Big hat tip to Cardiogirl for posting this prompt on Tribal Blogs. Because if she hadn’t I’d have to post pictures of the chocolate chip cookie waffle experiment.

Before I Was a Mom:

I Was Fun

I really used to be a lot of fun. I had no problem going out to a club and drinking all night long. I’d even throw caution to the wind and dance a little. I didn’t nag all the time and I wasn’t worried about anything. Now that I am a mom I worry all the time and I nag even more.

I Had Money

If I wanted to buy myself a pair of insanely expensive shoes that I would probably only wear once I could, and I did. If I wanted to eat out every night, I did. I have been wearing the same pair of Crocs for the last 5 years. I bought the purse I have been lugging around 16 years ago. Thankfully, it’s a Coach so it still looks really good, out of fashion, but it looks okay. I can’t remember the last time I ate out, like, at a real restaurant where you sit down and someone brings stuff to you that was ordered off a menu that you didn’t have to read from your car window.

I Was Fashionable

I wore the latest fashions. Which is too bad on many levels because I haven’t not been a mom since the early 90′s which means I am still wearing shirts with shoulder pads. I have always had big hair because since becoming a mom I don’t have an extra hour to iron it straight. Ponytail holders have become my best friend. One very nice thing about missing a lot of the fashions of the last nearly two decades is that I still have straight leg jeans (purchased in bulk when I had money to burn, talk about foresight) so I haven’t had to wear those awful wide leg jeans that only come up to your pube line, the ones that show your ass crack if you even think about bending over.

I Slept Through The Night

I haven’t slept through the night since February 10th, 1993. In fact I haven’t gotten a straight three hours of sleep since that date. Sure, both of the kids are sleeping through the night now but the big one goes out at night which means I have to wait up for him, and the little one will occasionally fall out of bed or need to go to the bathroom. Why she thinks she needs to wake me up and tell me that I don’t understand. If the kids aren’t waking me up the cat is.

I Traveled The World

Before I had kids I actually left the state of Minnesota. I once hopped a flight, standby even, to Italy because a friend was going and asked if I wanted to come along. It helped that I was already in England since the flight wasn’t all that far. I had no problems changing my plans from a week in England to a summer in Italy. We went there not knowing where we were staying and not speaking the language. I also managed a summer in Italy on $400. Since I became a mom I have been to Mexico with my family (which is no vacation when you have a toddler) and I have crossed the border into Canada a couple of times. I have also driven across the country twice but that was for a move and hardly considered fun. I haven’t renewed my passport in over ten years. In fact, in the last ten years I haven’t traveled any farther than the Wisconsin border.

I was a different person before I was a mom. My kids don’t understand this, they think I have always been a tired, boring, nagging pain in the ass. When I tell them I used to be fun they look at me like I just sprouted a third arm. They just can’t see it.

I wouldn’t change anything, I love my kids to death. I can say that now because I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel. In another ten years I might get to go dancing, sit down at a real restaurant and buy that new purse I have been thinking about for the last decade.