First Real Post - Motherhood is an Adventure

She's not really in a cage, she just really likes to sit in this little tent thing that Grandma gave her.

I think Miss Boo is cute, as well as literary; you can see she's surrounded by books as well as a lamb that she's trying to teach German (one book is in German).

She's napping right now, finally, which is the only reason I can post this. Something that no one ever tells you about motherhood is how drastically it realigns your priorities. Oh sure, they tell you that you'll clean up your language and start liking to watch The Jungle Book again, but they never mention that it will crowd out things like recreational reading, shopping, and bathing. The reading and shopping I can deal with, but having to take strategic showers is something that really should be addressed more in childcare books. Dr. Sears says, "remember, your baby needs a healthy, rested mother. Take time for yourself" and says exactly zippo about how you're supposed to do that if you don't happen to have a pouch like a possum. So let's just admit it, shall we? New mothers are going to smell a bit more... shall we say cosmpolitan? I am informed by someone who knows that American bathing habits are considered compulsive in some parts of the world.

Of course, Miss Boo is nearly a year old and so I should have a handle on this by now, and I do have clean hair as we speak, but it's the sheer amount of brainpower the issue takes that boggles me. Anyone who thinks that stay-at-home motherhood is unthinking drudgery (or bliss) has never tried it.

As always, the reality is in between. There's plenty of drudgery in any job, SAHMing included. (I am thinking about a particular diaper I changed earlier that I would have paid someone to deal with.) There's a lot of fufillment in being able to do all kinds of things I never could do while I was still in the "workforce". I'm still working, of course, just for my man instead of The Man (whomever HE is).

For instance, tonight we're having pot roast. It isn't a special day, I just need to use up last year's beef in the freezer. Good pot roast takes about five hours start to finish, very little of it hands on, but you should really be present when burning fossil fuels so I need to be in the house while it cooks. When I was "working", I could have only made this on a weekend. It's nice to have it on a Wednesday when we're all feeling blah. I can also stop and nap if I want to, type a blog post, work on my novel(s), or even do a little housework. And all tax-free!

Sure, there are diapers involved. But hey, I'm a nurse-- I had to change diapers at work, too. At least this time I'm actually related to the changee and when she poos on me, I know she didn't do it on purpose.

I can't think of any neat news for the fam at large that you all don't already know, but I will try to blog daily or every-other-daily so if you're really interested in what we're doing, just take a peek. Oh, and grandparents and greats: I will post more pictures, I'm just still figuring out how to get the picture post thingy to work.

Ciao for now,

Breanna