The eagle has landed. The ducks are in the pond.

It's taken a long time to get to this point--I can finally turn in my Bizarro-Beeyotch card and just be Beeyotch. Pregnancy and postpartum issues have taken up about the last year of my life, and I'm now beginning to come to the other side of it all. I'm still just me. I always thought I'd be a different person as a mom but I'm just me with an attachment. But not the kind of attachment that makes you more efficient and useful, like a vacuum cleaner.

I have postponed blogging for two reasons: I had a paper to avoid, and whenever I'm avoiding a paper I can't in good conscience blog. I'd rather beat myself up for being unproductive. In my defense--I have had something attached to me (see above). The more significant reason I put off blogging was that I wanted to write about being a mom but not come off sounding trite. I hate obnoxious blanket statements about having children and it seems like that's all I could come up with. In general, I hate blanket statements but I'm even more averse now that I've spent nearly a year receiving horrid advice and commentary about being pregnant, being in labor, and having children. More dreadful is the realization that this little attachment comes with a sign that says "please give me your uninvited and unhelpful comments " and so they will continue to follow me with unsolicited advice for many, many years to come. I'm beginning to sound angry. Damn. For a long time I could at least blame it on the hormones. Now I might just have to face the fact that I'm just a little mean. And bitter.

But I digress.

Today I turned in the paper and with that completed my graduate degree. I always imagined there would be more fanfare when I finally finished up-- like there would at least be whiskey involved. But it was just an empty office in an empty building, me with my little constipated attachment. And then the little guy smiled at me and I was happy to have someone to share the moment with. I mean, I can't rightly share whiskey with him.