Intro to Motherleelove

No one tells you what it is like to be a mom, although everyone has experience being around moms through their own childhood. I was around my mom, my friends moms, other moms at the park, in the grocery store, on the sidelines of sporting events and so on. My experience has been a good one. I must say my mom is and was one of the best. Seriously bias aside, who else would fix dinner seven nights a week, stay up until midnight hemming Hash Pants (you know the ones with the star on the pocket) for the first day of Jr. High, make posters for elections, and make me feel like I was so fortunate to be a five foot ten inch girl in the 8th grade? My mom made me feel powerful, beautiful, and secure. And so it was only natural that when I looked at my future life at age 17 or 18 I never for one second thought that becoming anything else other than a mom would bring me such satisfaction. Oh sure I had aspirations of careers before the "mom years" or during the "mom years" or after, but in my soul a mother is what I wanted to be.

When I was in college I dreamed of being an advertising executive. I finished one year before I met my husband Tom, dated during my sophomore year, was married during my Junior year and moved across the country for him to start Law School, I having completed three years in the field of Public Relations. During these first few years the idea of having a baby was magical but not practical. I was working making a small salary as a secretary at a prominent business school and we were racking up considerable debt paying for Tom's law degree. However, practicality has never been my stong suit. As soon as I had good health insurance I managed to convince Tom that one baby would not be that expensive and Law School was only three years. The summer after Tom's first year on July 20th, 1989 our first child was born. She was a whopping 9 pounds 5 ounces and 22 inches long! We named her Jordan (like the river, not the BB player) and she was beautiful!

And so I was a mother. And just like I had imagined I could think of nothing better to fill my time then entertaining her. To me, she was the most interesting, fantastic, exciting thing in the universe. I quit my job and my membership in the Secretary's Union and opted to babysit my friend's baby, just one month older than Jordan, to pay for groceries, diapers and formula.

Oh sure the first few weeks were difficult. Nursing was a nightmare and I would swear that my 10 day old had grown fangs overnight and was biting me every time she nursed, but I switched to a bottle and that worked just fine. The few week I had this "are you kidding" attitude when she would wake up every three hours all night long. I was twenty at the time and thought a good nights sleep was a God given right. But as time went on the baby slept longer and so did I.

And so this begins my story of the last twenty one years. Jordan is a grown up and in her third year of College. Five other children have been added to our family each as spectacular and precious as the first. I have come to know first hand what being a mother is and I can say without hesitation that it is what I was put on this earth to do. It is the hardest job you will ever love. It is sorrow and pain, laughter and joy. It is my life and this is my attempt to share it.