Part Time Party Girl

WARNING.  Shocking statement ahead.

It appears that I may not be able to party the way I could when I was 24.  I know, GASP, right?  In fact, I am actually thinking that it might be time to retire the "Full Time Party Girl" from my self-description.  Or, at the very least, amend it to "Part Time (As Long As There Is Ample Recovery Time) Party Girl".

Honestly, usually, these days, I'm quite happy with going part time.  Content with the much quieter lifestyle I've created.  Early to bed and clarity of mind and all that.

Usually.  Because even though green smoothies and detox tea are terrific for breakfast almost every morning, sometimes you just really need want bacon and a Bloody Mary as big as your head.  Sometimes it's necessary okay to revert back to your full time party person status.  Sometimes, very rarely, but sometimes, you might even need to pull a double.  (Or a triple?)  Yes, your recovery time will be exponentially increased, and there will be much less clarity about the night(s) before than back in the day, but you, with your years of experience & drive, are up to the task.  Sometimes you just need to listen to that devil on your shoulder.  This is especially true when there is an open bar.

But then, there will come a moment when you are tired and burnt out, when you begin preferring water to wine, when flirting has become more forced than fun and your party clothes are too binding.  And that's when you will make your way home.  You will crawl into your own bed made with clean, fresh sheets occupied by the ones that love you most of all, and you will retire your full time status.  The next few days will involve a lot green juice, kale, and possibly 2-a-days.  You will go to bed at your usual 10pm bedtime. You will rest & take your vitamins.  You will know that you cannot party the way you could when you were 24.  But you will also know you that still got it.

And that, for me, and maybe for you, is called balance.

Join The Club

I had a conversation on Friday about being a parent.  I was chatting with someone without kids about what it's like to have kids.  

"Tell me the truth," he said.  "The only thing anyone ever says is, 'It's the best thing I ever did.'"

I laughed and immediately replied, "It's the best thing I ever did."  Long pause.  "And it's the hardest thing I ever did."  

I'm going to speak honestly here.  Are you ready?

There are certainly been times that I have thought to myself, or even said out loud to Tim, why in the hell did we decide to have a kid?  Being a parent is unbelievably hard - especially when you are as selfish as I am.  It is not about *you* anymore, not ever.  (Well, maybe on Mother's Day, but you're probably committing at least 407 selfless acts on that day instead of your usual 907.)  There are the really hard days where nothing is right and no one is happy and many tears are shed.  There are the days when you just want to run away and do only what you want to do when you want to do it.  There are the days when you feel like you haven't been alone in years, and you just want to have 5 freaking minutes by yourself to silently pound a glass of wine.

And then there are the other days.  The days of baby laughs and beaming smiles.  Days of cuddles and kisses, new experiences and pure joy.  The days of growth and excitement and change.  The days of seeing the world for the first time through your child's eyes.  And these days come so much more often than the others.  

So here's the thing that I didn't say to him but should have:  Becoming a parent gives us this outrageous capacity for love.  You will love this little person more than you ever thought possible.  I think our hearts must grow 3 sizes on the day that we first see our baby's face.  And along with that love come this new & incredible compassion for others.  We are more empathetic, we are more patient, we are more kind.  I believe that, for me, being a parent has made me a better person.

(It also makes us absolute freaking superheroes.  There's something pretty cool about that too.)  

Pretty Good Year

As I've said, I am a professional marketer, a professional mama, and a professional good time girl. (Note: this does not mean "prostitute".)  Gentle Reader, that is THREE full time jobs. How in the world was there ever time for everything in 2012?

1. Successfully made it to my son's first birthday
2. Planned a wedding IN MY BACKYARD while working & baby-wrangling full-time
3. Overhauled our entire home including paint, carpet, and various other home improvement projects
4. Coped with the baby blues and cried quite a bit
5. Learned that taking 30 minutes to eat lunch silent and alone is essential to my well-being
6. Lost the baby weight 
7. Gained some of it back
8. Finally married the love of my life after a 7-year courtship
9. Reconnected with several of my closest friends from the past 
10. Learned the importance of making time for friends, both near & far
11. Looked out at a sea of faces of all of the people I love most in my life and felt like the luckiest girl in the world
12. Ran (mostly) my first 5K
13. Had a fight with my Mom that has likely forever changed the nature of our relationship
14. Finally embraced my love of being a mother
15. Came to the sad conclusion that wheat & dairy do not make me feel good
16. Colored a lot of gray hair and obsessed over many new lines on my face
17. Said goodbye to my Grandma 
18. Spent all day at a cabana in Vegas with 8 of my very best girls
19. Unexpectedly, felt endless gratitude & respect for my in-laws
20. Drank my weight in beer in Bend on our very short but sweet honeymoon
21. Cried and cried and cried and hurt and hurt and hurt for those lost and the families affected by so many tragedies of this past year
22. Discovered that my husband is not only a great partner, he's a terrific father
23. Celebrated births and grieved the death of relationships with my dear Seattle girlfriends
24. Took a giant leap of faith and left my secure job to pursue a new career 
25. Continued my love affair with wine
26. Watched too much reality TV
27. Made peace with myself for some of the larger mistakes I've made
28. Swelled with joy & pride as I watched my son roll over, crawl, take his first steps, say his first words, give his first kisses, snuggle his first stuffed toy, eat his first foods, and call out "Mommy!" for the first time
29. Felt both joy & sorrow more deeply than ever before 
30. Thought to myself time and time and time again, "I must be one of the luckiest women on Earth."

Yeah, it was a pretty good year.  

The New Reality - A Continuation

We are nearly 16 months into this crazy adventure, and I continue to be amazed at this New Reality.  I remember when my BFF, Katie, was pregnant with her first, she said to me, "You know, I don't really think our lives are going to change *that* much.  We'll still do all of the same things only there will be a baby with us."

Ahahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahha.

This is a false statement.  Katie, you so funny.

Welcome to the New Reality, friends.

• Getting up at 8am is really sleeping in.
• You will use the word "poop" more than you could ever imagine.
• You will not think twice about eating something that has already been been in the mouth of another person.
• "Going down" means something very, very, very different.
• The idea of going out at 9pm seems like absolute madness.
• At 3am, you are willing to barter *anything* in order to not have to take that feeding.  
• Your vocabulary is expanded not via literature but through Diapers.com.  Bumbo.  Boppy.  Moby.  
• You will always have Cheerios - both in the house and on the floor of every room.  
• You will know that the Yo Gabba Gabba characters are not sex toys.  
• You will not only know the face your child makes while he's pooping, you will know the face he makes before it happens.  
• You will dress your child up in the cutest clothes from Baby Gap while you yourself wear yoga pants and sweatshirts.  
• You will smell your child's butt in public.  You will be unconcerned about this action.

And finally, the most important piece of the New Reality:

• You will have more love in your heart for one person that you ever imagined possible....and even more so each night after he's gone down.

It's Five O'Clock Somewhere

I go to parties, sometimes until 830 4, it's hard to leave when you can't find the door.

Parents/Partiers - it's a struggle, isn't it?  A struggle to maintain some kind of realistic balance between our parental duties and our partying ways.  And when you add in cleaning and laundry and working outside of the home, well, it's damn near impossible. 

But I am here to tell you - we CAN do this.  (Picture me saying this in my best Bill-Clinton-on-the- campaign trail voice.  It's more impactful this way.)

We CAN find a way to both bring up our children AND bring the funk.  A few things to consider -

1. Our days of partying until 2a or 3a or 4a?  They're over.  Get used to it. 
2. Happy hour is your friend!  Many happy hours begin at 3p or 4p, making it totally acceptable to have a few cocktails and snacks in the middle of the afternoon.
3.  As you need to be in bed by roughly 9p in order to be functional the next day, flip cup tournaments events that begin as early as noon on the weekends are not only suggested, they are recommended. 
4.  A designated parent must be identified before any imbibing begins.  Yes, clearly, it's important that this person drives everyone home safely, but, more than that, this person ensures that Mommy Baby is fed, watered, and put to bed safely.
5.  Babysitters!  If you have a baby-raising partner, then you deserve to enjoy a night out alone together.  If not, you deserve a night out with grown-ups.  Seriously, it's not only okay to get a babysitter once in awhile, it's important.  If paying someone to watch your kid for a few hours isn't an option, guilt trip a friend or a family member, or make a deal to trade off les petits monstres with another family. 
6.  But you still can't party until 2a or 3a or 4a.  Well, you can, but you'll be sad. 

Special thanks to Mera for teaching me that sometimes the 3pm martini is a necessity to everyone's well-being.  Additional special thanks to Abra for her superpowers and superunderstanding of the above struggle. 

I Choose You

They say that our friends are the family we choose for ourselves.  This idea has never been as true or as clear to me as it is right now. 

Like many Seattle folks, the families we grew up with are back at "home home".  Or, in other words, our original hometowns or somewhere near there. We see our relatives a few times a year.  We go back there, or they come here.  We visit, and then we come home.  Our real home.  Here, in Seattle.

This is hard.  It's sad.  I miss my family terribly, and some days are harder than others - holidays, special days, celebrations, the low days, the I-need-someone-to-come-and-hold-my-baby-for-two-minutes-before-I-go-insane days. 

But we've adapted.  We create new traditions, our own traditions.  We lean on our adopted families, the ones we've chosen for ourselves.  And they lean back. 

We celebrate Tim's birthday with barbeques and beer and sunshine.  We gather around the Thanksgiving table, and we give thanks for lowkey holidays involving good friends and sake.  Someone hosts Christmas every year, and everyone is invited.  We plan Wine Club...ahem, Book Club when we just know that one of us needs a little love.  We do brunches and walks and pep talks.  We do arguments and bitchiness and forgiveness.  We do love and support and gift-giving.  We do wine and weddings and camping and babies.  We do tears and laughter and honesty.  We do what needs to be done.  We give and we get and then give some more. 

Because we are family. 

P.S.  Thank you, ladies,  You know who you are.  Plus I'll probably tag you on Facebook anyway. 

530am on a Friday

"It's not fair."

Nope, not from the mouths of babes, but instead uttered repeatedly by a 35-year old woman at 530am on Friday morning.

I'm not proud.

Friday was my morning to "sleep in" until 730am. Sleeping in until 730am is part of the new reality. At any rate, I was *really* looking forward to Friday's lie-in. 

Will had other plans for us.

At 500am, he starting moving around. At 515am, he started chatting and rolling his paci along the bars of his crib. At 520am, the whining began. And at 530am, I knew there was no more sleep to be had. The screaming started. And it wasn't coming from Will.

"It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not fair. It's not FAIR!" I slammed around the room like a petulant child.  If I didn't get to sleep in, I was going to make damn sure no one else was sleeping either.  Like I said, I'm not proud.

After Will and I were well into our morning routine, I had managed to calm down a bit.  I held my perfect & healthy 7-month old son knowing that he will always have everything he needs.  We snuggled in our cozy & warm home full of love and food and family.  I have a partner & a son, and Will has two parents in the same home. 

No, it really *isn't* fair how lucky we are.  

Sometimes the new reality just needs a little perspective.  It just takes a little longer to find it at 530 in the morning. 

Why Don't You Bring Your Baby To The Bar Anymore?

My last post was on Halloween.  I don't think it will surprise anyone that I went back to work 6 days later.  When you are a working parent, the time one has to take babies to bars and then blog about it is greatly diminished. 

Let me catch you up.  Will is now 7 months old.  Here is the new reality.

It's the one day a week that all three of us have together.  We decide that, for research's sake, of course, we should take our baby to a bar.  Obviously, we can't go at night because Will has to be in bed by 630pm.  We can't go from 11a-1p because that's when he takes his long nap.  We can't go after 4pm because that's when he gets crabby.  That leaves after 1pm and before he needs to take his short late afternoon nap.  But on this particular day, Will naps longer than usual.  When he gets up, we need to give him his cereal & fruit.  Apparently, he no longer likes apricots, and he spits them out all over himself, me, the floor, and the cat.  Now we all need to change clothes and clean up apricot slop from the kitchen.  Of course, since he didn't eat his fruit, now he needs a bottle.  Okay, Will's has his bottle, we're all in clean clothes, let's head out the door!

Wait.

It's time to tag team.  Tim gets Will's coat and hat and carseat and blankie and paci.  Will does not want wear his coat or his hat so he is screaming as Tim attempts to wrangle him.  Meanwhile, I am putting together a diaper bag for this 1 hour journey to the local pub.  He'll need 3 diapers and wipes, an extra outfit in case of a blowout, 2 pacis in case the other one gets lost, 3 types of toys for amusement's sake, a full bottle, a burp cloth, another hat, and his stuffed bear. 

Will is in his carseat and he appears to be calm.  We have our coats on.  Keys are in hand, and the diaper bag's on my shoulder.  Let's get that beer.

And then a ghastly, horrible sound emanates from my child. 

Ah, shit.

After extracting Will from his carseat, from his coat, and from his clothes, and cleaning the blowout and the child, it is now 4pm.  He is crabby, needs his late nap, and refuses to wear socks.  Sigh.

Maybe we'll make it to the bar next week.  As for tonight, boxed wine & PBR?  Why not?