Monday, January 07, 2008

Where did I go in all of this?!

So all weekend has been about the bathroom exploits of one little girl named Alexandra. Many victories have been achieved with just one disappointment. She would not poop no matter what I tried. As I sat on the floor of the bathroom for what seemed like the 14th hour in a row, I suddenly realised how much my life has changed and a feeling of somewhat panic overcame me. Nothing too much but definitely an awakening of how I lost myself in the process of raising my children. I started to look around at blogs and stumbled across some wonderful examples of what I thought I would be when I grew up. I always imagined that if (and it was a big if) I had children, they would somehow just become mini versions of me. Well that is not exactly true. Both my daughter and my son are hip, cool children who are always well dressed and look as put together as can be. What changed was me. I was once a hip cool well dressed put together woman. Now I look down at the grey t-shirt with some athletic team emblazoned across the chest, and the rather frumpy jeans and I wonder what the hell? My face has not seen make up in god knows how long. My hair was last cut by my good self in a fit or rage at its complete inability to look fabulous on demand. How did this happen? How did I let myself go? And how did I let myself go this far? It cannot simply be having children. I see so many women with children looking just wonderful. So maybe it is having an autistic child that did it. But I don't think this can be the case either. Maybe I just hide behind that but it cannot be the reason. I see many mothers at the therapy waiting room who look as though more that 5 minutes has been put into themselves that day. So it is me. Great, something else to work on!

So I must lock away the "well I spend so much time taking Alex to her therapies" or the "Alex is very destructive and cleaning up the devastation takes so much of my time" or the always popular "I spend so much time chasing her around and making sure she is safe that I have no time for putting an effort into me". All these are true but they are just excuses. So I need to get busy and start looking after me a little. Maybe a nice haircut to begin - ooh what is in fashion these days? Should I go for the Jennifer Aniston look or is that already passe?! Oh, I guess some current cultural and style references may be in order!

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