I’ve been wanting to write about this for several days, ever since the hooplah over Ann Romney and Hillary Rosen all exploded in everyone’s faces and that horrible term “Mommy Wars” started popping up everywhere…again. I even agonized over whether I should share my thoughts in the parenting column I do over at RVANews because maybe it would be a welcome departure from me being all gooey about JR.

But when it came down to actually putting pen to paper (which I actually do when writing those columns…at least before putting fingers to keyboard)…I realized I didn’t really have anything to say. Nothing particularly inspiring or provocative at least. Because here’s the thing: I’ve been pretty much every working/not working while mothering scenario since JR made his arrival. And they are all hard. That’s it. End of story. They are hard.

I spent the first few weeks of JR’s life as a stay-at-home mom. It was hard.

I spent the remainder of JR’s first year as a work-at-home mom three days a week and a work-outside-of-the-home-mom the rest of the week. It was hard.

I spent almost 18 months as a full-time, work-outside-of-the-home-mom. It was hard.

I now work outside of the home two days a week and spend the remainder of the week as a stay-at-home-mom (but sometimes a work-at-home-mom, depending on how well my days in the office go). It IS hard.

IT IS ALL HARD.

Don’t get me wrong, each scenario has some wonderful parts, some fantastic “perks”, if you will, but each also comes with struggle, guilt, stress, and (as always) exhaustion.

Mothering is hard. Parenting is hard. But I wonder if we could maybe make it less hard by fighting the urge to judge one another on how we go about it?

Here’s the thing: a couple days ago, I started to feel like maybe (JUST MAYBE) I was ready to start phasing out my meds. And then I immediately started to feel like I was coming unglued again. So that’s fun.

Anyway, I have a physical at the beginning of May, so I’m going to wait until then to talk about it with my doctor. Until then, I’m trying to cut myself some slack. I hope you will, too.

Thanks for your support, as always. And now I’ll leave you with this song. I’ve been listening to it a lot lately*. It is oh so sweet.

(I thought the drawings on this video were kind of adorable.)

*JR and I have also spent many a morning dancing in the kitchen to this song–maybe my most favorite song in the whole world?)

(This is my great-grandmother, Jennie. She plays an important part in the story. Also, we seem to have similar default expressions that convey a message of “Dude, I will cut you.”)

As one commenter on the video put it, “My eyes just morphed into hearts!”

Anyway, as a little bonus for you guys, I’ve also got a video of me reading my personal Seuss favorite: Oh, the Places You’ll Go! I hope you like it. I also encourage you to post a video (and share a link in the comments) of you reading for favorite Dr. Seuss book. I think it’d be great for two reasons:

1. I love being able to see your lovely faces.
2. It’d be so fun to watch the videos with JR as we follow along in our own copies of each book.

So here you go!

(You see, Ross is a robot and basically has no medical history/ailments. And he doesn’t have enough bandwidth to hold such data.)

I got her on the phone and gave her a brief history of JR’s kidney non-issue and told her when I started back on birth control, the two of us chatting away–your typical pleasant conversation.

And then she paused. Notably.

“Ok, hun. Now I need to ask you about…you know?”

“…what, exactly?”

“Your…condition.”

“My condition.”

“Your **depression**, dear.”

[VAL SMASH]

I know she was just trying to be sensitive, but I got off the phone pretty frustrated. Sure, I realize lots of people don’t feel comfortable yammering on about being depressed, but there’s no need to treat it like some deep, dark secret that must be hidden. No wonder there’s a stigma. Make people feel like lepers and they’re probably not going to want to be open about their struggles with this condition, despite the fact that it affects 19 million (as in 19,000,000) people in this country alone.

On the bright side of things, the conversation reminded me of this scene from Brighton Beach Memoirs. And it’s always nice to think about Neil Simon.

I wanted to share this video with all of you because it is fantastic and will make you cry ugly-yet-happy tears. And then you’ll go and hold your babies so very tight because, oh my, how time is cruelly and wonderfully fleeting. Also: why did I never learn to play the guitar and then become a beautiful singer with a wonderful voice and an ethereal quality bystanders cannot help but love?

(Thanks to Patience for posting this last week and to The Checkout Girl for telling her about it.)

In related news, I’ve got a piece going up on RVANews tomorrow (Tuesday) about the lullabys (lullabyes?) I sing to JR. I so wish I could go back in time and sing this song to the baby version of him. Anyway, keep an eye out for it…and make sure to leave a comment sharing your favorite baby-lulling tunes.

How can you not love a song that makes such a simple and wonderful promise as “You’ll be happy”? (FYI: She does kind of shout a couple variations of the F-word, but you’ll be ok, I think.)

Fiona Apple, where you been, girl? Also: Tidal, her debut album, came out ALMOST 16 YEARS AGO. Also also: I bet I still know every word to every single song on that album.

What are you listening to, folks?