The Mother Hood

I have heard a lot about how parenthood is a creativity-killer. It can be, since it sucks the time out of life in surprising ways. How can I have no time when I don't seem to do anything?

Here's where all the well meaning people chime in with "parenting blah blah blah most important job in the world blah blah blah." And yes I get that. I'm not asking for reassurance that what I'm doing matters, I know it does. It's just taking a while to know where all the time went. I'm not constantly changing diapers or feeding, it's just from time to time, and our baby is easy and contented. Mostly. And I have a fantastic husband who truly does HALF, at least in the summers.

It probably has to do with not being able to finish anything that I start, or not remembering what I intended to start, or not remembering where I left off when I did start but did not finish any given task.

Nevertheless... new songs are in my head but only vaguely. This also has to do with not wanting to write about old things (like infertility) so much anymore, and not knowing what the new things will be.

People I know have always chimed in with comments about how I ought to write about something - "I bet there's a GREAT song in there," or "you should write about that." Which annoys me, because I don't just decide to write about life events. I often wish like crazy that I could, but wanting doesn't make it happen. Ideas that are songs come when they come. I can try to make myself available for ideas but that's a whole process unto itself.

Speaking of chiming in, a surprising (to me) number of people said the same thing to me about how my next set of songs will be kids' songs or lullabyes or something. Ewwww? Obviously those songs are great and wonderful but something about that line of conversation was icky to me. As if that's some kind of natural progression for a songwriter (or maybe just for a female songwriter). As if we can all say, oh thank heavens that whole having-a-career thing is done, now I can completely focus every molecule on my children.

I would much prefer to keep music as part of my non-kid life... which I don't exactly have much of a non-kid life, just yet... and I need one.

But despite my resistance... maybe it's the sleep deprivation, repetitive tasks, and some hormonal euphoria. Whatever the reason, I now have a lot of jingly jangly rhymes in my head having to do with our current lifestyle, so now we're all singing such new classics as "Don't Put Your Foot in the Poop," "My Hand is Delicious," "I'm a Big Ole Baldy Baby," and my special favorite: "Let's Go See the Formula Cow." But oh, trust me; what happens in the nursery stays there.