I waited many years to become a mom, by choice - my husband and I were married for 6 years before we began trying to have children. We wanted to give ourselves the time together to solidify our marriage and travel a little before adding those unpredictable variables known as kids to our family. And when we were ready, we were blessed with both a boy and a girl - healthy, beautiful, intelligent, STUBBORN, willful, challenging little mini-Me's (both myself and my DH). Children are amazing little creatures and Mom is one of my favorite titles, especially when my daughter calls me Mama with love.

I work from home now, as a freelance writer/editor/proofreader and part-time as a Quality Assurance analyst and a popular Internet freelance job site. I'm also a stay-at-home mom, and have been for the past 6 1/2 years. It's a tough job. I dare any of those Ice Road Truckers to take my job over for a day or two. They'll be yearning for the open, icy road after an hour of watching my daughter pick her way through dinner or hearing my son scream at his sister to get out of his room at a pitch so high I'm surprised my cats still have their hearing. Some days I dream about changing my name from Mom to something else - I'm thinking Dad will do.

We're all fond of that line about Ginger Rogers - you know the one about doing everything Fred Astaire did, but backwards and in heels? Women, and especially moms (probably because they're tested on an hourly basis) just seem to be able to handle more, accomplish more, plan more than men. Working from home while parenting is the best of both worlds - which is why I do it - but also the worst of both worlds. I suffer from social deprivation - sometimes I crave adult conversation so deeply that I want to invite the postman in for a cup of tea. I am thankful for the friendships I've cultivated with fellow moms, especially those who don't look askance when I ponder duct taping the children to a wall (knowing I'd never in a million years do it, but hey, we all need to vent) and know that my expressed desire for wine does not make me a candidate for AA.

I'm still not sure why I started this blog - whether to help market my eBay store, find other virtual workers who miss the water-cooler-social-aspect of a concrete workplace, or just simply brag and complain about my daily successes and failures as a straddling-the-fence, work-at-home/stay-at-home parent. I do know that I need to invest in 2 things: a PA-style intercom and a TV voice personality who can periodically intone
MOMMY HAS LEFT THE BUILDING.