I’m typing an instant message, responding to our sales assistant, with one hand and scrawling a note with the other - Thursday, 6:00, dinner with T?

I’m talking to my good friend Tammy, making dinner plans for us and our kids for Thursday night.

“That sounds really good,”I say into the phone and my stomach panics a bit as I think - can I make it out of work and out to dinner by 6?  What about my boyfriend, he’ll be on his own.  I have two columns due and I wanted to work on that freelance stuff Thursday.  Maybe I’ll wake up early Friday instead, get some stuff done.

“It’ll be really good to see you guys,”Tammy says brightly into the phone,”Ash has been asking about Nolan, it’s been weeks and she misses him.”

“Aww,” I say and I think about the fact that my fridge contains only half a container of banana peppers and a handful of blueberries.  There might be a rotten cucumber in the produce department.  Grocery shopping will have to wait too.”We”ll see you Thursday at 6:00.”

When I hang up the phone and close off my IM conversation, I open up my email: 27 unread, 4 requiring immediate action, 2 very important proposals are perilously close to being overdue.  I think about the fact that the towel rack needs to be hung and I have a major ant war going down in the kitchen.  Even though I really do want to see my friend and her daughter, I’m already thinking of ways I can get out of it.  There’s just too much to do.

***

I’ve always had a tendency to overcommit, and I fear I’ve gained a sometimes flaky reputation because of it.  My intentions are good: I don’t want to disappoint people, I want to be a good friend, I want to take on that extra piece of freelance work and do a bang-up job for an acquaintance who’s given me an opportunity.  I want to make a salmon dinner for my boyfriend while engaging my 4-year-old and sporting lean legs. I aspire to be an earnest, reliable friend to all the girlfriends who’ve been so good to me.

I hate saying no.  I feel inherently that I can somehow squish 40 hours worth of stuff into a 24 hour period.  And then I realize, for the umpteenth time, that I cannot.  That I have disappointed someone again.  It’s worse since I became a single Mom, and often I feel like I have to choose one: friends, boyfriend, son, or work.  If I try to spread myself out between all four, I become pretty useless to any of them.

***

On Thursday at 5, I have a 6 figure proposal due in an hour.  I haven’t yet gone to get my son at daycare, and my fridge is still perilously empty.  I’m guilty because I didn’t get to my run yet today, and really I don’t have the excess cash to be spending on dinner in a restaurant for Nolan and I.  I grit my teeth and feel awful and, inevitably, pick up my phone.

“Tammy…”I say.

“I know. It’s OK.  Next week.”she says sweetly, used to my cancellations and perpetually forgiving.  She’s a single Mom too, but somehow she never flakes on me.  I want to know how she does it but I fear it’s simple: she doesn’t over commit.  I have to learn that one, and it might take me some time.

I spent the majority of last week at the BlogHer Conference in Chicago.  Though I’m a blogger myself and interested in maximizing my own personal opportunities in the space, I was there for business.  I have worked for BlogHer for three years now, selling digital advertising to agencies and Fortune 500 companies.  It is the best career I’ve ever had, and I love it, in large part, because I am wholly excited about what I sell.

Marketers, more than ever, have realized that Moms are the primary decision makers in household purchasing decisions.  And they know that many of these women have turned away from TV, radio, and newspapers in favor of the Internet.  In particular: Moms have turned to blogs as a way of understanding, absorbing, sharing and relating.  And the big brands, in turn, are looking for a way to reach these women who write blogs, and who read them.  I feel privileged that I have both the knowledge and the opportunity to help connect companies with the audiences of the smart, tech savvy women who are paving new paths with their writing about parenting, products, relationships and life.

But I’m also a little worried about the possibility that these Moms - whose attention is so very coveted by these big brands - might be sabotaging their golden power of influence by overreacting to marketer’s attempts to reach them.

***

I woke up early on Sunday morning at the Conference to respond to email and peruse through the trending topics at Twitter when I saw conversation that made me suck in my breath.  A few tweets told me quickly of a happening at the Conference: a Mom blogger had attempted to take her baby to a Nikon invite-only event, and had been turned away - the event was at a bar: a cocktail party.  The Mom was offended and apparently so were dozens of other Moms - so much so that they initiated a hashtag to aggregate the conversation - #nikonhatesbabies.

As someone who works in the digital ad space to sell marketing on Mom blogs, I obviously have both a bias and a vested interest here.  I want my customers to see Mom bloggers and their audiences as savvy and valuable.  I want them to see Mom bloggers as business women as well as lucrative spokespeople.  When I see stuff like this, I cringe: it makes me wonder if companies will stop attempting to outreach to us, if they will eventually dismiss us as too dangerous, vocal and shrill.  We’re such a diverse group, we Mom bloggers - but I still feel we all have a responsibility to conduct ourselves professionally and with integrity.  Labelling a company as “baby hating” because they denied an infant entry to a cocktail party seems to me a giant mis-step.

***

Chris from Notes from the Trenches has a brilliant post on this subject, and I particularly like Kristen’s, too.  My own opinion is this: Nikon invited Mom bloggers to their event in hope that they would woo the women as writers, as business women, as consumers.  The fact that they did not allow a baby at a cocktail reception was not a personal attack on Motherhood, and I wish the offended parties could have contacted Nikon via email or phone to rectify the situation if it was that offensive to them.  I believe the punishment in this case is much worse than the crime, and has the potential to hurt the reputation of Mommy bloggers as savvy business women - as well as fierce adorers of our babies.

My phone vibrates on my desk, and a picture of my son on a mossy tree stump lights up the display.  It’s my ex, my son’s Father, calling.

“Hello?” I say warily, bringing the receiver to my ear.  My friends all tell me they know immediately when Nolan’s father calls, they say a wary tiredness overtakes my voice.  I’m working on that. “Hi!” I try again.

“I’m going away next weekend,”he informs me,”Friday, back Sunday night.”

“Oh,”I say,”Well, OK.”

But it’s not like he was asking my permission.  He was informing me: he’s going away for the weekend so I’d better swap out any plans I may have had: I’ll now have our son for the weekend.

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I sat at the desk near the front entrance to my small, mildly dilapidated little home. The late winter sun was harsh and unrelenting and hurt my eyeballs from the outside in.  I remember: the dust on my computer monitor, the piles of tear-stained kleenexes littering the top of my desk.  Paper in disarray and files scattered, a two-day old plate of untouched toast near the monitor.

“You’re not coming home, ever, are you?”

I’d whispered it into the phone but I already knew the answer and though I had asked him to leave, though I needed time, I wasn’t sure that I was ready for the consequences of the inevitable permanent divide.

“I don’t know.  No, I don’t think so.”

I thought about our son: not even 2 years old.  I thought about the past four years: Amsterdam, concerts, beer nights and snowboarding.  I thought about the shrill fighting, alcohol, money, responsibility, pettiness.  I thought about myself: at 30 years old, a single Mom, disengaged, struggling.  A statistic.

Two years ago I’d been engaged to a beautiful man, a baby growing inside me.  Outwardly we were so happy: young, employed, laughing.  The fragility of that glass castle amazed me, and I remember putting my head down on the paper, the tissue, the hardness of the desk, to cry.

***

I worried about my son, of course, about the adjustment to a one-parent home, about a life with a half-time Dad.  But I also stressed about my future.  I foresaw in my bitter glass ball: chinchillas, maybe a few birds, a puffy pink housecoat and a grimy abode.  Maybe, I thought, I’d get lucky and one of my friends would end up solo too, in older age, and we could cook each other feta cheese and pickle sandwiches and lie about the fact that our butts had dissolved into dimpled pancakes.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking about men.  I didn’t want to feel the pain of heartbreak ever again and the thought of it being my son and I for the next 30 years was all right for me.  Painful.  But all right.

But as the years dripped on - one, two - I started to “see” men again.  I started to miss their companionship, humor, and unabashed appreciation for soft clothes and a homemade meal.   But I really believed that I was a pariah - that my son was a breathing indication of the fact that I’d had successful (not to mention unprotected) sex with another man.  What man wants to see that, every time he looks at his woman?  I understood that biologically, and intrinsically.  It made me wistful.

***

I’ve now been juggling work, dating, and my son for over a year and a half.  What I have discovered is this: a child is not necessarily “baggage” to the right man.  In fact: Nolan’s presence in my life has negated the necessity for me to weed out the bad eggs.  Men who are willing to take me on must be willing to take my son on, too - and it serves as an automatic filter, of sorts.

I am attracting a different kind of man these days than I used to - better and kinder and I think my son is the reason.  These men don’t see my son as a manifestation of another man - but rather as a sweeter, more naive extension of me.  The good ones - the awesome one I’m with now - is as eager to be liked by my son as he is by me.

It amazes me that our darkest days often represent the beginning of the pivotal climb to the brightest ones. 

I arrived at Nolan’s daycare this morning, late and whirl-winded as always, clutching my son’s bicycle helmet and a Spiderman lunchbag shamefully including Zoodles.  Again.  I took off his boots and put on his horrendous indoor Crocs and signed him in as I watched him run to his playmates out of the corner of my eye.

I put down the lunch bag and watched him hug Helen, the cheery young teacher with the gorgeous Spanish accent.  She hugged him back, warmly, and I thought - man, am I glad we’re done with all the drop off crying.

I exchanged pleasantries with the teachers and turned around to see a handwritten sign on the door.  It was signed by Rosie, one of three providers at my son’s daycare, and his very favorite.

I scanned the note and my heart sunk: Rosie had accepted another job.  Her last day would be Friday.  She wished all her buddies very well, and thanked all the parents for welcoming her with such open arms.

She’d only been at this daycare for 6 months, an Irish transplant with an infectious smile and a warm spirit.  She was always special to my son, who took to her sweet, motherly ways immediately.  Nolan often talked about Rosie and the songs she sings and the books she reads: she’d won his heart and so she’d won mine too.

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I attended the pirate party of a 4-year-old classmate of my son on the weekend, a fete filled with Spiderman face painting, sickly sweet ice cream cake, and pint sized hooligans with eyeballs rolled back in ecstatic delight at the prospect of manic, unbridled carousing with other small humans.

I never know whether to drop my son off or hover at these events, and since I didn’t know the hosting Mom outside of vacant “hello’s!” at daycare drop off, I folded myself awkwardly into a chair on the sidelines of the gym and set to work inspecting my Blackberry, social pariah style.

Another Mom soon plopped down beside me, and I recognized her as the Mother of Oliver, a sweet-natured kid who always has a smile and a hug for my son. She’d been at a previous birthday party with me, and we’d exchanged pleasantries about our careers, lives, hobbies.

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At the moment, just at my entrance point to my mid-thirties - I am in the best shape of my life. This is foreign to me, and a little maddening, because I think: why didn’t I love my body when I was 22 and didn’t have to work to have a nice jean bum? How, when I was 18, did I ever think my body wasn’t suitable for a bikini? (hint: I had a diminutive chest that, at the time, shamed me. Now I love it because small things get hassled by gravity a little later than giant water bomb things, and also kind of look better in dresses.)

I was inspired last summer at the BlogHer Conference, when I met Linda for the second time in “real life” and she talked about putting together a fitness site. Wicked, I thought, awesome. If anyone can inspire people that they can look better than ever after babies, it’s Linda - who shredded herself into shape after her second born solely via do-it-yourself methods.

I was in pretty crap shape after my split with my son’s father. I subsisted on black coffee and jittery adrenaline, an occasional handful of Dorito’s. By the time I was ready to do something for myself, get really in shape, it was almost two years post-split. I was skinny, gaunt, with little folds of fat in inopportune places: on my arms and hanging from my legs. My stomach was flat but soft and bloated, I essentially looked like hell.

In January of this year, I wrote down that I needed to get in shape. Since then, 5 days a week, no matter what, I make time to exercise. I’ll run half an hour or two hours - and if I really don’t have time at all and I need to combat the internal protests that, god this proposal is due and prospecting is needed - I’ll just slip in Ye Olde Jillan Michaels Standby - because twenty minutes is the time I would otherwise take for a coffee break.

But I realize I’m a bit of an anomaly. Because I primarily work from home, I can go on a 45 minute run at lunch. I generally do a loop around my neighborhood, past the marina and sometimes up through the forest paths. And I can come back to my office - at home - and sit down in my sweaty yoga pants and get right back to work. No one glares at me because of my ill smell, and I don’t feel self conscious that my hair is in plasticky wet tendrils on my red-flushed face. When I’m swamped, I work straight through to 5 and don’t even bother showering to pick up my son. That’s what deodorant is for. Plus, it’s daycare, not a board meeting.

I realize I couldn’t work out this way if I worked in an office job downtown. I’d have to shower after or at least take the 20 extra minutes to make myself presentable. And the thought of interacting with people face to face after I’ve killed myself on hills outside in the sun - well - I’d rather just deal with people by phone, and via email.

So I’m curious, Single Moms - do you exercise consistently? How do you make time? Is this something you’d be willing to do at all costs, even if it means hiring a babysitter 3 nights a week so you can kickbox? Even though I know I have it good, I’m always looking for time saving tips to magnify these muscles.

I have a recently divorced friend who blames the breakup of his marriage on the demise of the stay-at-home housekeeping Mom.

“I think the model just worked better,”he explained,” Back in the boomer days. When Mom stayed home with the kids and Dad brought home the bacon.”

My pal is not a misogynist in any way, so I just remained silent and looked at him curiously.

“There was no resentment about making the bed and packing the lunches,”he said,”Because it was balanced by the fact that Daddy’s bringing home the bacon.  Now, often, Mom and Dad both bring home the bacon, but Mom’s expected to cook it and then clean the dishes and Dad still kinda wants to hang on the couch after dinner with his socks balled up on the floor and… it’s messed with everything.”

“Hmm.” I said, considering,”Huh.”

And I wondered: is it true that in this Generation, Moms are bringing home as much bacon as Dad?  What impact does that have on divorce, family balance, and career success?

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Here are a few of the gifts the last two years have bestowed:

• A small boy with pudgy hands and an orange Popsicle streaked face, morphing astonishingly fast into a boy.
• Innumerable walks through sloping muddy forest paths, on various quests for slugs and peet moss, the perfect sun slant through the trees.
• Sorbet for dinner, cheese for dessert, imaginary dragons in fortresses made of sheets, my imagination ignited by the power and force of his.
• An endless number of books, stacked in piles on our knees: hours of reading about Andrew’s Loose Tooth or Stinky Socks while we huddle under cool blue sheets, listening to the rain pelt outside and feeling our fingers inter-wrapped, contentedly.

Those are a just a small sampling of the wonder  I’ve experienced in the last two years of my life: my life spent as a single Mother.

I’m accustomed to being the only Mom at the parent/child floor hockey shinnies. I’m content to sit solo at the pool’s edge at 5:30 on Thursdays,  while my son dives for rings and emerges exuberant.  I’ve mastered the craft of cooking dinner for 1.5, and subsisting surprisingly well on wilted salad remains and mildly regurgitated avocado sandwiches.  I love being a Mom, I am astonished by how much I love my boy.  The experiences we’ve had together, me as his solo Mama and he as my affable Sidekick will stay with me forever.  These years will go down in my Life Book as the most probable reason for my life’s meaning.

But.

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My separation from my son’s Father was far from amicable: there were mediators, lawyers, harsh words and tears. Finally, there was silence and quiet despair, the tangible leftovers of wreckage: dry mouth, a diminished appetite for anything but bed. There was a period of time that spanned over a year where the two of us exchanged almost no words. Monthly visitation was a horror: cockles were raised, hands clenched, each of us teetering on the verge of curse words, imaginary jabs, tears.

Two years into the split, and things are markedly better. There is still tension, of course, but there is also occasional affability: sometimes there’s even a shared chuckle. On Wednesday mornings, I arrive at his home to snooze on the couch until our son wakes up, so my ex can get to an early start at work. He lets me take his dog for runs with me — my ex-dog, actually, the canine we both love.

There aren’t many things the two of us have done that well together (besides help create our astonishingly cool little boy) - but one area we’ve excelled at is respect, when it comes to one another’s love lives. I know my ex has had girlfriends since our split. We have mutual friends and I’ve reluctantly listened to breathless recounts of his conquests. And, he would likely know that I’ve also dipped my toe in the dating scene - all he would have to do is google my name and this column would come up. But he doesn’t care to know, and neither do I. If he is visiting a girlfriend, he says he’s with a “friend.” If I’m on a date, I say I’m going grocery shopping. We don’t care to pour salt into each other’s wounds by flaunting our sex lives in each other’s faces, and for that, really, I’m proud of us.

We are moving upward, onward: it’s true that the opposite of hate is apathy. I actually kind of hope for love for him again, I think it softens people. In any case, falling in love is never a horrible thing. We’re not exactly comrades, but we’re tentatively polite and that’s a great start. Enough of a start, I wonder, to be his Facebook friend?

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