Mommy Musing

As I drove down the street the other day, slowly crawling with traffic, I spotted a family of five crossing the street with bicycles. While I watched the (assumed) mom, who looked like the epitome of a soccer mom, wait for her kiddies to finish crossing, the question arose: When do women start looking like moms? And, no, I don't mean that in a good way. I guess, the question I'm pondering is, when do women lose their sexy.

Becoming a mom is not a life sentence. There is no this or that, no exchange of womanhood for motherhood. At least, there shouldn't be. But I've seen so many women hand in their fitted jeans for mommy jeans that it appears that a feminine sacrifice is a requirement.

I suppose that's why many women stare in envy and openly hate the woman who has kept up her curves, her flirtacity, her sense of feminine self. She's still the woman who turns men's heads even as she creates goodies for a bake sale.

I'm not the flirtatious femme fatale and I found myself fully entrenched in self-sacrifice, not caring about my looks or, if I'm being honest, myself. So I'm curious as to when that happened. Well, I never really cared about looks but I'm at a whole other level of I-don't-care-ness. I just plain feel undesirable.

I don't want to look like a mom; that's not a prerequisite to being one. I want the looks of disbelief to read, "You have kids?" not "You have kids?" if you know what I mean.

I'm not saying that I want to look slutty but I do want a guy to do more than fantasize about the kind of sandwich I'll make him (b/c he'll be sorely disappointed-- me serve?).

(I know this post is a little all over the place but, in my defense, I do have Summer Vacation-itis and I don't even know what day of the week it is.)

Ah, well. Maaaaaybe I should take a walk around the park and shed enough pounds so that I can shimmy out of my mommy pants. Guess that would be the first step to reclaiming my sexy self. My kids are nearly grown; they become 16 and 13 this fall. That's only a 5-year expiration date until I transition from being mommy to mom. I'm scared that, when they're gone, I'll be left staring at all the pieces of me I never got around to picking up. Five years is a short amount of time.

Ah, now there's the truth of it.

Five years is a very short amount of time. I have yet to begin to know who I am without my kids and I will soon be without them-- without anyone, I'm afraid. Given my track record, I don't exactly excel in the love department. I sorely need to change that. But, first, I gotta fall in love with me again-- beginning with the park. Hope I don't re-injure myself.

QoMV