Wow! I can’t believe I haven’t revisited this page since my oldest was 8 weeks old?! After spending way too long being self-critical while re-reading this old blog. I decided I need to see it for what it is: A time capsule of a newly married, way fitter and younger self who was excited by and then overwhelmed by new motherhood.  My first thought was to impulsively rip all the old blog posts down and change out the cover picture. But after calming down I think the cover photo is providing me with a nice anchor to a former self. Y’all, I NEED to see this picture right now! I know it’s not an accurate reflection of my physical self at the moment but I look at it and I feel her inside of me again. She loves to laugh, be silly, move her body, be outside,  feel free,  love, connect and create. I don’t want to lose her. I want to reignite her in more ways. The cover photo was taken on my honeymoon in Kauai. That woman was dreaming and excited for a big crazy family and a loud household. That woman was mentally and physically strong.  That woman had no gray hairs. That woman thought her body needed work. THAT WOMAN WAS WRONG! I had it goin on… why didn’t I see it?

It’s only been 4 years since my last post about 8 week old Mateo, but I’ve probably aged about 10 years since then. In 3 weeks I’ll be a mom of four and will have fulfilled a lifelong dream: To have a loud chaotic house filled with babies… to have a complete family of my very own. I currently have 6-8 gray hairs at the moment and I hunt them down and pluck them at night like a stalker after I impulsively squeeze my blackheads with my fingernails. I’m also doing mad research about all the face filler I hope to inject after I have my last kid.

For a while I didn’t think it would happen for me. I was super social and definitely a serial monogamist but I just didn’t experience a deep enough love and level of trust with a partner to be like BINGO that’s my baby daddy! I had a great life filled with beach, friends, fitness and a good job in education. Then I found my baby daddy and somehow tricked him into falling in love with me. Then I waited AND waited for him to be ready to get married so we could have kids before I got too old.  Then I almost said forget it and set out on my own again. Then I got to plan and budget a dream wedding we paid for ourselves.

Then we finally tied the knot and bam we were faced with infertility. That made time slow down a lot. I was convinced if I could keep going through trying and failing to get pregnant and then getting pregnant and miscarrying, time alone would allot us maybe 2 kids if I was a lucky one. Going through infertility had a funny way of making me very desperate and spiritual. I’d take any damn kid! Gone were plans on how far to space them apart of if I wanted boys or girls. I didn’t have that luxury. I just needed to get one cookin’ past the first trimester and safely exited from my body old enough to survive in the outside world. When I time travel back to that sad, desperate woman during infertility I remember promising the universe I would never take getting pregnant, staying pregnant, or having kids for granted no matter how hard parenthood got.

Here I am 2 fertility treatment babies and almost 2 natural pregnancy babies later and I remember my promise to the universe. But that doesn’t mean I have to eliminate the funny! I’m yearning for some creativity back in my life and I’m about to be unemployed after this week so it’s time to share some REAL truths because parents need other relatable parents. Let me be clear, I don’t solely define myself as a mom. I’m not totally lost on where the hell the rest of me went. I’m just leaning into what’s needed right now. I have to expend almost all of my daily energy to keep these tiny humans from killing themselves. Why not let them be the subject of some laughs?  Someday when they don’t want to hang out with me anymore you better believe I’m getting more dogs and building my artists she-shed out back. But for now, I’m deep in the business of mom-ing so why not share what I know?