I’m so pumped! There’s a book out called Dirty Little Secrets From Otherwise Perfect Moms by Trisha Ashworth and Amy Nobile. The book sounds like it peeks into mothers’ lives to get a little dose of reality involving feeding kids less-than-ideal meals, bribing them with candy, and cussing in front of them. Right up the alley of this lil ole blog.

I’ll read it and review it soon!

I have this theory (desperate hope, really). I believe that despite the plethora of books that encourage us to be calm, even tempered, Martha Stewart parents, there more of us out there that:

• Are not good at arts and crafts.
• Feed our kids chicken nuggets. Every day.
• Get irritated when our toddler laughs for the 10,000^th time at his joke: “You tooted!!”
• Snap at them out of anger.
• Sometimes are not sure we’re good mothers.
• Sometimes don’t even want to be mothers (just for a minute or two).
• Are happy to get away from our families now and then.
• Wonder what we were thinking beyond the cute baby clothes when we decided we wanted kids.

Please tell me I’m not alone! I can’t bear the thought that I’m a monster because I do all of the above and then some. Tell me that perfect motherhood is a façade we all try to put on, but that underneath we’re exhausted from getting up with the baby, brooding from a fight with our five-year-old and too shell shocked to feel like a sexy woman sometimes.

You can blame us, really. We were once women. Individuals. Becoming a wife didn’t really take that from me, but motherhood sure as hell did. When Max was a baby, I was proud to wear that new badge of honor. Now he won’t let me escape it.

I have a sign on my door with my name. I pointed it out to him and said, “That’s my name.”

Know-it-all replied, “No it’s not. It’s not your real name. Your real name is Mama.” Spoken from the mouths of babes.

Max rubs his eyes and waves Erwin the Bear in the air overhead. A night ritual perfectly in line with the patterns of any three-year-old. But it bothers me. I bite my tongue, keep myself from telling him to put the bear down and go to sleep. I wonder, “What’s happened to me?”

I used to write letters to my future daughter in my journals. Stacks and stacks of journals record the important-at-the-time moments of my life. From time to time, I would write directly to the daughter I knew I would have one day, for her to read when she was my age (approximately 13-16). I told her what I was like, which, at the time was creative and carefree. I seemed to already foresee my destiny of being a controlling, imagination-less adult, and encouraged my future daughter to remind myself that I used to wear a Cat in the Hat hat to school for fun. I used to draw for fun. I used to have fun.

I haven’t had that daughter yet, but with my son, I’m afraid I predicted my own demise. I have always been bossy, and now I’m that “because I said so” parent. I make up arbitrary rules for him, for no reason other than because that’s what I want.

Where did the girl go who swore she’d be a parent with imagination, with verve? Is it inevitable that we all grow up to stop seeing ghosts and fairies? That’s not what I want, yet it is what I am.

Years ago, when the first of my college friends had a toddler, I thought I saw my future in parenting. He splashed in a puddle. My first instinct (even then) was to tell him to stop. His mother wouldn’t have, of course, because she truly was a free spirit. And I thought about it and realized, “What’s the harm? He’s having a great time.” And so I let go and splashed with him. I thought, “This is what being a parent will be like. Learning to let go and play with your kids.”

Hmm. Easier said than done.