Comments on: Adult life and interests

By: Jisoo

Jisoo — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:16:04 +0000

I loved reading your post. I especially second the whole “oh my god I just want to finish this coffee” thing. I felt like I almost like crying last weekend when I was reading newspaper and having some coffee and kept getting disrupted. Ah, it’s the small things that get impacted that you end up missing the most.

By: Did becoming a parent kick the “self”… | Work It, Mom! Blog | Work It, Mom!

Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:38:25 +0000

[...] (This post was inspired by an awesome post I just read on Sundry Mourning, by Linda from our Milk & Cookies blog. It’s titled Adult life and interests and in it she says what I am trying to say below in a much more eloquent way. So yes, go ahead, click over and read her post. You’ll be thankful that you did.) [...]

By: Jennifer

Jennifer — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 16:52:21 +0000

Long time reader, delurking to say… Wow, lots of great comments and an awesome post to begin with. I will have to muster up some AUDACITY to think I can add to this conversation… There.

The way I describe new parenthood (at least to people who care about the actual experience and who aren’t going to get too spooked) is thus: It’s like you’ve just had a bomb go off in your home, so that everything or nearly everything is pretty unrecognizable. and while you’re staggering around trying to remember what you left on the coffee table that is now a charred remnant of its former self, you discover that a whole wing of your house that you never had access to has been opened up due to this explosion. and so you move in, taking a few still-smoking remains with you.

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:11:34 +0000

My biggest challenge right now is trying to find the time to work out. I have school work in the evenings so I have to make time in the mornings and my 11-month-old will not let me most mornings. You would think that I could reasonably expect him to be asleep between the hour of 4 and 6, but no so luck.

It’s amazing how much things change when you have children. Even little things are a challenge to accomplish, like a shower, or a hot meal. And it’s hard to maintain the strong connection with your spouse that you used to have. All the little things you used to do together and take for granted are rare now. Like staying up until 2 in the morning talking. With two small children, I’m lucky to make it until 10. And seeing a movie that is not animated? That’s a very rare treat.

And it’s not something that can be explained to people that don’t have children. How very much they change your whole existence. How much they change you. It’s a whole new facet of your personality. You as a parent. It changes the dynamics of your relationship with your spouse and it can change how you view situations.

By: Shawna

Shawna — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 22:01:48 +0000

There’s a great article clipping over at Suburban Turmoil that put me in mind of this discussion:
http://suburbanturmoil.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-defense-of-sahm-plus-scared-skinny.html

By: erin

erin — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 04:21:06 +0000

my days are numbered in half empty cups of coffee.

By: victoria

victoria — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:04:56 +0000

I read both “Tweak” and “Beautiful Boy.” The thing that really struck me forcefully was that, for the dad, his son’s addiction was this horrifying trauma that blotted out the sun. The dad’s whole existence, at times, was consumed by the desire to save his son, so much so that when he had an aneurysm, he kept struggling to remember his son’s cell phone numbers, and could only get the first three or four digits. By contrast, for the son, his addiction’s impact on his family was a peripheral concern. Addicts are hugely self-absorbed, and even though Nic comes acros as sweet and harmless in “Tweak,” he’s barely aware of how much he’s hurting his family. The contrast is at its starkest when Nic learns of his father’s illness and feels no panicked “Oh, God, must see him NOW” response similar to his dad’s.

By: H

Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:00:51 +0000

For me, I was really scared that I would turn into one of those overly scheduled, must get into FancyPants School, must have FancyPants stroller and all MANDATORY acoutrements-type mom. I don’t know why I thought that, but I did (I also had a similiar experience with fears of being consumed by the Wedding Machine – which btw I wasn’t). I guess my only point of reference was those “perfect” moms on tv, and my own mom (grew up in 70’s suburbia) which just didn’t jive with my very urban lifestyle. Then I visited a old friend who had 2 kids and she was just like she always was, except with 2 kids. It was an eye opening visit, and I came home and told my husband that yes, officially, I think we can have a kid and still be us. I saw it with my OWN EYES! So now we have a 15 month old and are seriously contemplating #2 and we are having fun and still being ourselves.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:57:57 +0000

I read this yesterday, and I’m still thinking about it today, so I’m compelled to say: thank you for this. I think we all change throughout our lives (jobs, marriage, passionate hobbies, developing interests other than lighting farts and doing kegstands), and kids just do that job of changing us faster and more efficiently than anything else. We have to figure out that we are still ourselves, still us in here, as you put it so beautifully, through all those changes, but especially kids. It’s hard to do, but it’s crucial.

I think I’ll print this up as a Pamphlet of Awesomeness, or possibly as a large tattoo (on my back?). Thanks for it.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:27:33 +0000

I’m pregnant right now and I only asked that question once. The answer was: infinitely harder, but it gets better. So over the course of the next few YEARS, I suppose we’ll see how much she lied to me…

I love the analogy to Everest expeditions!