Monday, January 9, 2012

Baby Blogger

I made an honest-to-goodness attempt to have this entry done a little earlier tonight--but true to form, I hit an unexpected snag.  I'm a parent, so you'd think I'd have grown accustomed to the unexpected being the norm by now.  If you thought that, you thought wrong.

I didn't have writer's block, I wasn't unmotivated...I even knew what I wanted to write.   What a didn't have was a computer at the ready.  Why, you ask?  Little M was typing away on Microsoft Word, and, per usual, unwilling to share with Mom.

Little Miss Sunshine:  Grids, can I have the computer?

(You'll note that I called my daughter "Grids".  It's short for Mady McGriddles.  I had an obsession with McDonald's when I was pregnant.   No wonder why I looked like a double-wide load.  With time, I became too lazy to call her by her full nickname, so it got truncated to Griddles, and later to Grids.  By the time she's 4, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if I started calling her "lowercase g".)

M McGriddles:  Mommy, be quiet.  I'm thinking.

LMS:  What are you thinking about?

Griddles:  sshhhhhh....mommy.  I'm busy.

LMS:  (with the mom-face of amusement and annoyance forming)  what are you thinking about?

Grids:  I'm writing my blog.

No. Freaking. Way.

LMS:  What's your blog about?

Lowercase g:  Things I like.  Gym class and play-doh and Dora and nail polish.  Oh, and farts.

Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.  And great.  I'm glad farts are finally getting proper recognition in the blogosphere.

g:  Mommy, why do you write your blog?

Life with a three-year old means that constant bombardment with questions is the norm.  Luckily, I'm an anal-retentive, perfectionist, not-clinically-but-self-diagnosed-with-OCD planner by nature (and really, how often do you get to say THAT?).  I've had some time to think about this very question, and I had an answer.  I was proud to share it.

Life with a three-year old also means that you've grown accustomed to attention spans that you'd more reasonably expect on a gnat with ADD.  She heard the words "Blues Clues is coming up next" on the television and was bounding down the steps before I could even finish the fragment "Mommy is writing her blog because..."

She's not interested in the answer now, and it's ultimately fine to me if she's never interested.  I'm her mother.  I am not her, and she is not me.  Her story is not my story.  It's my job to make sure that she piggybacks on me until her legs are strong enough to follow me, follows me until she is ready to walk alongside me, then leaves me behind to walk her own path, follow her own adventures, write her own story, live her own life.  I hope it's an extraordinary path, an extraordinary adventure, and extraordinary story, an extraordinary life.

I'm a bit of a circuitous storyteller--- and, true to form, this is my long-winded way of getting to the point of why I decided to write this blog.   I've been fortunate.  I've had good luck, good teachers, and good opportunity.  I've also been disciplined and I'm good at following a script.  What this all amounts to is that I've pretty much accomplished everything I wanted to accomplish, done and seen what I've wanted to see.

When you're a planner, you work toward your goals.  When you're a planner and you've accomplished what you set out to do, sometimes you find yourself lost in the aftermath.  That's where I am- just a little bit lost.  I specialize in self-deprecation, so I regularly refer to myself as a middle-aged has-been.   You'll be relieved to learn that I don't actually believe that.  I'm only 36.  I hope that I have many good years left to live and new goals to achieve.  I'll spend the next year wandering, and tinkering with and fumbling through new experiences in the hopes that I will end the year knowing what my next goal will be.

Here's the other part.  Women are often conditioned to define themselves by the relationships formed over the course of a lifetime.   Please don't get me wrong.  I love my people.  I am so blessed to be surrounded by my people and I am better for having them in my life.    I don't take my people for granted-- not even for a second.

But... I'm tired of being referred to as just someone's mom, someone's wife, someone's friend, someone's coworker.  I want more out of my life than to have it simply be defined in terms of my relationship with someone else.  I want to make my own mark and leave my own legacy.  However selfish this may seem, I want for myself what I want for my daughter--- to walk my own extraordinary path, to have my own extraordinary adventure, to tell my own extraordinary story, to live my own extraordinary life-- with my people in at my side and in my heart.

I promise, tomorrow I'll take Little M's lead and blog about exciting things like nail polish and farts.

Little Miss Sunshine

1 comment:

  1. SO cute…her "blog" It only took a week. You are blogging at a torrid pace. No human can keep this pace up That is, no human with a job.

    But, you are off to a great start. I really enjoy it. If it sucked I wouldn't bother blowing the smoke.

    -Follower # 10

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