Sunday night. My daughter is days shy of 10 months old. New Year’s is quickly approaching and I don’t have to make up excuses anymore for having to be home at 6 pm. Motherhood is bliss. While I can’t dash out to yoga class I can rsvp with a giant no pretty much all the time. It’s like delivering a baby gives you a carte blanche on all social engagements until the baby graduates 8th grade. Hallelujah.
Still, my toes look like a rodent’s been nibbling on them and I’m starting to wonder if I’m important enough to beckon a pedicure house call. From my vantage point at the kitchen table, the following could use my immediate attention: empty bag of veggie potato snacks from Trader Joe’s, cat-hair festooned Ikea rug on loan from friends, bag of brussels sprouts that, if not roasted, will go the way of the moldy chili-lime chicken burgers, and of course my thighs.
But my husband and I declared this my writing hour.
Back in 2006, I started Little Pink List, an ostensibly light-hearted blog that upgraded me from the status of procrastinator to writer. Surely a review of my favorite sushi restaurant qualified as groundbreaking editorial rather than shabby excuse for not grading that looming pile of papers. So here I am, almost four years and a few stretch marks later, convinced that the writing hour is: critical, leisurely, stimulating, insert meaningful adjective here. But procrastination, these days, it’s not.
I remember when I first announced that we (a pronoun only recently applied to pregnancy and very debatable) were pregnant; it was the mid-summer of 2008 and my clothes still fit beautifully (I faintly hear a U2 riff now about glorifying the past when the future dries up). A number of people echoed essentially the following: ‘Ooh, how exciting! You have a whole new subject to write about on your blog!” I’m still ascertaining if that’s an insult to my writing or an insult to my writing. Writing and motherhood are kind of like the ocean: you never really master it; you just keep diving in and trying again to make some sense of its enormity and power.
It’s been 10 months and I’ve barely had the courage (time?) to utter a written word. The only thing more terrifying than putting into print your own thoughts and ideas is walking out of a hospital on a sunny March day with a 7 lb. human encoded with half your DNA.
So to all of you who encouraged me to generate some written mantra on motherhood, I humbly respond almost a year later: sure, if you can bring over a roasted chicken for dinner and baby proof this Pandora’s box I live in, I’ll happily share all my findings in real time. Luckily for you, my husband has offered to cook once in awhile. So, while the timer on the microwave has dinged that the writing hour is over, I thank you for tuning in to Little Pink List redux.
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FYI – The rug is a keeper. 😉
I love this blog. How cool is this? I would not only keep the rug but also the excuses—8th grade, honey, is where the soccer/football/basketball/baseball/tennis/dance seasons are just getting revved up. “Sorry, can’t make it to your dinner party, fundraiser for sophie’s tennis team’s whites.”
Sounds like a line Carrie from Sex and the City would say, “almost four years and a few stretch marks later”. I guess its the tone , it made me LOL. While you’re writing kind of makes me scares me to show you mine, its more of an inspiration 🙂