Before I delve into the deep-ended, dark-sided and mostly ... left field of things, I thought it might help if I offered up some semblance of a justification for how I came to be who I am, holding tight to these principles, always striving to never let go. Even though I do. All the time. So don't, like, refer back to Part I of A MicroCosmic Mama's Manifesto at some point down the road when I am saying or doing something that is a perversely contorted contradiction of any of the following:

   1. My home is my microcosm, and I love it.

The truth: The first few months of life as a work-at-home mom were, at times, brutal. Talk about a paradigmatic shift in a state of being. In nearly three decades of life, I had stayed indoors for more than 24 hours maybe a total of three times, all of which involved being sick. I am active ... really, really active, so when my post partum-laden little mind processed my new, mostly self-imposed requisite for morphing into a homebody, it really did a number on my psyche. Sure, cuddling with Kai was the BEST feeling in the world, but it was when I began coming down and out from that opioid den after the first few months that times got just a tad touchy there for a while.

Not to mention the winter that ensued following the birth of the boy was enough to drive even the cheeriest, sunshine-iest people to S.A.D.D. It snowed almost every day, and pretty sure the sun never even managed to shine once. What was this, the McMurdo Research Base, Antarctica?

It wasn't until quite recently -- nearly an entire year later -- that the pieces came together, I smacked myself right upside the forehead and realized:

    A) How downright blessed I am to be able to accomplish everything -- raise my boy right, write, incite social revolutions -- from right here, in my bungalow, all without having to bend over for Big Oil for the daily commute, to boot!

    B) When other, more seasoned parents wag their finger and remind you to enjoy every single moment of your child's life because it goes fast, it really, really goes fast ... frighteningly, nauseatingly and overwhelmingly fast -- hyperbole not included, which brings me to tenet number two of The MicroCosmic Mama's Manifesto.


     2. I might be crazy enough to have another baby.

The truth: I did not wake up one pre-pubescently charged morning some 15 years ago and proclaim my goal in life would be anything remotely close to motherhood. Not so much. I considered my ambitions -- jet-setting, procuring as high of a degree as possible (do they make a PhD-plus?) and money, money, money -- far superior. A city girl at heart, the prospect of receding into suburban oblivion has always petrified me to no end, and I have always pinpointed parenthood as the fastest route out of a cultured, face-paced existence and into the La-La Land of the 'burbs.

(Wait for it:) 

Within two months of learning that we were expecting, a "For Sale" sign was slapped on our urban-core bungalow (it's a serial obsession, this bungalow thing), and we bid farewell to the inner-city life I had fought so fervently to preserve in exchange for ... another bungalow in quiet neighborhood (albeit as close to the city as was possible -- I'm not totally done for yet, I tell you!) with big trees, a ginormous yard ...  and a Target.

All for the boy.  

And so it began, the ultimate antithesis of all self-fulfilled prophecies. I went from being against motherhood (for myself -- I said more power to all of you mamas-in-waiting, of course!), to falling madly in love with one child and wanting to keep it this way forever (not to mention being utterly unable to fathom how in God's great name anyone would ever opt to do this more than once!!), to watching him grow like a ferocious little weed in his first year of life and freaking out about it at every turn of every new month.

Now, here on the brink of Kai's first birthday, I am more overwhelmed by the fleeting nature of our existence, and, also, in disbelief of my own transformation, because: I think I want another baby.


Stay tuned for the conclusion of the blogisode, "A Manifesto of the MicroCosmic Mama," because I sorely lack in brevity and am pretty sure blogs are conventionally less than 234,353 words each.