Does the world need one more maternal blog? Sure: mine.

While the hip mama movement was at its peak, I kept meaning to participate with my own blog as an urban mom with a sense of style and calculated disregard—the kind of mother whose children wear organic cotton clothes, experience global cuisine and take art classes yet a mom so utterly cool she barely notices she’s breastfeeding. “These children practically raise themselves!” And my hip, relaxed stylish blogger self would research public schools while organizing free-trade buying clubs for her neighborhood or perhaps she would dedicate herself to something frivolous like fashion, martini’s or e-bay.

My plan piddled out long before the mama lit bubble burst, when I realized two undeniable truths. First, I am not hip. I am a middle-aged, unremarkable looking mother whose style source is a place called ValuThrift. Second, I am not relaxed. Indeed—yes, I like to use words like indeed—I am completely over-wrought and decidedly not calm without medication (and I use the term loosely enough to include chocolate and Terms of Endearment).

Far from exhibiting desirable disregard—that calculated cool that makes parenting look so easy, so fun, so hip, so manageable—I radiate anxiety and occasionally, rage.

Then I realized –this is the kind of maternal blog the world actually requires – one that resembles reality! One where the blogger isn’t 5’10”, 110 lbs and pushing a stroller in heels (probably in Slope Park) but a compact Midwestern woman whose breasts astoundingly disappeared (replaced by two tiny acorns, if only acorns were elastic) after using them to feed three babies. Yes, the world needs a blog from a family that never quite has enough money, time, or sanity but has plenty of humor and just the right amount of panache. We mothers need a blog where we can be chunky, lazy, out of touch as much as we can be tuned in, tidy and taking care of business. Life is a lot messier and less seamlessly written than the mothering blogs I’ve encountered. At least mine is.

Welcome to my world!