Sugar Mama

Just over 6 and 4 four years ago respectively, I became a mom. Sammy, Aidan and Noah are the lights of our lives. Sammy really threw us for a loop with the magnitude of love and adoration we felt for this little being. I knew I would love my baby, but I didn't have a clue about how deep, complete, and all-encompassing this love would be. Quickly I learned that proceeding with life as usual plus one, wasn't exactly how things were going to be. I realized that leaving my sweet, happy smiling baby everyday to smile at other people was not cool. When Sammy was 10 months old and I had been back at work for about 6 month, we'd all had enough. I hung up my MBA and put on my MOM. I embraced this role passionately, though always with mixed feelings. I wondered whether I would ever work again. I wondered what that job would look like. I wondered if I ever could leave Sammy again. I read articles about professionals taking a hiatus and working from home later, finding part time options, or simply rejoining the work force where they left off. All the while, I loved being Sam's mom, reading, playing, cooking, teaching, walking and watching him grow. I didn't worry so much about "what next" after a while.

Eighteen months after I left work, Aidan and Noah made their presence known on my first ultrasound. Scott and I wondered how in the hell this was going to work. We have only one of everything?!?!? We bought a station wagon for crying out loud! That was supposed to transport our little family, but three car seats don't fit in one wagon. Speaking of wagons, we only have one, and I don't think I can fit three kids in a standard Radio Flyer, to say nothing about pulling it! But what would I push?! How do three babies get around the world? These were among the irrational thoughts that flooded my head as I laid there, looking at the two kidney bean shadows that would turn into my babies. Then I didn't give a fleeting thought to a paid job since I suspected, rightly so, that adding two more at the same time was going to change me from a stay-at-home mom to a lucky-if-I -can-get-out-of-the-house mom.

Fast forward four years, (insert maniacal laughter here) and I am a minivan-driving, PTO-attending, volunteering stay-at-home mom of a first grader and two pre-K students. Holy crap! I hadn't realized the transition I'd made to "breezy" until I hopped out of the car with the twins one day and spritzed them with SPF107 and sent them off while my friend set up her stroller, loaded it with the diaper bag and lunch bag, stuffed in a blanket, extracted her babies one by one, slathered them with SPF 107 cream which pissed them both off, pulled the awning on the stroller, picked up the dropped toys and lost her keys. She looked up at me a hissed, "bitch". I just laughed because she doesn't see that she'll get here too (hi Amber!) just like I thought I'd never leave the house without a shirpa either.

And never never never did I see myself with the perfect, part time, non-profit development job with hours as flexible as play-dough, proffered work-from-home options (in other words, I didn't have to sound like a mom with "how do I handle it when my kids get sick?") all of which is only 15 minutes from home! BUT I HAVE IT!!!! I WAS OFFERED A **GREAT** JOB YESTERDAY!!!!

Finally, I got an A+ on my performance review as Mom. When I told Sammy that my job was to help people who don't have enough food to get what they need, he said, "Oh Mommy, that's important."