I don't want to give the impression that I am always down. Because sometimes I feel pretty great!
I mean I'm like totally bipolar or whatever! HA HA HA
(Okay but you have to admit it's kind of funny.)
(Or you could just sit there with your arms crossed staring at me like the audience at open mic.)
I'm not flying too close to the sun, I don't think. I just had a nice day. A nice day after a pretty good week (that had a few dips and freakouts but righted itself, eventually), and the house looks better and I did all the grocery shopping and we have a washing machine that works and the air conditioner done got fixed and tomorrow, tomorrow, my task for the day is to purge the children's dresser of the faded, stained, too-small, and holey, and replace that stuff with the giant tub of hand-me-downs we just got. And wash and hang up all the school uniforms, because Sophia, child who began as a most determined little sea monkey no matter how uncertain her mother was, is about to begin second grade.
Second grade! Could you just die?
And Daphne, no less a blessing for how much we didn't have to sweat for her, will start full-time day care. On MONDAY, people. Which means the days of dressing her in a shredded pajama top and a skirt and no underpants and sending her out into the world with the Kool-Aid Mustache of the Subsequent Child (and we don't even HAVE Kool-Aid, I don't know where it comes from) are coming to a screeching halt.
Let us not mention the fact of my own classes, beginning in oh about two weeks.
Or of the things that must take place before that happens: The purchase of the remaining books, of the smartphone, the receiving of the holy Hep B shot #2, the flu shot, oh can we get a Trileptal level and a sodium level while we're at it, and oh yes the CPR course.
I am determined to do one more open mic before school starts. Mostly because after one of those the terror I have of the social upheaval of beginning school will seem as deflated as my used-up tits.
The used-up tits are a metaphor, of course. They represent the depletion of that certain little-baby mothering energy I had. That part is gone away and not coming back, and I will admit defiantly that I am looking forward to the paradigm shift. I want to be a school-and-daycare mom. I want to spend large chunks of the day in the company of adults, using big words!
It was awful nice while it lasted. But to everything there is a season blah blah blah.
I'm not sure where the tits metaphor goes after this.
see, i want to write about the anxiety of post-titty-motherhood grad school too, but all i can think of is so damn somber. i wish i were funny like you jo!
Posted by: marta | July 28, 2012 at 10:16 PM
It's funny reading this in the context of the so-called "mommy blog" conversation happening elsewhere, because it just struck me rather recently that most of the parenting stuff I see on digital (great, good, bad, indifferent etc) is on the topic of baby and little-kid parenting, and there's always lots of 'material' ... but truthfully: even though we parents of tweens-and-teens can whine and publicly freak about how hard it is ... the older my girl gets, the more fulfilling I find the parenting. I definitely feel just as intensely needed, though it's less moment-to-moment every year, and though it can be tricky to gauge when to parent up-close and when to parent from a mile away.
Posted by: jilbur | July 28, 2012 at 11:22 PM
Post-Titty Parenting. You guys. It's a thing! Let's make it happen! We can be Post-Titty Bloggers!
And both of you, I am and have been watching you, always. You're a few steps ahead of me in the game, and I learn so much from you.
Posted by: Jo | July 28, 2012 at 11:39 PM
Oh Jo, after spending the last few years of this stay at home phase hanging out with you, I am so excited for you and so sad all at once. End of an era, for sure! You are going to be such a wonderful asset to the world as a nurse practitioner! (I'll try to remember that while I'm standing by myself after school waiting for Ian!)
Posted by: Angel Funk | July 29, 2012 at 07:21 AM
I've been a Post-Titty Blogger for only two years now (breastfeeding ended five years ago, but I stayed home with the boys (OK, one year at their school, but with them) for three more years)...
Sometimes I feel guilty when they stay at after-school care and wonder if I'm not spending too much time away from them. I still cannot believe that they're going to THIRD and FIFTH!!! grades!
And now that I'm going to teach at your alma mater, I may spend a couple of nights away from them. :( I will *really* be living in an all-adult world, since in the past two years, when 3 pm came around, nearly every day, I drove to their school to pick them up and had a hard time working at home after that.
I hope that your new and upgraded Post-Titty Parenting routine falls into place quickly and that you don't get too overwhelmed when you come home with the girls after school and have to study.
Thanks for providing us with this great metaphor! ;)
Posted by: Lilian | July 29, 2012 at 09:22 AM
I am sooo ready to be a school-and-daycare mom. My little guy (2.5) starts 8:30-3, M-F preschool at the same school where his sisters will go to K and 3rd in 1 month. To say I'm looking forward to it DOESN'T EVEN BEGIN TO COVER MY FEELINGS.
Good luck with school! You'll do great. So exciting!
Posted by: Carla Hinkle | July 29, 2012 at 10:32 AM
I'm loving the post-titty motherhood gig. It's MUCH more fun than the sleepless/helpless/overwhelmed early years. At least for me. I've always sucked at multitasking and still do, but my kids are old enough to forgive me for it now. :)
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