How does a woman redefine her next chapter after having a child?

A friend of mine asked me to consider this topic for my blog a few months ago. I think life clogged up the lines, and I didn't get to it. I also wasn't sure how I could answer this question when I myself don't even have a clue how to do it.

I know that even having the time and wherewithal to consider this question is a "high quality problem" as there are many women struggling to support a family on their own, let alone the number of women living in poverty conditions globally. I realize that I am lucky beyond my wildest dreams to be in the life I am in. I am further blessed to have a calling that is a passion, and not simply a job I got good at that pays. I have also been a freelancer for my entire adult career and therefore have crafted a life which enjoys a good deal of freedom. So, all that said, you can hate me now and stop reading, should that be your proclivity.

Otherwise, here we are... I'm a mom. I'm a singer-songwriter. I occasionally still work as a fit model. That's about the order of things these days. I should mention that the split of my time percentage wise is skewed disproportionately toward the former over the latter two. But I'm trying...

Often I ask myself, why am I making things difficult for myself. It sure would be easier to stop hustling to get my music out there, or play gigs, or write and record music with people. It would be less insulting to my self image to not fret over my waist by the inch or keep close watch that my jean size doesn't change. But these are habits and sometimes even great pleasure points for me. I've done them for God knows how long and I define a lot of myself by them.

So, what's up with this next chapter? That's the one thing they don't really tell you when you have a kid, or maybe they do and I wasn't really listening, but things change. Not necessarily in ways that completely alter your being, but they do. You now have a new person in your life that you can't blow off when you're not feeling like hanging out. You have a buddy, a rival and a new love of your life all wrapped up in one. And if you've ever been in love, you know how much time and brain and heart space that takes up. So, you have to do some creative time management.

I envy those women who had a job they had to go back to after giving birth. While I know it must be very hard to walk away from your baby so soon, you had to. And your child and you learn to not be so co-dependent. You also get to return to your job, which I'm assuming you like on some level or you might have left it when you had the baby. For those of us in the freelance end of things, it's not so easy. You have to find child care and then you have to find a place to work. Then you get the benefit at times of chasing the checks or paying out of pocket to keep up promotion of your services. It can be ok once you secure great child care and get out of the house, but there's the screaming and tears of the bonded baby upon leaving. There's the extra pressure to not only prove that you "still have it" or are just as reliable as those kidless competitors, but there's the guilt of doing what you love, instead of necessarily "loving" every minute of being a mother. And for what it's worth, you're never by yourself again in that way that you think about your child at some point. Those thoughts never crossed my mind before I had a kid.

The next chapter? Is there such a thing? Or are we fretting over something that we can't control and the unpredictability is what's driving us crazy? I don't know if it's self-imposed or societally driven, or something else entirely, but here is where I sit with it today. The next chapter feels like a race I'm running every minute of my life. I have a drink at night to toast that I survived yet another day as a mother and hopefully did one thing that retained some resemblance of the me before baby. I try not to beat myself up if the house is kind of trashed or the kitchen floor needs to be swept and I just don't want to do it. And man, if I get all that done and I sneak in a chance to read a book, my lord, it's a banner day! I'm curious to hear more from other moms out there on it.

On another note, I had a child-free afternoon today and comedically found myself eating lunch at a park with a big playground watching kids. I saw a woman with young triplets and I thought, "My god, how do you do 3?!?" I also saw a beautiful butterfly land a few times on the sidewalk and it made me smile as I thought how I would point it out to Riley if she were there with me. Like I said, you're never truly alone again...

Waning posts and bluegrass hosts

If you've been wondering why this blog hasn't been as active, I can explain it with the title above and my experience over the years. While I think I'm known more as a songwriter, I've actually been a "writer" (not of song) for as long as I've been able to write. An avid journal keeper, I've also dabbled in poetry, fiction, journalism and yes, songwriting. BUT - and here is the problem - I rarely do more than one type actively at a time.

For example, when I'm busy with the blog, I'm usually not writing music. I went through a similar period right out of college when I was writing a novella and didn't write more than one song in a year. I was so busy trying to map out the narrative strings and flesh out my characters, I couldn't bother with playing my guitar, let alone write a tune.

I find myself in another creative flush with music, so the blog posts have become less frequent and less thoughtful, in my humble opinion. I'm thrilled to be writing even if it's in the quiet of my home studio until I let the music out for folks to hear.

What else can I say? I saw an unexpectedly great show last night at UCLA's Royce Hall--Ricky Skaggs with Bruce Hornsby and Kentucky Thunder. I say unexpectedly because quite frankly, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'm a bluegrass admirer from afar, like the kind who enjoys bluegrass brunches with pancakes at Burning Man, but I don't know the history, the artists, the recent albums, etc.

And all I knew of Bruce Hornsby was "That's Just the Way It Is" (which they did a rip roaring bluegrass version of last night) and that he toured with the Dead (which I learned from my handsome husband who used to go to Dead shows while in college at Boulder). But I have to say, Hornsby is a great pianist, and I greatly appreciate his sense of "out". He did a lot of 12 tone wandering on the keys, which helped to make the evening a bit more complex musically. I appreciated that immensely because I get bored when the songs sound the same after about 30 minutes. He was also a nice sarcastic foil to Skagg's mostly sincere delivery.

So we had a great night of music with friends, and then paid a babysitter more than the cost of the tickets. And they wonder why date nights are so infrequent in new parents... Find me a competent and available sitter who doesn't charge at least $16 bucks an hour and you'll see Brad and I out a bit more often. But until we're there, we'll be hanging at a pumpkin patch with other parents of R's play group mates and retiring to our couch with a few nice drinks before crashing.

Welcome to the 2nd year...

Things go by quickly these days...by leaps and bounds

Riley is growing up, by leaps and bounds, daily. She is so not a baby anymore. She is squarely a little toddler. She talks an assortment of words, mostly animal sounds, and at this point, can open her bedroom door knob by herself. The latter has made bedtime routine fairly difficult, esp. when after bath,  the naked baby can break loose of her bedroom and run free around the house until this mamma chases her down to get her PJs on and off to bed.

She's also begun enjoying the Tickle Game. I'm a big fan of tickling, but I know some folks (like my husband) are not, so I try to do so with reserve. Riley never seemed ticklish before, but now she plays a couple games with us. The first is when my husband teases her "I'm gonna git ya..." and makes the tickle hand gestures. R has such a great reaction. Her eyes widen. She turns on a dime and runs away full throttle, usually toward me, the "base" in this tag game. She will climb onto my shoulders if I let her just to get away from the tickler.

The next evolution of fun tickling is in the fact that she also knows and does the sign language for "More." So, we'll start down the tickling avenue for fun and then I will stop. R immediately signs for "more." So we do it again. Stop. "More." It's a really cute interaction.

Another cute thing she does is say the words "Okie dokey", which sound more like "cookie cookie." I'm not even sure what possessed me to ask her to repeat the phrase back to me at one point, but it is now the reigning favorite phrase next to "go-ga" accompanied with a downward facing dog pose or her tongue flick/fishy face for "what does a fish say?"

Her hair is so long too. We used to be able to pin back the bangs with barrette, but now she knows that word too and pulls out all barrettes as I put them in. She holds them and says "barrette." She doesn't even seem to notice she's pulling out her hair. Good thing she has a ton of it.

Each day brings new things she does and another one of those is saying "No." It actually sounds a bit more like a nasaly "nawh." It hasn't become a terrible thing yet, but she is definitely rejecting food or activity suggestions lately.  We make due. She's a lovely little girl, who kisses all her stuffed animals and squeals with delight when I get back from a few errands. She makes me feel loved by signing "I love you" or blowing me kisses.

Something turned when she became this toddler who interacts with me more. Sometimes I find myself just watching her talk to herself or figure out how to turn the lid on a water bottle by herself. It thrills me that she's doing this all for the first time. I watched her for 15 minutes moving candles onto the coffeetable and back down to the floor over and over again, like some elaborate game or code she was trying to crack. Maybe all that newness has helped to inspire me to write more, not only this blog, but also music. I've embarked on a couple new collaborations that I hope will lead to a new album. More on this when it has materialized into a fuller concept. I'm happy to have our respective discoveries feed off of each other. I know that's assuming a lot about her, like that I might be feeding her discovery process, but it would be nice to think of our journeys as symbiotic in a way. Who knows... until more stuff is revealed...