Flashbackstory

Fairly Odd Father & I have three children. Little ones, although they seem so old at times. Especially when the girls are dancing with their bums pushed out and yelling, "Shake your bum-bum!" (they did NOT learn this from me, I swear!)

We were married in the summer of '99 on a 101 degree day; outdoors, of course, and then held the reception inside a 'rustic' hall ('rustic' is code for 'no air conditioning').

Six month later, we had bought our first-and-only house. I imagined many nights on the back porch drinking cocktails with FOF and friends, being loud and carefree.

Two weeks after we moved into the house, I was pregnant.

Our first child was born in January 2001. We call her Belly, and she's rocked our world more than we could've ever imagined.

Two short years later, Jilly was born, plump and squinty. She quickly became our never-stop-moving, squirmy worm of a child who has yet to crack the 10th percentile in weight since her 3rd month checkup. Her favorite word is 'poop'.




And then, to prove that Fairly Odd Father and I have no idea how babies are made, we were even more shocked---SHOCKED, I say---to find out that #3 was coming just 18 months after #2. Shortly after D was born, Fairly Odd Father was made less, a-hem, potent, and we closed the book on any more surprise babies.

So them are the kids.

As for me, I went from working a zillion hours a week in my 20's as a Media Planner for two different advertising agencies, to burning out and quitting it all at 29. . .that lasted about six weeks, and then I was freelancing and then hired by a media agency.

I met FOF during my work 'hiatus', on Friday the 13th of December, 1996. I basically threw myself at him shamelessly. I'm not sure what story we'll end up telling the kids. Probably a cleaned-up version until they are about 40.

After Belly was born, I went down to working three days a week which was pretty good for a while. After Jilly, though, daycare costs and the complete pain-in-the-assness of schlepping them both to daycare became too much and I quit the 'paid-job' life for good.

I have now been a SAHM (I hate that acronym but am too lazy to come up with something better) for over 3 years. Totally not the life I imagined for myself when I was a 20-something career person.

Funny thing is, I really like this life. I don't pine for the days when I had my own office and got to tell people what to do. I was tired of the whole scene. The only thing I really miss is the dozens and dozens of free magazines that were one of the perks of my job. Oh, and the money. And quiet time on the computer. And company lunches. So, maybe there were a few things good about work.

As far as our decision to homeschool? That was also not planned but rather fallen into, much like our decision to become parents to three kids in under four years. At some point, I'll get around to that story.