Friends With Benefits

June5th

17 Comments

Isn’t it funny when you look around and take notice of what life has become. Here most of us are, thirty-something, in the throws of mommy hood trying to figure out how to do this mommy thing. What’s the best snack? Where should my child go to preschool? Where should we live? What activities to engage their time? Who to play with? Pampers or Huggies? Whole milk or soy milk? Crocs or not? Bed times. Nap times. Snack times. Family visits. Vacations. Grocery shopping. Diaper changing. Potty training. Time outs. Hugs. Cuddles. Love. Butterfly kisses. Forgiveness.

We find ourselves saying things like, don’t push your brother. Don’t throw rocks. Don’t drink the lake water. Don’t drink the bath water. Don’t throw sand in your brother’s hair. Come here. Sit up straight. Say please and thank you. Don’t unbuckle your car seat. Don’t hit the dog. Don’t hit your sister with your sword. Keep your clothes on. Your at Disney World for Pete’s sake in a princess dress, now act like a princess. Oh, did I just admit that??? Yes, I did say that. And yes as I was saying it I was like ‘what on earth have I become.’ And who on earth is Pete anyway?

So before you became a mommy, who were you? I’d love to get to know you. What were your dreams? Where were you going? Are you surprised by where you are now?

Hi, my name is Jade and I used to be a high school teacher. I taught debate and coached the debate team. We even went to Harvard one year for a tournament. Now I can hardly form complete sentences and carry on adult conversation without stumbling on my words. Funny isn’t it?!?

It’s always fun to find out what our mommy friends did before they were mommies. Come to find out, one of my friends used to be a teacher and also taught swim lessons. Well having the water loving kids that I have I decided that it was time for private lessons. Today was Makena’s first day. While Keegan and I romped around on one end of the pool, Makena was learning how to swim. Without floaties. We spend most days down at the lake. In the water or around the water. She must learn how to swim.

She was a little neurotic about the pool vacuum but once she realized it wasn’t going to get her, she settled right in.

So tell me, who were you before you became a mommy?

17 Comments

Comment by misty — June 5, 2008 @ 10:15 pm

Great post, and although I don’t know what I thought you did pre-mommyhood, I never would have thought you were a high school debate teacher! Go you!!!!

I was still writing, and working in a group home for troubled failed-adoption kids. That’s it. My life has, in some ways, always been about kids. Only I had a busier social life…
Comment by Sheila — June 6, 2008 @ 8:24 am

Before I was a mommy, I was a heavy reader…sometimes poet…someone who had a very clean, tidy home with no pet dust bunnies, someone who took ambling walks talking with their best friend (hubby), who dreamed of being a place where there were great dinner parties at night with candles and music and exotic foods…and I was a belly dancer…
Comment by Our Green Nest — June 6, 2008 @ 8:29 am

My little one is just 6 months so I’m still new at this mommy job but LOVING it…I never appreciated my Mom more though for sure!!! She had 7 and I just don’t see how she did it – and so wonderfully too!

Before I was a mommy, I was an event designer – designed the decor for corporate and social events. Very fun but very stressful and weird hours – trying to lead my staff to finish the decor before 2,000 + people walk through the door – it had lots of stressful moments …

BUT that being said, my current job as a stay-at home parent is MUCH harder and challenging with even more weird hours , but also ridiculously more rewarding. Nothing else I’d rather be doing!
Comment by Ginger — June 6, 2008 @ 11:53 am

Baby still isn’t here yet (due date is the 8th!) so I haven’t fully experienced mommy-hood yet but the rest of my life hasn’t changed all that much. Before my pregnancy I was a full time art student and now I’m a half-time student. Instead of quitting any job my jobs have just evolved. I won’t stop being a student but I will take fewer classes and I’ll still be a full-time wife but my husband and I will have a much different life with a child, etc. I’m very excited to see what God has in store for us in the years to come.
Enjoy swimming! I can’t wait until I fit into my bathing suit again and can enjoy that reprieve from the TX heat.
Comment by victoria — June 6, 2008 @ 12:17 pm

I was a case manager at a non-profit to adults with developmental disorders. I worked with adults from 18-80 and had about 40 clients. It was very stressful but very rewarding. I have to say though that motherhood is the hardest thing(nothing worth having is easy…) I have ever done but without a doubt the most rewarding and has taught me a lot about life. I am amazed by what I have learned from my 3.5 year old.
Comment by Katie — June 6, 2008 @ 6:55 pm

So, before I was a mommy……I was 18 years young, in love and MARRIED. So before I was a mommy I was just a kid myself. I was: a waitress, funny, skinny, a florist, a vagabond, artsy/crafty, unafraid of life. I was really interested in being a singer/actor but never let it drive me to say, CA or NY to start a career. I was unofficialy trained as an opera singer by my H.S. Choir teacher but, now am afraid to sing in public.

I am about to enter “the teen years” with my oldest son, land sakes alive, Saints Preserve ME!
Comment by Kelsey — June 7, 2008 @ 10:34 am

First of all your title cracked me up, because I was an 18 year old, fresh out of high school, fresh into college with a new boyfriend and Alanis Morrisette’s Head Over Feet song (www.youtube.com/watch?v=my3yP-w3rtw) was huge on the radio, and just how I felt about my new boyfriend…the friend with benefits part always cracked me up…moving on…
I graduated early, so all my friends were still back in high school. So I was much of a loner and took up my part time job at Parents Anonymous full time. I started doing child care for them in high school at the parents meetings and end up working in the office, doing officy stuff and answering the phone and directing and calming and guiding parents that were crying out for help. I did lots of babysitting, worked in preschools and with children with special needs through out high school, as children were my first love. I landed my first teaching job at a preschool teaching older 4 year olds and 5 year olds that left for kindergarten and then came back to me throughout the day. I was working from 6 or 8 am to 6 pm and and had classes at school from 6to 9 or 7 to 10 4 nights a week. Oh and I moved in with my new boyfriend the day I started my new teaching job. Two months after I got the job and moved in with the boyfriend I got in a car accident (totaling the boyfriends Mustang, not my fault)and hurt my neck and back pretty bad. Then 11 days later I was in my car going to pick him up from work and a lady ran a red light and totaled my car, messing up my neck and back much more. My doctors visits, pain meds and chiropractic made it impossible for me to keep my job and function as a normal human. So I quit that job and just went to school. Within a month one of my best friends from high school and her husband (who had had a baby senior year had decided that their daughter was causing too much stress in their relationship and they were going to put her up for adoption…Being that I had spent so much time watching the little girl, taking the mom to Dr. appts and so on I asked my boyfriend what he thought of us taking her for a while and seeing how that worked for them. He agreed that was the best thing to do for her and without any hesitation from them, we took her. We had her for almost a year and one day they called up and said we’re coming to get her. We soon realized that family life was just what we wanted and began planning our wedding. About a month later we found out I was pregnant. So we bumped the wedding up the upcoming October, not the one a year and 3 months away…and got married and had a baby. I have been a stay at home mom since November of 1996…and am now thinking that with the economy my husband’s job is discinigrating before my very eyes that I may have to go back to work…which is proving to be very difficult in Southern Oregon. I can go make coffee for $8 an hour or apply for a bunch of jobs that I no longer qualify for…so as much as I have loved the past 12 year with my babies and our friends little girl, they are making it a little hard for me right now. I am looking at many different options and trying not to be picky, trying to find something at night, which there really isn’t a lot of around here locally. I guess I just find it offensive to have to take an entry level minimum wage job as I made much more back in high school even, but it will all work out in the end…Oh and if you read my blog (blossomsnpits.blogspot.com/2008/03/aroma-of.html) the boyfriend which is now the husband, finally got a “new” Mustang to replace the one I totaled in the accident all those years ago
Comment by Danielle — June 7, 2008 @ 4:37 pm

I was a bike riding, hiking fool. I can’t ride much (birth injury still healing) and don’t get to hike nearly as far as I used to with little legs along; but life is so much sweeter. Career wise things haven’t changed much, just gone from full-time to very very part-time.

In my previous life, drinks and dinner with friends would last until the early morning hours and brunch would carry over to dinner. Now naps and a walk around the neighborhood take up the bulk of my afternoons and I wouldn’t trade it for a thing.
Comment by Paige — June 7, 2008 @ 4:47 pm

Hey Jade, what a great post – funny how motherhood changes everything, isn’t it? Anyhoo, before I became a mommy I went to college and majored in Art History and English, then met my hubby, fell in love, and got hitched by age 23. It was about 7 years, though, before we had our first child…in the meantime I played bass guitar for a couple rock-n-roll bands that were both fronted by hubby who writes music, plays guitar, and sings. Nothing “big-time,” as we just played gigs in bars and clubs around the cities…but dang if they weren’t good times! We used to go out a lot and see local bands, but that’s a rarity nowadays. Leave the house at 10pm for anything other than medicine or bread? Not so much.
It was fun to learn a little more about you, too. Hope you’re having a good weekend!
Comment by Manoute — June 8, 2008 @ 6:59 am

Hi Jade,
I don’t think I qualify to leave a message (I am not a mummy) but I am going away for 3 weeks so I thought I should say something. I am 35, and my long time partner and I are scientists. We are discussing the option of having a baby but we are wondering whether we would be good parents and also, being in science (research) means, not very well paid jobs and short term contracts. We are lucky to both have a job in the same town just now, but it might not be the case in a few months (It could be in different countries…). we’ll see…
I am off to Germany for work. I hope I will have time to read you blog otherwise, I will have a lot of catch up to do when I’ll come back!
Comment by ruth — June 9, 2008 @ 1:34 am

Its funny how so many children are scarred by the pool vac, a friend has called her’s Boris to make it seem less scary!
Comment by Patty Thomas — June 9, 2008 @ 1:40 pm

Let’s see, I was working full time as a Registered Dental Assistant and going to night school to become a hygienist. I got in a pretty bad car accident that totaled my car and had to drop out of anatomy. As you may know, miss a couple of night classes of anatomy and you never recover. I was trying to deal with a concussion and being able to work again and about 2 months later became pregnant with my daughter. WIthin a year we bought a house, went to one income, and had a baby. What a HUGE change for us. We used to have relaxing weekend full of road trips to the coast, going to the movies, and living more spontaneously. I guess sometimes God has a different plan for our lives. Now we’re a family full of laundry, “I’m hungries”, and trying to make sure my husband and I still remember why we got married so we’ll have a life together after the kiddos are on their own. It’s funny how the bigger picture becomes so much more clear once children enter our lives. It makes all of the things we used to do seem not so important. I also look back and realize how much money we blew and think of all of the things I could have done with it now. Oh well. not much we can do about…
Comment by kristin — June 9, 2008 @ 9:25 pm

before i was a mama, all i wanted was to be a mama, which can make things a bit confusing when i am so tired of parenting.

grrrrr.

thanks for this post, though.

the balance we all seek…
Comment by miss chris — June 10, 2008 @ 2:06 pm

late to the game…. but here goes.

Before I was a momma I had worked as a waitress in college until my internship with an advertising agency parleyed to a job…which I kept until grad school where I was working on my masters in communication, and oops! I found myself pregnant. I was a ‘find a dive bar with a good band and hang out for beers’ type of gal who still liked antique shops and sewing stuff. (I know, weird.) I liked to date boys who were smart and had a romantic, artsy side and made me mix tapes. I thought I’d skip the kids part (and the marriage part, for that matter) and be a grownup with an apartment and drink wine in the evenings by myself. I’d probably have gotten a cat and been very lonely. Thank God that didn’t happen.
Comment by Marjorie — June 11, 2008 @ 7:06 pm

“Crocs or not” Ha, ha, ha!! That one cracked me up.

I used to be in banking and I taught CPR when I only had one and two kids, but with number three, there hasn’t been any jobs. Except now I am starting up my photography business. Now that there seems to be a light at the end of the pregnancy, nursing and baby tunnel, that is.
Comment by Anne — June 11, 2008 @ 9:16 pm

This is a great post, not sure I should admit this, but I was (I guess still am) a cpa. I had a clean house and nice underpants; not sexy underpants, but panties without holes and strong elastic. I could think and get things done, now I forget everything. Way before, I was a lifeguard and taught swimming, so it’s funny to read about your mom friend.
Comment by Rachelle Sosa — November 12, 2008 @ 7:55 pm

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