To The Mommy Bloggers

Each time she leaves me it is like a little piece of me turns to ash and crumbles. I can't let her know because I have to strong for her but I wonder if one day in an airport watching her walk down the jet way to fly away from me if I will just fade away, like ashes blown in the wind. I had different dreams for us. You, see I waited to have my baby, I wanted her to have so much more than I did as a child. Not the material things, no, I found out early that the nicest of the nice things don't amount to much if you don't have a loving home. I wanted her to have stability, happy parents, a pet, a neighborhood all enveloping her in a big blanket of love.

I knew she would probably be my only baby, I had waited so long to meet her father only to miscarry and misjudge. She is worth is all, the beautiful little life that danced a disco in my belly and refused to come out until my doctor finally found a way to coax her into this world. Maybe she wanted to stay with me as long as she possibly could because she knew ours would be a future of good-byes.

I chronicled every bit of minutia about her, the squeaks, the expressions, the firsts. She was a wonder to behold, the smartest baby ever, heck, she could even sign kitty and airplane when she was only a few months old. Today, I don't read those journals, I keep them tucked away in a place safe far away from my thoughts to prevent a pity party from taking over and reducing me to hot mess.

When she was four, I discovered blogging and I thought I would put away my purple ink pens and lined paper journals to keep an electronic record of my precious and the joys of motherhood. Across the nation, other mommies shared my thoughts and mommy blogging surpassed personal journaling to become a business entity for a lot of these moms. Me, I quit blogging, took down my site, forgot my password and turned off my feed. When a court of law tells you that they have decided that your baby, your only baby will spend the majority of her time with her father thousands of miles away from you, well you may need some time to go lick your wounds and figure out how to make this part-time mommy thing work for you.

Homeroom mother, Brownie leader, chauffeur, class chaperon, nursemaid - these were the things I aspired to become. The mom who hosted slumber parties and would hang a disco ball in the living room for dance night, not the mom who schleps onto a plane every 6 weeks to spend a precious long weekend with her daughter. You mommy bloggers don't know how good you have it - typing away about your little ones latest antics blissfully cocooned by the sound of your children's voices. Where are the mommy bloggers who write alone waiting, anxiously awaiting, the next time they can smell the sweet smell of sweaty hair and chocolate-coated lips. Do they have to shut it all away in a strong box with a big lock only to be opened when their baby arrives.

Oh the jealousy - reading a mommy blog, passing a school carpool, walking past homes where mommies play with their children in well-lit front rooms. You mommy bloggers have a special gift, the gift of living each and every day with your babies. A gift of never having to suppress your surprise at how much they have grown since you have last seen them, a gift of putting a lost tooth under a pillow, a gift of making them lunch for school each day. It's that minutia that is so special, so precious and so fleeting.

Look, I do count my blessings - she is healthy and thriving and I do get to spend some time with her thanks to joint custody. It makes other mommies uncomfortable when they learn she goes to school somewhere else, at first I thought they were judging me. "She must be a meth addict, hmm, to fat for meth, maybe it's alcohol, or maybe she is insane." But I think it is because they see the little piles of ash and think "that could be me" and want to run least some of that toxic ash float over to cast a dark cloud on their precious.