IAMTHEMILK

34

September 19, 2013 by Katia

A year ago in August I had a baby, Daniel.

Six weeks later I had another one. I called him IAMTHEMILK.

I recently wrote a post about some of what Daniel has taught me about myself. IAMTHEMILK taught me a few important lessons as well. Like, for example, that an AHA moment doesn’t always have to be grandiose. It doesn’t have to knock on your door and announce itself, it sometimes can just kind of seep through.

A year ago I was giving Four Year Old a bath. He was three. It was ten days after his brother was born. 37 Year Old was urging our son to finish up his bath. He was thirty six. “Common, Ben, the milk is waiting” he said. A voice in my head went “Yes, I’m ready”. I won’t tell you how old I was.

I will probably never forget that bath. There were no heartmelting mama/son moments taking place there that day, nor were there any go-down-in-the-history-books-shower-curtain-tearing-tantrums, it was just that crazy mechanical thought that flashed in my head the moment I heard the trigger word milk. IAMTHEMILK.

It’s so funny how life works. Had I ignored that voice instead of noticing and responding with a “you do realize you were just thinking with your boobs, right?”, I would have never gone to Chicago.

When I started the blog I was at my most un-me. I was being food. I was struggling with breastfeeding. I was being involved in an involuntary exhibitionist act in front of the person you would least of all want to be exposed to, my mother in law. I suppose that something inside me, an infinitely wise mechanism put me up to this knowing that this blogging thing I knew nothing about was going to become the scenic way back to me.

IAMTHEMILK taught me another funny life lesson. Sometimes to become you again, you’ll have to do a lot of things that are the opposite of you. Like spontaneously travelling to Chicago by yourself (well, anything spontaneous, really), like ignoring your bruised ego and approaching that website that’s already rejected you once before as if nothing’s happened. Like walking into a hangar size room full of strangers at the conference centre in Chicago, approaching a group of people occupying the Canadian Blogger table and going “hi, Canadian bloggers! I’m a Canadian blogger!” as if you don’t have a severe panic attack and immigrant identity crisis going for you at the same time.

Like persevering. It’s not that I don’t follow through, it’s just that I don’t when it’s a dream I’m pursuing. Because there’s always something more important and deserving than a dream, right?

I deserve a medal for the time I persevered when it mattered. Happy birthday, IAMTHEMILK. I’m so proud of you!

***

This post is a Finish The Sentence Friday post on the topic: I deserve a medal for the time I…

Make sure to visit our wonderful hosts. When I grow up, I want to be them.

Stephanie at Mommy, For Real

Kristi, woohoo! at Finding Ninee

Janine at Janine’s Confessions of a Mommyaholic

Kate at Can I Get Another Bottle of Whine?