Friday, June 11, 2010

The Mommy in me

For those of you who read my first post, you already know that I have many sides to me (if you haven't read it, check it out here). However, my #1 job has *got* to be "mommy". Now you must be thinking, "isn't that what all moms say?" Yep, you're right, and before lil man, I used to think it was ridiculous. How is it possible that someone simply chose to stop working, or all of a sudden stop hanging out at their favorite places or change friends, just like that? I used to think all moms were just show-offs - "oh, I'm soooo tired, my daughter didn't let me do anything today!", or "oh, check out my kids' latest pics: here he has a funny smile, and here she blinked!" - who cares???

Well, my thousands of pics in Facebook (yes, I said thousands!) tell another story. About 95% of them are of lil man - smiling, running, playing, posing, swimming, standing up, sitting down, blue shirt, green shirt, no shirt... you get the idea.

Yep, I'm a convert. That little 20-inch, 7-pound 7-ounce person changed this strong, independent, career woman into a giddy, nervous, vulnerable mess! If I weren't so in love with that "thing" that came out of me, I would definitely blame him for breaking me - I was fine!! Well, turns out, now I'm even better - who would've thunk it?

OK, so I don't wear suits anymore, and don't really care about my daytime job as much as I should. But I'll tell you what I did yesterday afternoon, that I've *never* done before: gardening!!

Lil man is 3 1/2 years old now and in preschool, they're teaching him about how plants grow. He had an assignment where they had to put some beans or orange seeds in an egg carton and watch them grow. The perfectionist in me (or what little there's left...) said "the heck with that, we're taking it up a notch!" So even though my hands had never touched soil before, we went to Home Depot and bought some small pots, and even a mini-greenhouse! In the small pots we planted some Schefflera cuttings from my front yard (planted by the gardener, not me!), and in the greenhouse we planted some sunny wildflower seeds. I have no idea if they'll survive, or what I'm going to do with them if/when they do, but I do know that we had the bestest time ever!

If my old friends and co-workers saw me now, they'd say: "who the heck are you, and what have you done with Zelma??"

Go figure :)