Everyone assures you that this won’t be a problem, that love is not finite, that you will immediately have enough love for them both. My grandmother, a mother of seven, was especially reassuring to me in this area.

Just hours before Ruby was born, I rocked my precious 23-month-old baby Quinn to sleep. It was a rough night for her for some reason (ha ha), and despite being nine-months-pregnant and beyond exhausted (and already having contractions, though I didn’t let myself realize it yet), I remember just watching her face, smoothing down her hair, singing to her. Happily. I lllllllooooooooooovvvvveeed her. She was my life.

Then I went to bed with my sweet husband, who I still love quite acutely. But I remember what it used to be like when we spent the whole day together. Absolutely, effortlessly together. When he was my life. Our decade of inseparability is still a powerful thread between us, but these things shift a bit when you rarely get time alone, when you are completely drained by the time you get those moments, when both of your hearts and arms are often otherwise occupied.

We talked for a few hours, cuddled briefly and then I turned to the mountain of pillows that are the constant sleeptime companion of the very pregnant woman, rested my head, and started to drift off to sleep. About 10 minutes later, Ruby slammed down into my pelvis, starting her journey towards us.

Two and a half hours later, Ruby was born. I held her little body to my chest, looked in to her eyes, and studied her sweet little face. “Yes,” I thought. “It’s you.” That same instant recognition, overwhelming delight and effortless love I felt when Quinn was born.

The feeling got a little more complicated a few hours later, when my sister brought Quinn in to meet her new baby sissy. Here was my baby Ruby, who I loved so much, and here was my baby Quinn, who I loved so much, but when did she get so big?? It was honestly a little challenging for my heart to sort itself out. It took at least a few weeks. And it was hard and sad. Sometimes when Quinn was out with my mom at the park or something, I would cry. I missed her so much. Sometimes I missed her when she was right there, because I had to be so focused on Ruby, who I also loved madly and who needed me much, much more. Eventually I learned how to hold them both at once (literally and figuratively!!).

It was sort of like going home for Christmas in those first few years of college. You had this fun college life, your actual life, which you loved. But then you were suddenly back home with all of your family and old friends and suddenly that was your life. I would always cry when I left home, but would feel good again once I got to college. But with two kids it’s like you suddenly have both your old life and your new life and your heart feels torn and twisted and confused. It’s not easy to sort it out, especially with all the added challenges of living with two tiny people who are also trying to sort out their feelings for each other.

Here I am, 14 months later, and I am madly in love with both of my daughters at the same time. I still prefer alone time with each one, but it’s much easier to focus on the two of them together. It’s second nature now and I wouldn’t trade it for the world. Their love for each other is also amazing to see, and more than makes up for any limitations I might face.

Having two kids is definitely harder on your marriage, though. I certainly don’t love my husband any less than that first blissful week we spent together giggling, messing around, and wandering the streets of Portland hand in hand. But I don’t have much time to ruminate on my love for him, or to act on it. And we sure don’t get much time to giggle or mess around , though we do get to hold hands occasionally.

You also never get a break with two, and you can’t really give each other a break, because your spouse can’t handle more than one for a long, long time (not that you could really pass off that precious newborn when you already feel like you hardly get any time alone with her). You find yourselves fighting more just because of the constant chaos, and even more spent at the end of the day. But the other side of that coin is the solid conviction that you are a family, that you are actually building something big here. If you just hold sight of each other, cling to the few date nights you get and throw yourself into all the good moments you all get together, you’ll make it through. I’m pretty sure, anyway .

But there is one thing that definitely is finite, and that is patience. No one tells you this before you have two. But believe me, you will be amazed at how quickly your fuse blows. I can honestly say that I never lost my patience with Quinn before Ruby was born. I remember reading parenting books that referenced losing your temper and I thought it was crazy. Not that I was always perfect, but I always had control. I was able to use parenting strategies and stick to my plans on how to deal with certain behaviors.

Now I lose my temper all the time. I usually catch myself within a few seconds and redirect myself, but I get angry at my children in a way I never could have imagined before. At first, you think it’s just because your toddler’s shenanigans are now an actual threat to your precious newborn that your hackles are so raised, like a mama lion protecting her littlest cub. But as time goes by you realize that you just don’t have any more patience than you did before, and that you need a lot more of it when you have two.

These days I tell myself it’s not a bad thing that the kids sometimes see mama angry, as long as they also see mama address her anger and channel it. I also always own up to it. “I’m sorry that mama got so angry, but it is not OK to try to pick your sister up by the head. You could have really hurt her, and I don’t let anyone hurt either of my precious girls.” Or some such. I hear about some mamas who put themselves into time out and I think that’s brilliant, but I can’t ever seem to think of it when I’m seeing red.

You just become so much more reactionary when you have two. All of your plans and goals and priorities can no longer drive your every moment. You are constantly dealing with two very different, very busy and very rule pushing little people. That’s what toddlers need to do and as a mama of two you are sorely outnumbered. But when you look at them both in a good moment, like when Quinn and Ruby put on a show for me yesterday complete with singing and dancing (more like mumbling and shifting for Ruby but it was too darn cute), or when you watch them go lick for lick with a popsicle and you didn’t even have to tell them to share, your heart is fuller than you could have ever dreamed.

Whether it’s a political molehill coaxed into a mountain by both sides, a decaying magazine objectifying attachment parenting, or all of the men who made the primary about our reproductive choices, the thing that makes me maddest of all is our reaction.

When they attack us, we moms always take the bait. We strike out against other women and we entrench like hell. And honestly, ladies, don’t we have enough to do, whether we work an 80- 90- or 100-hour workweek? It’s really not my business whether Ann Romney worked hard as a mom, or whether Jamie Lynne Grumet should still be nursing her 3-year-old. Should I really be gawking at some poor teen mom, or some woman who really didn’t know she was pregnant until she pushed out the baby?

Honestly, we should be giving props to anyone who has the guts to publicly discuss any aspect of her mothering style in this culture of vultures. We should be linking arms against those who try to push us down out of boredom, anger or self-promotion. Against those who have no interest in seeing who we are, hearing what we say, or valuing what we do.

We are right to be mad as hell. It’s demeaning that we always find our sacrifices and struggles reduced to a talking point, a punch line, a quick pitstop on the road to bigger things.

Mothering isn’t something that’s done on the margins of society, our choices some subversive act worthy of ridicule. It’s offensive that once the fine-tooth comb finishes sweeping over all of our flaws, the focus immediately shifts to somebody else’s “baby bump,” public nursing snafu or how weird it is that January Jones ingested her placenta.

Um, guys, while we’re on the topic of whether mothering is real work, could we talk about how few women receive compensation while on maternity leave? Or why our maternal death rates are higher than Bulgaria’s? Hello? Guys? 

Motherhood is wrenching and glorious and mothers are complicated, nuanced beings. What we’re doing is worthy of serious consideration even if you think you might disagree with us. Especially if you think you might disagree with us. The next time I see another woman’s mothering style being used as a sacrificial lamb to some lesser cause, even if her parenting style is the polar opposite of my own, I’m speaking up.

It’s not funny, it’s not freakish and I don’t care of she’s an M you’d LF. She’s worth more than that. We all are.

This is a really, really good thing, I know. I’ve been so hungry for this to happen. But…I’ve been in a haze of mommydom for so long, that when I get a moment to myself, I don’t really know what to do with it.

Well, that’s not completely true. Usually I spend it doing dishes, cleaning off the millions of piles on my counters, picking up toys, scrubbing faucets….you get the idea.

But when I actually get a little of the oh-so-vaunted me time, or time with my hubby, at first I’m ecstatic and then… I mostly feel uneasy. Like, should I really be sitting in this bar sipping a cocktail/in this mall buying some pants that fit/in this salon getting pretty when I have all those counters to clean off back home?? Or at least sleeping and resting? Is this really even that fun?

My inner monologue is even worse when the me or couple time occurs when my kids are awake. Then I’m alternating between beating myself up over how much my baby misses me and dreading the double-kiddo meltdown I’ll come home to.

I’m also enjoying myself, of course. A little. But it mostly just feels weird. Am I a freak??

I know this is textbook bad mommy behavior, that I’m supposed to take care of me so I can take care of them, and yadda yadda yadda, but it’s just so hard to get back into the saddle of selfdom.

I just never really did it between my kiddos, so I’ve got a longer way to go. When my sleepless year with a colicky (and wonderful) baby turned into a second year surpregnant and a third year with a baby and toddler, my bubble of personal existence just kind of deflated completely.

I mean, I’m not a total hermit. I have lots of mommy friends. My hubby and I are still very happy together (God knows how!!). But I’ve definitely lost touch with myself.  The kiddos just needed me so much. I just felt like I couldn’t, like it wasn’t worth it, that I didn’t even know how to start. I got so good at powering through the exhaustion, the boredom, the unmet needs that I just sort of went on auto pilot. I let it happen. I wanted it to happen. I just didn’t see any other way to do it well.

Now that I feel like they need me a little less, I’m not sure how to turn the autopilot off. I’m working on it, though. I got a new haircut. I got my brows did. I’ve gone out for drinks with my sister a few times, with my hubby a few more. Even with the girls last week. Yesterday I went out and bought some new clothes (and found myself a size smaller than I expected to be! Yippee!).

So I’m definitely coming up for air, making time for “me,” whoever that is beyond mama, wife and homemaker extraordinaire. But it feels a little like going through the motions. In my head I’m coaxing myself: “Wow! This is so great! Isn’t this so great! I’m having SO much fun! Aren’t I??” But the unease never really leaves.

I just keep telling myself that I’m in a time of major adjustment right now. That in a few months this particular mix of me-time and mommydom will feel old hat. And then I’ll have to brace myself for the next adjustment, whatever that is. I remember the panic that set in right after Quinn was born, realizing that everything in my universe had shifted and I’d somehow have to learn to live with it. And then I did. That happened again when I got pregnant again, and then when Ruby was born. So I know these moments to myself will soon feel normal, even good. That the panic will abate.

But for the time being, I feel like Rip Van Winkle in a nursing bra. Waiting for my world to look normal again.

Pacing the floor at 2 in the morning, with no sleep in your future and no real relief in sight for hours, days, years, you wonder how on earth other mothers did what you’re doing while also contending with war, famine, genocide, you name it. You wonder how they did it without washing machines, without birth control, without the right to vote.

You suddenly wish you knew a lot more about those women, and maybe a little less about their sons and husbands.

I often think about this poster that my mom hung up in our laundry room when I was a kid. It was black and white, a blow-up of some ancient laundry soap ad. “Every day she did the impossible,” it said. At the time, I saw it as ironic or cutesy or something, like Rosie the Riveter, or Buy War Bonds or some such. But I get it now. Sometimes, during moments of complete chaos, those words are my salvation. Every day she did the impossible. Other times my mantra is simpler: Live through this. This too shall pass.

Your concept of womanhood is vastly changed, your view of marriage and especially of gender relations forever altered. The way you see your body shifts two-fold as you accept at once the majesty of its ability and the destruction of some of its aesthetic attributes.

There are entire categories of movie you can’t even consider watching anymore, news stories you should never, ever read.

You find yourself watching Steel Magnolias and, though you are only a few years older than Julia Roberts’ character, you are now totally crying for Sally Field.

There is a strange universality in the very specific and very acute love you feel for your child. Sometimes you will be holding them, feeling their weight against your shoulder, their breath against your cheek and you will think of  some other child being neglected or hurt and you will find yourself panting, desperate, feeling like the wind was knocked out of you, like you might lose your mind.

At the same time, you have an odd understanding for the mothers who kill their children. You could never, ever do such a thing, but you have some understanding for the madness that can come of caring for young children, for the frustration you can feel when all you want is a minute, just one minute of peace, and the desperation that comes when you realize you won’t be getting it.

I know that I will never see the world the way I used to, will never see my own purpose the same way. That some things will never go back to being the way they were before, and I’m not just talking about my boobs.

I’m not too sad about it, either, though I recognize that my mommyvision comes at the expense of my carefree youth. Oh well. At least I had one.

I feel a much stronger sense of community than I’ve ever felt before, a connection to mothers throughout history. I feel closer to my friends and neighbors, less competitive, more loving. I feel more motherly to people who aren’t mothers.

Motherhood has taught me to be patient and kind, to maintain my sense of humor under extreme duress. It’s made me self-reliant and forgiving, creative and optimistic.

Now why the hell can’t I list it on my resume?

It’s really fun. We made santas out of felt, decorated ornaments, made gingerbread, read The Night Before Christmas four billion times. That kid cracks me up that she loves that poem so much. I can’t wait to make paper stars with her, decorate gingerbread houses, and go visit the reindeer at Swanson’s.

But I’ve got to admit, the usual Christmas story has been feeling mighty hollow as I share it with my wide-eyed babe. Very commercial. Heavily sugar-laden. Even more than I thought it was before.

Christmas rolls around and you have this expectant wonder within you, and then you try to pass it on to your kid and you find yourself just talking about presents and a jolly man coming down the chimney, about a freshly-cut tree covered in glowing lights or even about reindeer that can fly and it just falls flat.

The problem is that so much of what’s missing is wrapped up in sensory memory and it’s from your childhood brain. How I can bite into a sugar cookie and remember exactly how it felt to stay up all night waiting to hear Santa’s sleighbells outside my window. How I can smell a Douglas Fir and remember giggling with my little sister as we unpacked our ornaments together. How I can hear someone, anyone singing “Silent Night” and be transformed into my 12-year-old self, standing on the stage in St. James’ Cathedral surrounded by the hush of incense and faith late in the night on the eve of Christmas.

I want to encapsulate that feeling of wonder and share it with my toddler. The sacred music, the beautiful mystery, the promise of peace on earth. You know, the small stuff.

I’m not religious, but I also wanted to share the other Christmas story with her. I told her that Christmas was actually the birthday of a little baby born a long, long time ago. That his mommy and daddy had to work really hard to raise him during hard times. But that he lived a good life. He taught us that everybody should love everybody. We celebrate because we want the world to be full of love and peace.

Music was a big part of my childhood, with both my sister and I singing in the Columbia Girls Choir, and growing up in a very musical family, one that could belt out all five versus to any given Christmas song in perfect harmony, and did.

So singing Christmas songs was one easy way to reach Quinn. I wasn’t sure how much she heard me, but the other day she sang to me:

“Silent Night, Holy Night, it’s very quiiiiiiiiiiiiiet.”

So, we’re making progress. I guess what I have to accept is that I’ll build wonder with her slowly, that she’ll grow her own cadre of sensory memories that make her Christmas. I have to hope that for her this time of year will always be tied intrinsically to family, to love and to wonder, that someday a sugar cookie will transport her that way it does me.

My sweet, curious toddler will be just standing there, carefully arranging her Playmobil people into a little made-up scene, building a “super cool tower” out of blocks, or even cooing at her baby sister. Suddenly, her face will change as her body goes rigid. Then she’ll lash out at anything and everyone in her space. Maybe she’ll just start yelling No, or she will run into the corner and kick, or she will push me or her sister or start throwing things.

Then, within seconds, she’ll be back to her normal self, staring sheepishly at the damage she created. Did I do that?

“Mama,” she’ll say soberly. “I’m gonna do a time-out.”

Sometimes these little storms are completely random, other times they’re in response to situations, but they don’t at all reflect her actual feelings.

The other day, just seconds after a sudden and unexpected outburst of “No, no NO! No, no, NO!” in response to my suggestion that we go visit a neighbor, she turned to me and said sweetly “I am sorry about all of that No-ing, mama. I would like very much to go to D___’s house.”

I really feel for her. It seems to be very much out of her control. Not that I let her get away with it. But I know it wasn’t really HER who did it. I look stern, feel sympathetic and try very, very hard not to laugh.

Thankfully, she’s been getting more sophisticated lately, giving me an advance warning of her toddler storm.

“Mama,” she told me yesterday, with a toddlerish mix of glee and terror, “I am going to rush by and smash Ruby down!”

Thereby giving mama ample time to pick up Ruby before Toddler Hyde rushed by and tried to smash her. Phew.

Other times, she’ll just stop herself, hand poised mid-air, about to throw or hit or rush or smash. Her eyes twinkle, but they plead, too: “Mama, stop me before I do this thing I can’t help doing! Or at least move yourself/my baby sister out of harm’s way fast!”

AwwwwwWOOOOOOOOOOO!

Editor’s Note: I wrote this about two days after Ruby was born, on June 5. I didn’t want to forget anything! Not sure how I ever could. With Ruby nearly six months old now, I thought I should share it already ! 

Ruby grins at one day old

My beautiful, mellow Ruby Katherine came in the wee hours of Friday, June 3– her due date. I have just been enjoying the heck out of her since then, though my hollow uterus feels so weird!!

Hubby and I had just shut out the light at around midnight Thursday night/Friday morning after having kind of a rough time getting my 23-month-old daughter down. Within five minutes of my shutting out the light, I felt a low slamming in my pelvis and heard and felt a light pop, almost like when my water broke with Quinn two years previously (which didn’t happen that time until after 6 hours of labor and when I was 10 centimeters dilated). I got up to go check, but I wasn’t leaking at all. I had the same light cramps and pelvic pains I’d had the previous two days, but nothing else going on. We went back to bed.

Within 30 minutes my contractions started, and they started HARD, less than four minutes apart and 1.5-2 minutes long. By the third one, I was on the toilet with intense diarrhea, and a few contrax later I was throwing up. It was then that my husband told me “This is really happening, honey,” which I really needed to hear because for whatever crazy reason I still wasn’t sure “this was it.” These were already not the early or middle contractions you can breathe through, but the late, transition contractions that have you yelling, grunting and trying not to swear (me, anyway!).

I think part of me knew I was already in transition even though it had only been 20 minutes or so, but the rest of me was just freaking out at how intense the feelings were and I was terrified I wouldn’t be able to make it. I remember really going in to the zone with Quinn, but this time my body was just racing too fast for the endorphins to catch up, and I was just hanging on for dear life! I have never prayed so hard, and it was sometimes for strength and sometimes for salvation but mostly just for it to be over, however that might be …I just keep thinking Oh no I am still so alert! When am I going to get foggy headed already? Help me!!

Remember, this is only 30 minutes in, but hubby has the foresight to call the midwife, who says she will be there as fast as she can, and to start filling up the birth tub (ha, ha!). It was the hardest thing I ever did, letting him go downstairs to get the tub ready. He was so fast too, maybe a minute, tops. But I was alone on the front of a freight train, with my head in a bowl, trying to escape. I think we were both in serious denial about how far along I already was. (Ruby was nearly in my arms by the time the tub was ready to go!) He also called my sister, who had just moved back to Seattle FOUR HOURS earlier after years of living in other cities for years.

Anyway, another 25 minutes of me hanging on the back of a freight train, barfing my guts out, sitting on the toilet and pooping and yelling NO but trying to remember to picture an opening rose, an opening anything, anything even remotely positive or having to do with my baby. I couldn’t move, couldn’t even lift my head, the vomit was just pouring out of my mouth and hubby was catching it in different bowls. Suddenly, the fog descended over me. It was still so intense and painful, but I started to drift off a little. I was so relieved. I surrendered completely. Hubby was able to carry me to the bed. My contractions were right on top of each other at this point. My hubby, resident tailbone pressure applier, later said I was just catatonic all the sudden.

It was right about then that my midwife and sister got there. I don’t even remember seeing my sis at all. I know she took the baby monitor so she could attend to my toddler if she woke up (her room is right next to ours and she slept through the whole thing!!). My midwife was asking me questions and I couldn’t form the words to answer for a long time. I had stopped barfing, though, and felt very feverish and far away. She checked my vitals and all was well. Baby was so happy and strong!! Didn’t check my cervix- she said later that she knew instantly that I was already complete and was just waiting for me to figure it out. I should have known that the few minutes of near “calm” meant that, especially with the baby’s head already pushing against me, but I was just so in denial that I could already be at that point in less than two hours. My midwife’s assistants arrived a few minutes later, and greeted me. I couldn’t even form the concept of what I was supposed to do in response.

So when the urge to push came, a few minutes later, I declared that I needed to poop again, somehow forced myself over to the toilet and I think I sort of started to figure it out then. I was still yelling and screaming through intense contractions. My midwife came next to me and told me that I could sit on the toilet but that I shouldn’t push there. Still didn’t quite get it, but I looked at her and said “I’m not going to poop, am I?”

I got back on to the bed on my side and my midwife lifted my leg and I started screaming for compresses, which of course she was already pushing in to me . Hubby was pushing hard on my tailbone. My midwife said I could push whenever I felt like it. I really, really felt like it but I just couldn’t believe it. It had been less than two hours since this all started. “Are you sure?” I asked. She said if I felt like it, yes. Then my water broke, but it was so subtle, it just started burbling out as baby’s head was right there blocking its exit. So I started pushing, then resting as I felt like it. Within about four pushes, maybe 10 minutes had passed tops and baby’s head was crowning. The ring of fire was as I remembered it, but I was mostly just washed with gratitude and relief to already be pushing, to almost be done, to not be throwing up anymore. I pushed again and tried to hold back, but her whole body just shot out of me. She started squalling, gurgling as she was still partway in her bag of waters. She was beautiful and healthy and it felt so heavenly to have her out!!

She was 6 pounds, 10 ounces, 20 and 3/4 inches tall, and had dark hair and the cutest little high cheekbones! I was in love again and hubby and I snuggled her.

My placenta came not even five minutes later. I had some really mild skids that didn’t need stitches. My baby girl wanted to nurse almost immediately and successfully latched almost right away (something that NEVER, in 18 month of nursing, happened without a nipple shield with my first daughter).

I just wish I had known that my labor would only be 2 hours! I could have handled that freight train ride so much better! I apologized to everyone after but they all said I did amazing and claimed they didn’t know what I was talking about . My first birth involved two nights, eight hours each of regular practice/early labor before the actual birth day, which lasted about 11 hours– it took me five hours to get from 5 cm to baby in my arms, so it was a fairly fast first birth once it got going, but nothing crazy.

This time, my midwife was at our house for only 41 minutes before my daughter was out, and her assistants were here only 28 and 14 minutes before. I was already complete before any of them got here, and felt the urge to push– I was just in such denial. My husband had been saying for months that he was scared he would have to deliver the baby himself, and we all laughed and reassured him there was just no way. Poor guy. He was so right!!

I feel so blessed to have her here with me so early. My first daughter came on her own 14 days late as I stared down an induction. It was very stressful. To have this little one start her own birth at the stroke of midnight on her due date is a more marked contrast than I could have ever dreamed of.

My daughter Quinn is also already an amazing big sister. I am so grateful to her for her sweetness and her empathy. She relinquished so much of her beloved mommy without a fight, telling me I need to kiss the baby and hold the baby, and getting misty eyed whenever her little sister cries. She loves holding and kissing her and is so, so gentle and loving. We are so blessed and love our little family!

A lot of things are easier. My toddler sleeps through the night in her own bed most nights ( though my five-month-old sure doesn’t so I’m not exactly reaping the benefits).

My toddler also can use her words to tell me what she needs. And she usually does. Though she sometimes resorts to a simple, effective “No, no, no!! No, no, NO! NOOO, NOOO, NOOOOOO!” etc. She is usually a real sweetheart– to me, to her sister and to her friends.  Driving home from preschool today, she said to me “You’re doing a good job taking care of me, mama.” That was awesome. As was the day before when she suddenly and randomly started chanting “I like myself, I love myself I like myself.” That was so dang cute, if a teeny tiny bit too effusive.

She is also doing an amazing job of being a big sister, and that is no small feat when you have to suddenly become the big girl at 23 months.

The part that’s getting scarier is the increasing complexity of her problems. And if I feel like tapping out during the toddler years, woe to me when this kid’s a tween.

But seriously, this stuff is getting real. There are no longer prescribed answers for all her problems (not that the earlier prescriptions worked that well but it was nice to have a laundry list to start with), and, scariest of all, I’m starting to get a taste of the mommy blame game. So far it’s just me blaming myself and then feeling defensive about it, mostly. But I know that there are people we interact with who look at some of the things my daughter does and assume I’m doing everything wrong. Are they right? I don’t know. It’s really scary either way.

When toddlers get older, they start to have actual issues. Individual quirks. Like the kid who holds her poop in for weeks on end, or the kid who bites, the little girl who is terrified of dogs or the little boy who bangs his head against the crib rails. Some toddler issues are weirder than others, and Quinn definitely has some weird ones. (I probably shouldn’t say that here, and will at the very least make sure to delete this by the time she is reading .)

The thing is, when I talk about her problems these days, I sometimes feel scared and ashamed. I rarely felt that way when she was littler. For one thing, when problems are as much behavioral as they are developmental, the stakes get a lot higher. For another, I know my mothering is going to be really judged. I know that if I hadn’t personally experienced some of these things, I would think the kid’s parents were probably doing something wrong.

When I was a brand new mama, sharing with other moms always brought relief. But the problems are so much more complicated now, and so individual that sharing doesn’t always help. And I feel daunted that I already feel daunted by her problems!

It’s not that I haven’t gotten sympathy or that I don’t feel loved. I have wonderful friends and I’m grateful to have people to lean on, including my sweet hubby who manages to remain pretty unshaken by all this stuff. I also feel overwhelmingly that I have a great kid and I’ve done a great job so far. But it is getting scarier, maybe mostly for the promise of how much scarier it will get before she emerges from her chrysalis and gives her big beautiful wings a quick shake in my direction before heading on her way. So I’m working on being braver. And trying to remember that it’s not ALL me, whether we’re talking about something good or bad.

Quinn was a few weeks old. I was on a madcap solo adventure to the store to buy her some more tiny baby clothes (my first taste of “me time” for moms ha ha ha). In a moment that felt very portentous (as every thing did in those early months), I turned the radio on just as KEXP started playing Laura Veirs’ “Don’t Lose Yourself.”

Don’t lose yourself. Don’t let yourself be lost.

Don’t lose yourself. Don’t let yourself be lost.

I pulled into the parking lot, turned off the engine, and sat in my car, saturated. There may have been tears rolling down my cheeks.

It was a psychological crossroads, and I chose the road I usually travel by, the one that seeks positivity and wonder, the one that is always vowing to do unlikely things. The delusional Pollyanna; my survival instinct.

I promised myself I wouldn’t get lost in motherhood. That I would be the same girl when this was all over, whenever that would be. And then I felt better. I went into the store, perused the tiny baby items, bought some packaged sushi and coconut ice cream and was ready to go back home again.

Here’s the thing though: I let myself be lost.

I lost myself completely in motherhood. When it came right down to it, I didn’t really see any other way to do it well. Not for me, anyway.

I know there are women who can do it, who can give 100 percent at work all day and then go home and somehow miraculously find another 100 percent to give to their families. There are women whose interests, personalities, lifestyles are not wholly derailed by mothering.

Well, I’ve never been a multi-tasker. I don’t know how people do it. If there is a song on while I’m writing, I can’t write. If the TV is on, I can’t talk. I can’t write an email while I’m talking on the phone. I am insanely efficient and fast, but I’ve got to throw myself into something in order to do it well. More importantly, I’ve got to throw myself into something in order to enjoy doing that something.

In the two months that I was back at work, I found that work just wasn’t fun anymore. My mind was always on her. But you know what else? Mothering wasn’t fun either. My mind was on work when I was at home. I couldn’t focus on my baby the way I had during my maternity leave, and when I couldn’t focus wholly on her, I didn’t enjoy her as much.

Once I quit my job, and was able to just throw myself into my days with Quinn, I felt much, much better. Most of the time. Occasionally, the doubt would creep in, like a slow-burning fire burning at the corners of my life.

Where did I go? Who was I? I was a happy, wonderful mother. My baby was growing and thriving. I was enjoying the slower pace of life. I was making friends and watching the leaves rustle. Parts of me were well-intact.

But other parts of myself just don’t exist any more. The girl who read the paper every day. The girl who wrote the paper every day. My professional drive, so strong and exciting before, just sort of atrophied. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get those parts back.

Right now, I’m not too worried. I’m confident that something else will take its place. I know that I have many more adventures ahead of me. I know now that I will be many selves throughout the course of my life.

But I do miss that girl. I really liked her.

Poor toddler. She is so full of energy and mischief. So curious about everything she sees. We are lying on the bed, looking up at the stars, finding faces in the clouds. We are making Rhodedendron Chocolate Tea and drinking Thai Food Soup and making up rhymes. She is laughing hysterically as she chatters away, swings her little arms from side to side, pounds anything with anything else. In her little mind, anything is possible, and she needs to try everything out at least once. Ok, twice. No, mama just one last time, one more time and then I will be done, OK?

And there I am, the same harried and exhausted mama I was the day before, pulling it together for the most part, but spending about a quarter of her lifetime fantasizing about sneaking off somewhere far, far away. Just for a minute. But desperately. And that sucks.

They deserve so much better. To wake up in the morning to someone who is not only delighted to see them, but who actually got enough sleep the night before to back that belief up. Someone who isn’t so spent before the day is over, someone who gets a chance to recharge at some point.

I am the one rocking and nursing the baby all night, the one taking care of both little ones all day, every day of their lives. So I’m not exactly a slacker. But babies are so amazing, so full of delight and wonder, and they are only on this earth for such a short time. Likewise toddlers.

We all say that the best place for young kids is with their moms. I believe that with all of my heart. It’s why I quit my job. It’s why I’m still here. I couldn’t be anywhere else.

But I sometimes feel guilty that it’s me they have to spend their days with when I know some 22-year-old nanny would arrive at our house full of energy and fun, with a bag full of exciting things to do. She would have eaten breakfast, would have showered, would be wearing something better than a pair of sweatpants creased and wrinkled from sitting in the dryer (OK, on the floor) for three weeks. She wouldn’t have to wolf down her breakfast with a kid in either arm, wouldn’t be parking the toddler in front of the T.V. so she could nurse the infant, wouldn’t have to make dinner every night while both kids melt down.

I know I am a good mom, and for the most part I am very happy doing this. I just know I could do it so much better if I wasn’t the only one doing it!