Ch-ch-ch-changes....

I really dig being 40-ish, I really do. As I get older though, I am more inclined than ever to try and separate my "mom-life" from my "grown-up" life. I actively look for more ways to spend time with other like-minded adults (this means you, Lee, Michele, Heather, Ria, Paula and Liz --and sometimes even the hubster) so I can reestablish a sense of identity that doesn't necessarily involve little ones-- either my own or the hundreds of munchkins I deal with as a Children's Librarian. Sort of making up for lost time, I guess. When your children are small, your entire life tends to revolve around what they need, when they need it, and somewhere along the way, the person you were before them all but disappears. Not that it's entirely a bad thing, but when you're in the thick of it, you don't really notice until the kiddos are older and you can come up for air, so to speak. The thing is, once you've been mom-ified, you've been changed forever whether you know it or not. At a benefit auction for my children's school the other night, my girlfriends and I were talking about this very thing. We've all noticed those changes over the years and if you're a mom, you know what I'm talking about. We moms unintentionally tend to treat everyone like children. We explain things in great detail to be sure its understood, we look disdainfully at people who don't wash their hands after using a public restroom, we take time to point out an untied shoelace (he's going to trip and fall!)and cluck our tongues at the scandal of someone wearing cutoff jean shorts to church. Not one of those things would have bothered me in the least when I was younger. Once you have children to raise as fine, upstanding, contributing members of society, you notice all this stuff that you don't want your children to emulate,and you want to get things as under control as possible or you'll go nuts. Sometimes, we go nuts anyway. The changes you incur are subtle at first as really, you're too busy to notice. At what point does napping go from being a threat to being craved? When you become a mom. When does a hot bubble bath with a glass of wine and a locked bathroom door become more enticing than a trip to the mall? When we become a mom. Oh, and here's another example. As I am ridding our household of as many chemicals as I can, I bought a steam mop the other day. It uses only super-heated steam to clean the floors and I am almost too embarrassed to admit how much fun I'm having using that thing. I have no idea when that happened either. I remember years ago, fresh out of high school, my friends and I would compare guys based on whether or not they had a "football butt" which meant, of course, that the football players had the best rear-ends and every guy thereafter would be judged on how well his posterior filled out the back of his jeans. (Oh, c'mon, don't tell me you never compared those!) Therein lies another change. Last weekend, the hubster and I had a chance to have an evening out sans children. We went to dinner first, and while waiting for our food, we watched several screens of football games showing in the bar area near us. In my youth I would have been observing much more than just the game, but you know what? I've been mom-ififed. I kid you not, the first thing that popped into my head when I saw the players in their burgundy team shirts was, "I wonder if those shirts bleed in the laundry." Seriously? I assure you, that was a change I didn't expect! Yeah...so even though I am trying harder to do more "grown-up things", I guess my Mom-ification assimilation is complete. Resistance is futile.