And now the royal we are six

I’ve been One Tired Ema for six years today. In truth, I’ve been a tired ema for seven and a half years, but my slightly cooler and snarkier on-line presence is but six.

I feel torn about what I’m doing here, now. So much of what was on my mind at the beginning, deep in the woods of toddlerhood and pregnancy and nursing and babywearing, feels very far away from the children I have now–and therefore the mothering I am doing. At the same time, people (if WordPress metrics are to be believed) find me by searching on terms like “tired breastfeeding” and similar phrases. So…am I helping anyone?

The truth is that a lot of the past three or four years (except for the fun of uprooting our entire lives from one country and moving it across the Atlantic) has fallen out of bloggable range. In the past year and a half I’ve been working more, which means I have less time to blog but also less to blog about, because I’m not going to talk about work itself…and Life At Computer: Home vs. Coffeehouses isn’t exactly scintillating. Also I’ve never been a blogger who throws open her entire life, so as there have been fewer surprises with the kids–their drama these days is very much lather, rinse, repeat–I have less to say.

But at the same time, I really love what I’ve built here, this bizarre baby book + peanut gallery (I mean that in the nicest way). I’ve met so many bloggers and commenters (and Twitter people) in real life, and this blog has been a conduit for me to find so many of my people. The ones who are wry and raw and funny and smart and don’t try to whitewash things or paint rainbows everywhere. Except when it’s necessary–because sometimes it is. Rainbows are pretty awesome.

I got the best compliment the other day. It wasn’t exactly a compliment, but I took it as such. A family that we met who made aliyah this summer, with their two little kids, invited us for Shabbat lunch. We had hosted them during Sukkot, and they are just really nice people. They go to our synagogue, and they took over the lease of our rental place, so we’ve seen them quite a bit over the past four months. During lunch, the mom said to me, “I remember when you said to me, ‘It will get better. It won’t always be like this.’” Which, yes, all true. When your kids are 1.5 and 3.5, you are in the weeds. When you are four months into remaking your life from scratch, ditto.

I don’t think I’m an oracle, by any means, but I’m all for the truth. This other mother found my comments refreshing because she knew so many other moms whose cheerful Facebook feeds, twice-annual family portraits, marathon running, and perfectly kept houses belied the fact that they were holding themselves together with Xanax and wrapping paper. I guess that’s a nice difference–now that the kids are so much older (“older”), I don’t know anyone who tries to be perfect. Something’s got to give when you have a third kid (or fourth), or your spouse works insane hours or travels all the time, or you can’t squeeze into your favorite skirt anymore.

My whole goal in starting this blog was to shed my shiny happy mommy facade and, to borrow a phrase, watch what happened. Or happens. I think I achieved that.

I don’t quite know what I’m saying here, other than I’m not giving up if you’re not. I’m just evolving. Slowly. Though I still haven’t a clue what I want to be when I grow up.

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