A Baby Changes Everything?

It is true. A baby does change everything…. Everything? Priorities change – check. Body changes – check. Brain chemistry changed and may never return – sadly, check. Home environment changes – double check. These things change because they must change. Pregnancy, childbirth and child rearing require it of me. But how many items other mothers put on the “change” checklist don’t have to change or shouldn’t?

 

Obviously if the above changes I named occur when one becomes a mom, you technically are living much of your life for your child and those changes are fine by me.  Part of that whole change in priorities thing.   But I believe that there are many changes, some small and some large, that are a matter of choice. 

 

I once heard someone say its time to put away childish things when starting a family.  So long, youthful hair gets cut short because of practicality?  Social life becomes trips to the grocery store and the occasional play date?  Heels become tennis shoes and couture becomes sweats and jeans?  Of course the sweats are welcome, because worrying about ones waistline or style has taken a backseat to grooming and growing your little family.  And a big one for me, pipe dreams become old hobbies and old hobbies become nearly non-existent???

 

I say no!

 

I say these changes fit into "matter of choice".  And what is wrong with keeping some "childish things" in your life.  Some of the smartest, most successful or just plain good people I've known still feed their inner child and have made the best of parents.   Because when you keep the things that make you uniquely YOU, the world and your children's world benefits.  Our children learn that its okay to be a individual and how important it is to have dreams.  They watch us follow those dreams, live our lives and enjoy the lives we have made.  And maybe in the end respect us as role models for doing so. 

 

I want James to have a mommy he is proud of.  I want him to believe dreams are possible because he has watched me work for one of mine.

 

So I sit here in suburbia, a rural girl out of water with my long hair and high heel boots, typing away at a dream. 

 

While a happy baby boy chatters away, just down the hall...