THE WRITE TIME

In the past few months my ability to accomplish the various tasks on my to-do list has changed dramatically. This is partly due to my older son giving up his naptime the same day we brought his Little Bro home from the hospital, and partly due to the amount of attention that his Little Bro demands. This leaves me with very small windows to tackle the things I wish to get done. Some days I achieve a lot and feel like a rock star, but there are also days when I feel triumphant for merely stealing away for a minute to haul the garbage can in from the curb.

I’ve been mulling over whether to start writing for some time now. The problem was that there never seemed to be any time. Recently, I made a crucial realization: this not having any time thing is not going to change in the foreseeable future. There’s no such thing as a sick day anymore, let alone lazy Sundays. Therefore, if I wanted to start writing I would have no choice but to schedule it into my calendar, right alongside the birthday parties, soccer practices and play-dates.

Once I committed to starting a blog, my next task was to come up with a theme. I was motivated to start losing weight, and resolved that I would write a blog about being a new mother who was trying to lose the baby fat. It would be called LOSING IT. After patting myself on the back for being so darn clever, I did a quick internet search to make sure it was not already taken. Oops. It appeared that Valerie Bertinelli and I shared a love for double entendre. After further reflection, I also realized that if I wrote about losing baby weight there would be an awful lot of pressure to actually lose baby weight. I quickly decided that my focus should be a little, umm...broader.

Next came the daunting task of crafting a memorable title. I must have come up with about 20 different title ideas, and every single one of them was already taken. I hadn’t realized just how many parent blogs there were out there. This made me stop and think whether I should even start a blog. Did I really have anything new to add to the blogosphere? As it turns out, a few of my readers have informed me that I’m the only one who has ever fallen off a bike in spin class, so apparently I do have a few original stories to share.

Still struggling to find a title, I started to think up word plays on movie titles. Citizen Mom? Apocalypse Mom? Dr. Strangemom? Psycho?  When that didn’t work I moved on to books. The Grapes of Mom? Mom-22? The Mom, The Witch and the Wardrobe? Eventually, I decided I would keep it simple. I planned on sharing stories from the trenches of motherhood, so why not just call it mom-fiction.

Sometimes I find myself with an entire hour to myself in front of the computer, but more often than not I have to find small time slots stolen in between feedings, playtime, and all of the other things on my to-do list. And if sometimes my garbage can has to remain on the curb a little longer than it should, so be it.