I love the smell of soccer field in the morning.

Magazine editors always want me to end sweet. That’s why the original ending for yesterday’s “What I Miss Most…”  post here on MommaBlog was “…having an entire day without kids – and not missing them terribly!”

Barf.

I guess it’s their way of atoning for letting me rake motherhood across the coals. Yet every once in a while, I wonder if they’re right.

After I tweeted yesterday’s post, encouraging other moms to join in the scrum and share their own lists of what they miss most now that they’re mothers, one comment stood out. Among the hilarious (”my waist”), the oh-so-true (”sleep”) and the amen, sistah (”not hearing my own voice on repeat for an entire day”) was the sweet I hadn’t posted. My neighbor Grace wrote on my Facebook page:

“What I miss the most about not having babies anymore: 1. buying clothes for my kids without them having their own opinion about what to wear 2. being asked to cuddle at night 3. the new baby smell.”

Immediately, I thought, Awwwww, followed by Grace must be tired of teendom, and finally, Now I look like an ingrateful, whiny mom. Gee, thanks Grace. See if I offer to carpool your kids again.

And then I got over myself. After all, I’d provided a place for moms to vent, because that’s what MommaSaid is all about. A little validation, and attempts to make coffee come out of your nose now and then. But sometimes I wonder if all these light-hearted (and sometimes, rather dark) jabs at motherhood hide my reality:  I’m a better person since I became a mom.  Less selfish, more caring, better at removing stains from the sofa.

That’s not to say that people without kids are somehow not as good people as parents are. It’s that I wasn’t as good a person without kids. And that makes me proud and also, a little frightened.

I love having a backyard full of kids who are sledding, building forts or kicking soccer balls around. I love coaching my son’s soccer team, and I love listening to my 12-year-old compose songs on his tricked-out keyboard just outside my home office door. I love talking to my eight-year-old neighbor, Jacob, about his guinea pig, and hearing about my niece Erin’s birthday trip into Manhattan with a bunch of other 14-year-old girls and my brother. (Sucker.)  I love kids.

But not babies. Not so much. So I couldn’t relate to what Grace misses about her four babies, because I don’t pine for the sleep-deprived, colicky, cranky years. Hence, “What I Miss Most….” And though I sobbed uncontrollably the first time I left my firstborn, then eight-months-old, with my mother-in-law for a weekend, I got over it as soon as I had an entire night of uninterrupted sleep for the first time in what seemed like forever. Sure, I missed my baby, but not really all that “terribly.” It was 48 hours, people.  We all got over it.

Now that my kids are tweens, with one on the cusp of that teendom Grace seems less than enamored over 24-7, I’m more content with motherhood. Now I can look back and see how rushing my son, bleeding from the head from a whack of a hockey stick, courtesy of his little brother, to the ER, made me more capable. How enduring reading plot-less books like “Airport Trucks” again, Mommy! made me more patient. How not having the time to shave both legs on the same day made me more selfless. How worrying that my kids might grow up without me as I battled cancer, more courageous.

Perhaps motherhood made a man out of me. Or, er, you know what I mean. It made me grow up, just as soon as I swore to never again to have my mom come over and watch the baby because I had what amounted to a head cold. (Who was the real baby that day?) Motherhood taught me to suck it up and take charge, and it forced me to put myself last…and that’s the part that frightens me. My entire world, from my work-at-home business to my mini-van filled with camping equipment for a Boy Scouts trip I didn’t even attend, revolves around my children. Who am I without them? What kind of person will I be when they leave home?

A well-rested one with far less laundry, that’s what kind. C’mon. You didn’t think I’d end sweet, did you?

Share, share, that’s fair: What did motherhood do for you?

For the newish moms out there:

What I miss most is…
…using my tweezers on my eyebrows, instead of using them to retrieve Barbie’s shoes from the heating grate.

…dreaming long enough to find out whether George Clooney wears boxers or briefs.

…having an entire conversation that has nothing to do with poop. Aw, geez! There it is again.

…accessorizing with jewelry and scarves, rather than marker and what appears to be butternut squash & corn.

…dashing out with my car keys and some Chapstick, instead of packing up like the traveling circus just to go to the mall.

…showering without someone opening the door and handing me the phone while saying, “Some lady wants to talk to you.”

…to read a book anywhere but my car, because the baby naps only in her car seat.

…reaching the bottom of the laundry pile. For days.

…my purse, which I haven’t seen since I bought the diaper bag.

…non-animated television programs.

…sauntering through parking lots, supermarkets and Target without having to shout, “Stay by Mommy!”

…sex.

…uninterrupted telephone conversations. And, did I say sex?

Share, share, that’s fair: Tell us–What do you miss, Mom?

Need more giggles like that? There’s plenty of them in Jen Singer’s Stop Second-Guessing Yourself parenting series. Filled with helpful and funny quotes by MommaSaid.net’s fans and loads of advice and humor by MommaSaid’s founder, Jen Singer, you’ll get what you need — just as soon as you can hide in the bathroom long enough to read a few pages.

For more information on where to buy them, visit My Books.

Order your copy of Jen Singer’s Stop Second-Guessing Yourself — The Preschool Years, available now at a bookseller near you and online.

Share with us your favorite red thing in the comments below for your chance to win this Go Red package from the American Heart Association.

I don’t jump behind just any old cause. Besides, you know my “thing” is cancer, because, well, my thing was cancer. But then this came across my in-box, and I just had to get involved.

• More women die of cardiovascular disease than the next five causes of death combined, including all forms of cancer.
• 90% of women have one or more risk factors for developing heart disease.
• Heart disease is largely preventable. In fact, 80% of cardiac events in women may be prevented if women make the right choices for their hearts involving diet, exercise and abstinence from smoking

So, we’re wearing the proverbial red today at MommaSaid by giving away something red, including:

 • The American Heart Association’s book Complete Guide to Women’s Heart Health: The Go Red For Women Way to Well-being and Vitality
• Go Red For Women Yoga Mat
• Go Red For Women Water Bottle
• Go Red For Women Notepad
• Go Red For Women Signature Red Dress Pin

For your chance to win, post a comment with your favorite red thing by midnight tonight. (Keep it clean, folks. I won’t post the dirty stuff, because my niece reads my blog.) Open to US citizens only, please.  A winner will be chosen at random through random.org, a random number generator, sometime tomorrow when I’m snowed in here. Happy Wear Red Day to you all, even if you go pink instead because red doesn’t look good on your complexion.

Pass it on!

My hospital room view, only here it's from my car in traffic on the FDR Drive.

I made a deal with the Sun: You keep rising every morning from behind the smokestacks that hover over the buildings on Roosevelt Island, and I’ll fight another day.

And then every morning I’d wait, watching the waves on the East River, at first a deep, midnight blue, and then solid gray, and finally, brownish gray as the Sun kept its promise to me. I’d slide off my bed, careful not to yank out the tubes carrying the orange drugs into my arm, and roll my chemo pole into the bathroom.

The Sun was up, and so was I. As promised. But my end of the bargain was harder to keep.

“You made it all look not so bad,” a friend recently told me. She was referring to my chronicle of my fight with cancer, on GoodHousekeeping.com and here on MommaSaid.net. Ah, but that was in real time when I had to convince everyone around me that everything would be alright — when I had to convince myself. Besides, I had a deal with the Sun.

But the nights were hard. At night, there were no visitors. Well, except for one 10 p.m. appearance by my oncologist and, of course, the nurses who brought me my pain killers, changed my chemo bags and woke me up to take my blood pressure. (Really now. Why?) Late at night, there were no phone calls, and I couldn’t risk waking up my roommate by turning on the TV to lose myself in the oh-so-tragic ongoing coverage of Paris Hilton’s jail sentence. (Twenty-three days? Boo-hoo, Paris. Boo-hoo.)

At night, there was just me and cancer, and hours until the Sun would come up again.

Conventional wisdom says that people who have a “good attitude” during cancer — the fighters, the entertainers, the smilers in the face of adversity — have a better shot at surviving. This fighter believes that’s a terrible burden to put on someone who is so very sick. Let us break down. Let us let go. Let us cry. Let us lean on you until we summon up enough strength to face another day – with or without the Sun.

I have a theory that people either have “The Know” or they don’t. The Know is a to-the-core understanding of how very close we are to losing our lives every single day. It comes from having been near death or from watching someone else close to you go through a tragedy or leave us altogether. It’s a real-life experience of the Sword of Damocles story, wondering when the horse hair will break.

It’s The Know that makes it that much harder to fight, and yet, that much more worthwhile. It’s losing your innocence all at once, rather than in bits and pieces over a lifetime. But it’s also the reason to push forward, however hard that may be, a reason to face another day. It’s what separates the fighters from the people who don’t make deals with the Sun.

So go ahead, fighters. Show them the good attitude. Smile. Laugh. Wait for the Sun to rise outside your window. And when it does, know that you’re not alone. Not now, not ever. Not here in The Know.

Author’s Note: I wrote this for my friend Amy’s mother, who is battling cancer now. She spent the holidays and much of January in the hospital, and is slated to return soon for a stem cell transplant. Her hospital bed overlooks Lake Michigan, facing the sunrise. This one’s for her, and for my neighbors Mitch and Nicole, who are in the big fight now.

I just got back from Kansas City last night, so while I play catch-up, I’m going to post this classic MommaSaid post about the time I dyed my hair red. Of course, back then I had no idea I’d end up bald in a few years and longing for red hair — any hair. But it’s still a fun one. At the end, please tell us your biggest hair salon mistake…

by Jen Singer

“You look like you need a guitar,” my brother told me when he spotted my newly dyed red hair. “And leather pants.”

My hair wasn’t that red. Not Johnny Rotten red. Not “Lucy, you got some ’splainin’ to do” red. But still quite different from my usual drab postpartum brown with blond highlights. And that was the point. I wanted to be somebody else – or at least look like somebody else – so I dyed my hair red for the first time. Soon, however, I’d realize it would be the last.

My hairstylist said I’d stop traffic with my new hair color. And I did. When I left the salon, a van full of construction workers stopped to let me cross the street. When I got home, my neighbor pulled her car over to ogle. “Wow! Cool hair!” she shouted. I smiled nervously: She had spotted my new ‘do from as far as 500 yards away. Oh no. What had I done?

I simply wanted to feel like somebody else for a while. Not a predictable suburban mom with a mini-van full of kids making fart noises with their armpits. Not one of a dozen moms in worn-out Keds waiting for Kiddie Kamp to let out. Not the woman extracting Silly Putty from the door locks. Not me.

So when my hair stylist suggested I “go red,” I thought about it for a month, and, when I returned to the salon, it still seemed like a good idea. But my family didn’t agree.

“Mommy? Why is your hair orange?” my four-year-old asked. “Does my hair look funny?” I replied. My six-year-old answered, “If it was funny, I’d be
laughing.”

My mother-in-law said, “Somehow, red hair just doesn’t go with blue eyes.” I let the comment slide, grateful we weren’t in an Irish bar when she said it.

My father asked, “What the hell did you do that for?” I took this to be a rhetorical question, and didn’t answer it.

Most men I knew averted their eyes, as though looking directly into my hair would burn their corneas. Men I didn’t know flirted with me like frat boys at spring break.

Women loved it. “Hey, Red!” friends shouted. Soon, I became a veritable celebrity at the community lake. “I wouldn’t have the guts to do it,” women admitted. “Good for you.”

But it wasn’t good for my wardrobe. My hair clashed with my pink shirts, teal bathing suits and red jackets. I had to switch from “Rambling Rose” lipstick to “Coffee Bean.” A friend commiserated, “Oh, I went copper once, too. You can only wear black, brown and copper with it.” But I don’t wear brown. If I liked brown, I’d have left my hair brown. And “Coffee Bean” is brown.

Every now and then, I’d forget I had red hair, only to be jolted back into reality by passing in front of a mirror. It was like finishing an engrossing conversation at a Halloween party, then remembering, “Oh, yeah, I’m Princess Leah.”

Then at the beach one day, I spotted a woman with coppery red hair like mine. She was wearing a classy black bathing suit, which she accessorized with ample gold jewelry. She sat in her beach chair, thumbing through a copy of Vogue with manicured fingers, ignoring her kids’ plea to join them in the water.

Suddenly, a woman with “dirty blond” hair bopped by in her sky blue tankini. Now there’s someone I could play beach volleyball with, I thought. There’s someone like me. The redhead reading about Manolo Blahniks was not me, even if she looked like me.

And that’s when I realized I didn’t like having my hair red, either. It was somewhat sophisticated and maybe a little wild — and I’m not. I had gotten my wish: I looked like somebody else. But I missed me.

After a while, the red started to wash out of my hair. Women stopped congratulating me. Men stopped flirting with me. And my mother-in-law seemed relieved when my blonde highlights starting showing through.

I took a risk and, for a little while, it paid off (unless, of course, you ask my father). But it wasn’t my hair color that broke me from my suburban housewife mold. It was the act of trying to be different, to shake things up a bit, to do what no one expected me to do. And while I won’t dye my hair red again, I won’t go back to my old drab brown, either. But I wouldn’t mind
stopping traffic once in a while.

Share, share, that’s fair: Tell us your biggest hair salon mistake.

Honestly, I don't know how I found time to launch this web site in the first place, but I'm glad I did. Thank you for continuing to visit. Hey, can you carry this?

Seven years ago today — tonight actually, because I hadn’t yet learned how to program HTML on my own and needed Pete to push the buttons – I posted MommaSaid.net for the very first time. It wasn’t really a blog then, but some funny stories, a few photos and the very first Housewife Award®, given to my neighbor Nancy for playing peekaboo every day at the school bus stop – behind the one and only tree.

Now seven years later, MommaSaid has blogs, written by some of the best darn freelance writers in the country, videos and, as of yesterday, 172 Housewife Award winners. It also has information about my books – five of them, so far — and a press room where you can watch some of my TV appearances.

Most importantly, MommaSaid has fans, some who are new and some who have been here since the night I pushed POST for the very first time. You’ve sent in your funny stories, shared your advice for my Stop Second-Guessing Yourself books, and you supported me through the worst year of my life.

So, I’m going to thank you here proudly and publicly. I’m going to post some classic MommaSaid stories below, but first, I’m going to have coffee with you. Or at least some of you — there is a recession, you know. The first 20 people to post a Happy Birthday message to MommaSaid below get a $15 gift card to Starbucks, courtesy of MommaSaid. I was going to offer up seven for the 7th birthday, but I thought I’d spread the love a little more because I’ve loved hanging out with you all here.

Thanks so much, and here’s to another fun year at MommaSaid.net.

POTTIES IN HEAVEN CLASSICS

Three-Armed Robbers

Thanks to DeAnn Kichline of Banning, California, for this story:
One night, DeAnn had the news on TV. A news alert announced there was a car chase in progress.
The newscaster said, “There were three armed robbers in the vehicle.”

Her son looked up and asked, “Are there really people with three arms?”

Bees Wax

Thanks to Tracy Suter of Palm Coast, Florida, for this story:
Tracy works at a children’s hands on museum, where they explain to school groups
that one way to make candles is from beeswax.

One day, a second grader raised her hand and asked, “How do they get the wax out of the bees’ ears?”

Lies, Lies, Lies

Thanks to Julia Jaman of Brooklyn, New York, for this story:
Julia noticed some artwork in her five-year-old daughter Shana’s room
on a couple of places it didn’t belong, such as her couch.

When Julia asked whether she made those pretty pictures,
Shana shook her head “no.” Julia said, “Shana, we don’t lie
in this house.” Shana replied, “And do we lie in a different house?”

Share your stories!

Andrea Summerville of B'Cara Salon trying to make me look like my eyelashes are naturally long for Park Place Magazine.

“What other rooms would you like to shoot in?” the magazine photographer asked me this morning, sweeping her hand toward my family room.

“Uh, well, this is the room I cleaned,” I said, thinking about the little papers from my shredder strewn pretty much all over my office floor and the dining room filled with remnants of The Great Closet Clean-out of 2010.

When she finished taking my photo on the couch, I let her photograph my kids and me in the living room. I didn’t have to move the tape dispensers, which was nice, and nobody reading the magazine article about me and “Mom 2.0″ will see the Pee Wee Herman doll sitting on the coffee table. Not this time, anyhow.

I’d never have predicted when I lauched MommaSaid.net seven years ago this week that I’d one day have my hair and makeup done in the middle of my kitchen for a magazine article. Or that CBS would send out a camera crew to my house — several times. Or that the Associated Press would care about what I have to say about all things motherhood.

Back then, nobody had put together the words “mommy” and “blogger.” Facebook was a year from starting up on the campus of Harvard University, and “tweeting” was something only birds did. I think we actually went hours, perhaps even a day or two, without checking e-mail. It was practically the dark ages of web 2.0.

I’d launched my web site in part because I thought it would help me build an audience that would some day buy my first book, when I got around to writing it. Besides, I was lonely and a little crazed, having just survived the colicky “Don’t-put-that-in-your-mouth” years. I found motherhood to be rewarding, yes, but also taxing, and I thought it was high time somebody said that out loud — and on the Internet. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that other mothers felt the same way.

Over the years, I heard from moms around the world who were happy to have a place to get a virtual pat on the back and a giggle. We laughed together, we cried together, we watched our kids reach middle school together. By the time the grown-ups took over Facebook (fastest growing segment: women over 40),  social media had made it so much easier to build a community online that hundreds of thousands of moms had started their own blogs. And we all felt a little less alone.

It has been the golden age of the mom blogger, and it still is. Marketers woo us and moms depend on us to make sense of their poop-filled days, the boo-boos, the carpools, the math homework and puberty. We get free swag from companies who hope we’ll write about their products, receive invites for luncheons from PR firms, and we get interviewed by the very mainstream media that seemed to think back in the day that what we did was a cute hobby.

Maybe it was, but not anymore.

But where do we go from here? What happens to the mom blogger when the kids get older and move out? Though I’m certain that a new generation of mom bloggers will fill in where we leave off, I wonder if the novelty of it all will wear off. Or will we simply be known as the pioneers of a phenomenon that keeps on going long after our kids have their own children? And who will do my hair and makeup then?

The last seven years at MommaSaid have been a wild ride. I had no idea when I launched it in the basement of my house, back when my kids weren’t in school at the same time and I had to learn HTML to post anything, that  it would become a part of a great movement shared with so many talented writers and vloggers. Or that the one book I’d aspired to would become five…so far. But I do know that I’m ready to keep on sharing the good, the bad and the ugly of motherhood just as long as there’s still something to say.

Share, share, that’s fair: What do you think mom bloggers will write about when the kids leave home?

Looking for some great mommy blogs? Here are just a few of my many favorites:

Alice Bradley of Finslippy
Daphne Brogdon of CoolMom.com
Dawn Meehan of Because I Said So
Lenore Skenazy of FreeRangeKids.com
Lisa Belkin of the Motherlode at The New York Times
Liz Gumbinner of Mom-101
Rebecca Woolf of Girl’s Gone Child
Ree Drummond of Confessions of a Pioneer Woman
Stephanie Wilder-Taylor of Baby on Bored

PLUS: All of MommaSaid’s fine and fabulous bloggers over at Linger. (Don’t miss a thing. Subscribe to the RSS feed.)