like this.