And so I blog

So here it is. My initial blog, my inagural post, my virgin attempt at putting into words the very events, thoughts and ramblings that are my life. Why a blog? Well, why not? Sure I may be a slow adopter and may be gearing up when other bloggers are slowing down but why not buck the trend. But, more precisely, I think I am finally beginning to grasp just how quickly life changes. I took Tyler, my 4 year old, to pre-school preview day yesterday and the fact that nothing stays the same hit me like a freight train. Gone are my slow mornings of snuggling him in bed. Gone are the days of me being the sole teacher and influence in his day. Kids grow up; things change.

I remember when I was pregnant people would tell me to enjoy it because kids grow up fast and time passes quickly. Then came the seemingly endless nights and tired days and crying, pooping, hungry baby and I thought - they lied to me, I may have very well spent half my life with this crying, pooping, hungry infant. But then I got some sleep and said infant became a smiling, drooling, crawling baby and a curious, wobbly, giggly, babling toddler and a creative, energetic, intelligent little boy and I realized that those people are right. And now I have a drooling little girl carefully following the very same path so if I can't stop it and I can't slow it I might as well record it. Because in the words of Arrowsmight, "I don't want to miss a thing".

Beyond documenting my life with kids and the changes they bring, reason #2 for starting a blog - I change too. Alot. A few months ago I found a journal that I wrote half my life ago and had not read since. Yeah, imagine for a second what you would have written half your life ago! It made me laugh and cringe at the same time. I had completley forgotten what a crazy emotional time those teenage years can be and how differently I understood self-worth and confidence and value and everything that is really important. And, while I kind of hated remembering it all I also realized how important it was to record it, to remember. Because it won't be too long before I will have crazy, emotional teenagers of my own and, for better or worse, I want to have the true empathy of my own memories and not simply brush their trials away with a "this too shall pass".

The truth is, without an honest account, a journal of our thoughts, we tend to glaze things over a bit. Just this past weekend Ross and I were looking at a photo of Tyler and him carving pumpkins a few years back. We sat there taking it all in - remembering that cute shirt Tyler was wearing, smiling at the pile of pumpkins guts running through his finger and the rest dangling off the table and onto the floor, staring at those adorable little Nikes he used to wear and in awe of what a wonderful moment, wonderful memory that was. The funny part is the more we thought about that night, we remembered that we were in a hurry because we had to get somewhere and I was freaking out because I didn't want pumpkin guts on my clean floors and Tyler was crying because he wanted to play with the carving knife and Ross was frustrated because....you get the point. While it is sometimes great that we don't remember everything that goes on outside the frame of the camera, that is also a very real part of life and I want my kids to know it. Transparency isn't exactly something that comes naturally for me. I'd be much happier letting everyone, including my kids, think I've got it all together. But that's not the truth. Far from it. So this blog is an attempt at that - recording honestly. So when my little girl is a mommy and she screws up her baby boy's first birthday cake and feels like a failed mother she'll know that I did it too. So when my son thinks his wife is crazy for obssessing over exactly which carseat to buy he'll know his own mommy did the very same thing. Tracking changes, recording history and providing a dose of honest reality - that is why I will blog.