FTR: I Don't Recommend Cocaine.

Outside of sleeplessness, I loved everything about being a mom. One day, unloading my baby from the car, I thought to myself "I..am..a..mom". I was awestruck by that reality.

When I was little, my friend MaryJane and I had baby dolls that looked so real. We took them everywhere. I would even go to Kids (backwards) R Us to buy Ashley, that was her name, actual baby clothes. As the youngest of four, I would fawn over babies. To my friends' chagrin, I would play with their adorable younger siblings.

I wanted to be a mom from a very early age. That much I knew. I never pictured getting married. I never liked to play house. I just liked adorable little babies. Although to be able to stay home and take care of your children, they do come as a package.

After a few years of dating Jon, I knew he was the man that I wanted to be the father of my children. I put a ring on his finger and with a practical two year engagement to make sure it was all as I believed, we married. Check.

Baby was here. Check. Playing house, well, I can never really check that box. Every time I go to cross it off, the check box magically reappears, again and again. Sure I can do my meditation practice: feel the water on your hands as you scrub the bottle. I can put on music to distract me from the unending repetitive tasks. Sorry in advance honey - I can daydream of Leonardo DiCaprio whisking me away from ever having to wash another dish EVER.

The playing house part was going to be a challenge. I started to think this was not a natural way to exist. I needed sister wives. I needed to live in a commune. All things that were really never going to happen nor would I want them to, but you get what I am saying. This playing house is too much to ask for one individual. I started to understand the benefit of having multi generational households, having more children to help with the farm work. Two other realities that were not my world.

I knew one new mother who after her baby bubble burst, quickly hired a house cleaner. She loved to cook so she felt confident there but she knew there was no way she could keep up on the housecleaning. I knew another mother who decided she had to let the impossible ever on repeat housecleaning go and just lived among the heaps of mess. Another mom was super woman and got it all done and then some - maybe a secret cocaine habit?

As new mothers we share a common experience but we each have our own unique concoction of motherhood reality. The first year into motherhood, we are doing what we can to survive. Support is essential - whatever that may be: hiring a house cleaner, childcare swap with a friend - I don't recommend cocaine. Ten years later and I still haven't managed to check that 'play house' box. Maybe it's not meant to be checked. And that's okay.