As I sit in bed with my 2 year old daughter at ten o clock at night watching So You Think You Can Dance, it strikes me that I have lost the battle. Isn't the next line supposed to be but I've won the war? It sure doesn't feel like that after two hours of trying to get her to bed. It feels like I have lost the battle, the war, and the upper hand. Nothing in my life has ever frustrated me as much as trying to get my daughter to sleep. It's partly my fault because I set it up for myself. Once she's asleep, my life can begin. Once she's asleep, I can have a reward. Be it edible or televised it's my hard earned reward. Sometimes it's the dreadful reward of paying bills but even to have a minute alone to do that feels slightly satisfying. On those nights where her bedtime ritual resembles that of the drawn-out end of a monster movie in which the same cycle of "we're ok, oh,no we're not" mirrors my "she's asleep, oh, no she's not." My blood begins to boil and she knows it and plays it, delaying my precious few alone hours. Every time I think she's asleep and I curl up on the couch, out she comes out of her room startling me like a real life Chucky. I put her in bed, she gets out of bed, I put her back in bed, and she gets back out of bed. I think we know where this is going. Nowhere. Futility. I feel like my life has become some sort of existential nightmare in which every hour I must put my kids to sleep. Consecutively. One wakes up, one goes to sleep, one wakes up... It's some odd version of Waiting For Godot or something Sartre would have written if he had had two kids within two years. Everyone spoke to my fears about a second child with this response, "It will get better eventually and they go to bed on their own". I usually just agreed swallowing inwardly my shame at indulging my two and a half year old in such nighttime games. Knowing full well that she's won every tournament we've ever entered together. I've been emotional and unemotional. I've walked her back to her bed a myriad of times. I've sat on her squirmy little hands and swore to myself that I would have her treated for OCD due to hours of her touching her hands, her pillow, the wall, and my belly fat before she'll even think about closing her eyes. I've wondered if her restless leg syndrome was her version of restless eye movement. Maybe it was neurological. I vacillate between compassion and acute anger. I almost always break down in tears in a bathroom. As soon as I finish my release I grab her and we end up in my king sized bed with a bowl of raisinettes between us watching some sort of reality competition on my bedroom television. I know, all kinds of inappropriate. I stare straight ahead. She stares at me with a huge grin and offers me a chocolate raisin happy as a pig in @#@##. That's when my boiling blood immediately goes on simmer. Dammnit. She created a moment. A life moment. How cheesy but how real. I suddenly realize that the best times in my life usually involve moments sitting on my bed with food and friends and TV. I have now gone from wanting to kill my daughter to never wanting this moment to end. Talk about giving your kid a mixed message. Throughout my life, I have unconsciously recreated my "Mom-bond" through my friendships with other women and it's been so rewarding. When I'm with good girlfriends, I always feel valued, smart, funny, cute (when is there not a nice comment about someone's new shirt or haircut?), and listened to. In the presence of what man can one ALWAYS feel that way? Only Gloria Steinem has that much self esteem. Men just don't give enough feedback and women are so much freer with the giving and the getting of positive affirmations. My own daughter will remember these after bedtime "moments" hopefully not just because she got over on mom but maybe because one day she'll feel just as safe and special and loved sitting with four girls and a round of pomegranate martini's unloading about her day and sharing her wants and hopes. Female bonding. I never realized it started with Mom. I know the trend is to have a baby and suddenly realize how much you don't like your own mom's personality or parenting techniques. It seems sometimes to be all about the Mom-bash. Ironic, since just becoming a mom gives serious new meaning to "she really did do the best she could." I'm lucky in that through the years albeit some tricky transitions and necessary growth separations my Mom-bond pretty easily graduated from clinking Nilla wafers to clinking chardonnay glasses. My mother was not as fortunate. Just as her nurturing and sense of humor and capacity to unconditionally love inspired me to seek out the same in my girlfriends, her lack of that has been her motivation to find these qualities in her female counterparts. Enter Vicky and Carolyn. Her "real family". Her real sisters. Recently, my two year old was hospitalized for a serious case of pneumonia. I happened to have been visiting my parents at the time. I was a wreck. But within seconds, Operation Sisterhood was in place. My newborn was whisked away in loving arms and there was a new dinner on the table every night to feed us during our minimal breaks from the hospital. Girlfriends. Family. How do we thank them? When I asked, this was the response I got from Vicky: "When I was having chemo, I never told anyone when my treatments were. Your mother and Carolyn hunted down the nurses, found out where and when and always showed up. And always with cake." My own BFF, Lisa, flew from San Francisco to Florida after a phone call in which I revealed to her that this second bout of PPD involved wishing my son lived somewhere else but that I'd still like to visit him. I think she knew then that she had to leave her own family for a few days. So she faced her fear of flying to come infuse me with some strength. When I explained to her that it felt like I was taking care of someone else's child but not to worry because I really liked the person whose child it was; she was at my house, clear across the country within a couple of weeks lovin' on me and my kids. She helped me feel the good in my life again. Girlfriends. Sometimes it's a martini in front of the TV and sometimes it's something scarier. But they are always there. Without question. Without explanation. Without having to thank. Their only goal: to make our lives better. Anyone out for anything else does not get the honor of the title. Lately, I catch myself trying to prove that I have a life outside of my children and I get so frustrated because it feels so impossible. I have to realize that this is my life. And it doesn't end at 5 or 8 or 10pm. It's ongoing. All day and sometimes, many times all night. Shop never closes and I must succumb to that instead of fighting against it. This job has unorthodox hours but the tradeoff is great. When I look at the bonds that have been created through my series of life's "moments", it makes it easier to get through long and often monotonous day. Maybe I'm actually being a role model to my kids in addition to a high chair cleaner and DVD putter-inner. Oh, who am I kidding? At 8pm, it's cute. At 9pm, I’m willing myself to enjoy these tender precious moments and at 10 pm my life motherfucking sucks ass and all I do all day long is take care of my kids and then I pass out with one sucking milk from my body and the other one squeezing my backflesh. So much for ever getting anything done. Ever. Where is my reward? I know, it's in the fucking "moment."