I often (read: usually) feel like a walking contradiction. A professional communicator who can spill her life’s ups and downs to the world, but can’t tell Mr. Hockey Coach how I’m feeling. I constantly provide positive feedback to others, while my negative self-talk is sometimes crippling. 

When J and I first split up, everyone promised that it would get easier and, in some ways, I guess it kind of did. But only kind of. At two, F was pretty manageable. The word “no” didn’t exist in his vocabulary and I was still the best thing since his “botte du lait” (he actually called his bottles a botte du lait – no idea). The terrible twos just didn’t exist for us. We had our fair share of tantrums during the “troublesome threes”, but all-in-all, F was an easy kid to have around.

And in many ways, he still is. But life is getting busier.

As I tried to juggle school, two part-time jobs, finding time to write and being a Mom, everyone assured me that it would soon be easier. Hang in there, they said. I graduated. I wiggled into one, full-time job that had wonderful flexibility and that I truly, truly loved. We found a great preschool. We made new friends. Things were moving up, but with the change in altitude came a change in attitude: F hit the Fuck You Fours. 

Oh my word.

Suddenly he’s Mr Social and we’ve got play dates and birthday parties (yaaaaay, having 21 kids in his class!) and Mama needs a night to herself, and there’s The Frenzied Fashionista and Greenmommy and Sole Sisters and this and that and the next thing I know it’s 2 am and my alarm is set for 5:15 am. *Sigh* 

So, everything I had expected has turned out to be a total contradiction of what’s actually happened. I had though things would get easier. But I also didn’t expect to have multiple writing opportunities (thanks to that negative self-talk I mentioned – because, who’da thunk people would want to read what *I* write?!), and I certainly never expected to be invited to do cool stuff like have drinks with Erica Ehm or go to Chamber of Commerce events and out on dates with Mr. Hockey Coach. 

So, world, thanks for proving me wrong. And thanks for surprising the Hell out of me – please don’t ever stop.