Motherhood - My Secret Life As A Hostage Negotiator

I've been a mother for almost 18 years now. During those 18 years I've yearned to write a book titled "Motherhood - My Secret Life As A Hostage Negotiator." I pictured on the cover a mother and child. The child would be holding a permanent marker and the mother would be saying "Put the permanent marker down and no one gets hurt!" Why we mothers even purchase permanent markers is a question for the ages.

My book title got me thinking about life's negotiations and how motherhood really is a constant negotiation. It starts the minute you're pregnant. You negotiate with the heavens that you'll never make another wrong choice if you could just stop throwing up for a couple of hours. Or childbirth where you negotiate your husbands life if someone will just get the child out of you. And soon you're negotiating with the powers that be that you'll be eternally faithful if your child would sleep for several consecutive hours. Then the negotiations start with child. You have one more bite of broccoli and I'll let you go from the dinner table. You don't scream in the shopping cart at WalMart and I'll buy you a treat. You get dressed and I'll not care if it doesn't match.

The hostage in the scenario is, of course, me. I'm constantly negotiating myself out of difficult situations in order to save myself from collateral damage. I'm the one who will suffer the most if I don't negotiate carefully. The trick, I've learned over the past 18 years, is in the give and take. Mostly in your willingness to surrender more give and take less.

Since my book has been floating around my head for 18 years now, I figured I better start getting it on paper - or at least on computer. Thus my blog "Life's Negotiations" where I'll keep a record of my negotiations in hopes that my posterity can look back on my life and learn something from all my hard work and effort.