About Your Messy Mom

Now that you’re with me on this voyage I thought I would tell you a little bit more about me.  I am a woman with no generation; some people want to lump me in with the Xers and some people want to put me in with the Millennials.  Other demographers have even given me and mine our own little sub-group: the MTV generation.  I think what that means is that I, and most of my friends, have no generation of our own.  We are a straddle group and I’d like to believe that we take the best from both the Xers and the Millennials.

I’ve had a computer since I was 4 and the internet since I was probably 12 so I guess in some way that does make me a lot like the “Millennials.”  I’ve had technology and I’ve used technology before it became just point and click so here I am starting to use it in a way that will hopefully help me become a better mom by carving out something of my childhood dreams here on the internet.

I’m not going to bore you with all the nitty gritty details of my life but I’ve had a pretty good one, I was raised in a loving and stable 4 person family with Babci, my dad (who passed away in 2012), an older brother and myself.  We had a variety of pets (dogs, fish, frogs, and a few parakeets) growing up but nothing had prepared me for the chaos I’ve gotten myself into with 2 dogs, 3 cats and 177 gallons worth of fish.  Throughout my formative years I knew school was important because both my parents were teachers (middle school…I don’t know how they did it) so when I was done high school I KNEW I was going to college but I really didn’t know for what, hence the reason I applied to different colleges with a different major for every college and amazingly they all wanted me.  For a variety of reasons, the college I went to was the one I had applied to as a forensics major (I was originally planning on being Dana Scully)  so I was put on the science track (chemistry, calculus, and biology 9am-12pm M, W, F for freshman year…) but when it came time to do our freshman research I ended up doing small mammalian tracking in an urban forest and loved it; from then on I was an environmental science major.  I graduated college after four years with a BS in environmental science while also earning minors in chemistry, biology, and political science but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with that degree so I didn’t pursue graduate school just yet.  I had interned with the state Department of Environmental Protection but wasn’t hired (yay funding freezes!), I worked for AmeriCorps, I worked for a private environmental firm and then came to be a high school science teacher.  I have now been a science teacher longer than my college and previous working years combined so I guess I’ve found my fit.  I do love my job, it’s tiring some days (teenagers are draining even though I get to send them home!), but I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world, even on the bad days (and there are always a few every year).  Since I found my niche I also went back and am working on my MS in General Biology, which will hopefully be finished the end of June.  If you haven’t gathered by now I’m not too good at being idle.

Now, however, there is a new development into my working and living career….enter the munchkin!  As of this writing she is 11 months and 1 week old.   She came into our lives on March 20th a healthy amazing little girl after a few days of obnoxious induced labor 3.5 weeks early.  And life changed.  Mostly for the better but we’re knee deep in the trenches right now so I can’t say that I’m the happiest person all the time but I try to do my best. I’m an “older” mom since I waited until mid-thirties (I was not considered “advanced maternal age” by a smidgen but who came up with that term anyway??) but I have no idea what that actually is supposed to mean since I feel completely clueless.

I came to the idea of writing this blog a few weeks ago because I realized that I’m currently on the hamster wheel of adulting and it sucks and it’s draining.  It’s making me miserable because all I feel like I’m doing is cooking, cleaning, paying bills, taking care of the munchkin, the Mr. or doing grad work (take that “Real” Housewives of whatever city/state you choose) and I needed something that wasn’t a “responsibility.”  I used to always love to write and once dreamed of getting paid to write so here I am writing, not getting paid for it, but at least sharing it so I’ll take the compromise.
I am glad you’re here and I hope that you find as much pleasure in this as I do.  I’m going to hopefully keep it light, funny and relaxed but along with giving birth came the incredible weight that I am now responsible for another human being in a world where bad things happen, luckily I have the Mr., Babci, a great group of friends and amazing pets to help along the way.