I really hate those ostensibly humorous articles in parenting magazines that purport to list all the ways your life changes when you become a mom. You know the ones: Your purse/car/ass gets bigger; your libido/ability to sleep/boobs get smaller, ha ha ha. Aside from being totally trite, these pronouncements are quite often not even true. (My ass would beg to differ, but that’s, um, behind the point.)

So I’m not going to talk about the ways that motherhood has changed me. I’m going to talk about the changes we experience over and over and over for the first, oh, three to four years of
hair, with sumptuous buffet of Veggie Booty, Craisins and pretzels on table; or on top of dryer, the better to view backyard neighbors’ garish holiday lights through laundry room window. (Not recommended: In front of sister’s dollhouse, lest the dining room rug meet an unfortunate end.)

Step 3. Wrap one arm firmly around baby’s chest to keep him in position. Use other hand to unsnap onesie. Tuck dangly end of onesie over back of shirt collar to secure—or in a pinch, use your teeth.

Step 4. Now go! Remove old diaper, place far out of child’s reach. Quickly clean him up. Replace with clean diaper. If necessary, let fidgeting child scamper about in unsnapped onesie and bare legs for a few minutes while you dispose of old diaper.

Step 5. Dream wistfully of potty-training.

Actually, don’t. I’d rather change two dozen poopy diapers a day than deal with the seemingly endless process that is “toilet learning.” Drop everything when that little voice pipes up with “I needa go potty”? Constantly carry 3 pairs of Buzz Lightyear underpants and a plastic bag in my purse? Clean up after a little boy who can’t aim? Please, pass the Pampers.

*****

Mayberry Mom lives, works, and writes in the Midwest with one toilet-trained preschooler, one diaper-dependent toddler, one housebroken dog, and one husband who always puts the seat down. This post’s theme inspired by Jamie.

Looking for CrankMama? Head over to Mayberry Mom

This post is part of January’s Blog Exchange. To see a full list of participants, go here.

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Awhile back, I wrote a post about reasons not to travel with kids, and then a nifty e-book on the subject.

And then I traveled to Denver from Bellingham with my children. The trip involved many stale pretzels, two bad potty emergencies barely averted, five fits, and one fabulous honey baked ham.

We woke up at 3am and arrived here 14 hours later.

‘Nuf Said.

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I met Brian back in 2003.. we married in 2003. No, it wasn’t a shotgun, it was an “already have kids” situation. When you have kids (I had them, he didn’t) you don’t mess around when it comes to commitment.

The twins were 15 months old, sort of walking and sort of talking… At first, they called him “baba,” then “butteeet,” which morphed into “Buddy,” which stuck.

Daddy Buddy (as he is known around our house) is a multi-talented Mensa with a gift for gab and a way with the writing and the business and the daughters and the complimenting of the HM/LM wife (thinks she’s low-maintenance, but actually is high-maintenance).

We met on Great Boyfriends dot com.

The rest is history.

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As 2006 draws to a close and Step-Santas everywhere make their Christmas-two-days-early-to-accommodate-joint-custody preparations, it is a time to eat fudge, and reminisce.

Pull up a chair, refill that coffee and tea, here are some flashbacks to the fun times we’ve had at CrankMama thus far:

1. Call Me HallMark & Die
2. Man Baskets
3. Failure to Flourish
4. Questions
5. Custody is An Ugly Word

And what started it all…
6. Every Mama Needs…

…
Cheers to you and yours this holiday season!!

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Worried Little People - or WLPs — have historically caused me much hilarity (& mocking superiority). You know the ones -the shaky, jumpy, nervous, skyisfalling li’l angels that suspect that doom and gloom are around every corner? Loveable though they may occasionally be (especially when one wants to feel zen and calm and glasslike), I have never EVER wanted to be one.

The parental counterpart to the WLP is of course the WLM (Worried Little Mom) and I SURE as hell don’t want be her. I don’t want to prepare vegan meals, homeschool, give my children only wooden toys, and teach them Spanish by age 3. And yet despite this determination to be calm and collected, I am occasionally gripped by an apocalyptic parental panic, the antidote to which is usually a cocktail of cool mommy complaint about The Things Kids Do to Drive Us Crazy mixed with Funny Things Husbands Do To Help Raise the Kids. In short, I survive by distancing myself from the overwhelming terror of raising these three children.

I go to work, I clean the house, I play around with them after work, I clean the house, I make them food, we run around screaming like maniacs, they go to bed. That’s how the day usually goes (plus or minus 8-10 time-outs, tantrums, and hitting–theirs, not mine).

But sometimes it sinks in. I am the Mother now. The. Mother. The beginning and the end of each day. And I worry… worry… worry… What if I’m not enough? What if what I give ends up causing them pain and sorrow? What if I can’t protect them from what lies ahead?

Driving into work this morning, I dug deep to try and find the resolve to be a better, stronger person, for them. And I meant it.

Yet when I got home, I was so exhausted and they were so happy to see me, and dinner was cereal (again) and my resolve flitted away like my promise to exercise after Violet was 3 months old (she’s now 22 months).

I have no doubt I would lay down my life for any of my children, but today I wonder if I’d lay down something more banal? Swear words? Wine glasses? Would I give up bad habits in order to be a better role model?

Goddess of WLMs, I hope so.

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