So, I'm sick.

And in becoming sick, I've encountered the next challenge of single parenting. Who do you pass the kid off to so you can lie down and die for awhile? Gone are the days of doping yourself up on Nyquil and calling it a day at 6:30 p.m. Last night, I had to take Josh into the bed with me and hope he wouldn't notice that we weren't doing anything for four hours. Then, because I'd taken such a long (albeit frequently interrupted) nap, I couldn't sleep again until 3 a.m. Josh was up at about 5 and ready to party. I called up God and asked for some reprieve. God was busy.

Another thing that I've found hard is the idea of balancing one's identity pre-kid with one's new identity as a mother. It's been really hard, in fact. I get a little wiggy when someone says, "Yes, but you're a mother now", as if it usurps every single component of my being. I know I'm a mother now. But I'm also still a 30 year old women with lots of plans and some big goals and all my idiosyncratic shit that didn't mysteriously fall by the way side once Josh popped out of my vagina. When I was visiting the Baby Whisperer message boards (leaving posts that looked like this, "PLEASE SOMEONE HELP ME I'M GOING TO PUT MY SON UP FOR ADOPTION") I rarely found a woman who identified herself by her own name. Everyone was "Tristan's Mommy" or "Mom2Jaden". I don't know. Maybe they're also women who feel good about being known as Mrs. John Doe or whatever. I love Josh, and I love being his mother (especially now that his colic is subsiding and we're actually able to have some conversations that don't involve screaming and tears), but I'm still Maryellen. Or maybe these women know something I don't. If I had adopted the moniker "Mom2Josh", perhaps we could have avoided the last 2.5 months of hell, in which case, I'd have happily sold myself out.

But man, what I wouldn't give this morning for a trade-in on my nose, ears and throat.