Blogiversary

Two years ago tomorrow was my last day as a practicing attorney.  And the kids looked like this:

Two days ago, I took this picture.

I think somebody comes in at night when we're all asleep and stretches George from head to toe.  That's the most logical explanation I can come up with these days as to why he is so very, very big.  Well, that and my stellar stay-at-home mothering skills of course; those should never be underestimated.

Two years ago, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.  Just like having your first newborn, if someone had told me what my day-to-day life was going to be like I would never have believed them.  How could I have?  To be in the trenches of parenthood is not something that can be captured in words--it's far too complicated, wonderful, difficult, exhilarating, mind-numbing, exciting, humbling, and all-encompassing to be simplified by language.  And yet, here I sat every nap time for these past two years trying my best to capture our time on this blog.

I talked with a woman this morning at yoga who is pregnant with her third baby.  She plans to stay home once the baby comes (with her 3 and 5-year-old as well; let's all send her our blessings :) ) and she asked me if I liked being a full-time mother.  Her question caught me off guard not because I hadn't been asked that before, but because I hadn't been asked in a long time.  Without missing a beat I said, "I love it!"  Whew - that's a relief!

True, I have no idea what her life will be like with an infant and two preschoolers (YET anyway...right, Will?!), which I can only imagine will be quite different than what I do.  And in many ways, I am envious that she gets to experience stay-at-home motherhood from that infant stage rather than the 18-month and up stage where I started.  But that seems to be what I see as a lucky pattern I have developed in my life.  I get to say that I was both a working mother and a stay-at-home mother, just like I get to say I was both a professional dancer and a student and an attorney.  I actually got to do it all - just not at the same time.

Two years and 329 blog posts later, I am still lucky.  The days are long, but the years have been short--far too short for my taste.  And if the kids and Will will still let me, I'd like to keep this job for the foreseeable future.  It might be the only one listed above that I love more now than the first day I started.

It is easily the most underpaid or overpaid job I've ever held, depending on whether you consider "kisses" to be a method of payment.

And I do.

Happy Thursday, everyone!  Thank you for sticking with me these last two years : )


[If you want to see how I handled my new job two years ago (hint: not very well), here is my first post-attorney post]