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After seven years, Lynn Kirkle is stepping back from Momaha.com to focus on her writing career.
My first Momaha blog ran in August of 2016, an article about my freshly-transformed parental life after having a baby at the same time my oldest children were entering college.
Well, that baby is now 6 (well, six-and-a-half, if you ask her; the half is very important), and I’ve lost count of how many articles I’ve written to date. I started blogging for me, hoping to take my writing from hobby to career, but it ended up being a gift to me.
Because I’ve accidentally — inadvertently — chronicled the first six years of my daughter’s life. So many of her early childhood milestones, and the corresponding “last times,” have occurred as I sat here watching with my PC on my lap.
At the time of that first article, Kate was still in diapers, attached to her bottle, obsessed with “Frozen” and her stuffed cat, Meow. I wrote about those things because they were active in our lives; things that we engaged with on a daily basis.
But Meow lives on a shelf now, instead of in her arms. We watch “Frozen” a healthy amount these days; not on an endless repeating loop. To be honest, I can’t even think of the last time I’ve heard “Let it go.”
(Hot take: “Love is an Open Door” was totally the best track on that album.)
I couldn’t tell you the date of the last diaper change, the final shopping trip where baby wipes were on the list or when we were able to pack that final bottle away. Those last times happened with a gradual softness that allowed us not to notice their departures.
As Katie grew, I shifted to writing about toddler tantrums as the terrible two’s became our reality. They might’ve tested my patience as they happened, but after the fact, they provided wildly entertaining content that was fun to write.
I can smile fondly now as I recall the mortifying meltdowns — even though, at the time, it felt like that phase would never pass.
Spoiler: The phases always pass.
The toddler moved on to preschool, and so did I.
Crafts-gone-wrong, snacks-gone-right, learning, falling, biting — I got to write about every hilarious bit of it. My kid, other kids, my kid riding on other kids...these were the best of chaotic times.
And ahh...nap time. I waxed poetic in multiple columns about the joys of nap time, as they were definitely this mom’s best friend. But alas, the naps morphed into quiet time, which gradually morphed into NOT quiet time, which ultimately morphed into loud-and-awake-all-day-long time.
I am now the only person in my household to engage in the occasional nap.
I’ve spent seven years writing about my kiddos and, now, just like Kate’s bottles and tantrums and “Frozen” marathons, my blogging with Momaha is having its last time. That writing career thing actually happened, so now I’ll be devoting my keyboard strokes to fiction instead of true tales from the carpool lane.
I’m so grateful to the Omaha World-Herald for letting me ramble in its pages for so many years. It’s been an enormous blessing to share so many of my family’s first — and last — times.
Lynn Kirkle lives in Omaha with her husband and five kids. She writes novels under the name Lynn Painter, and can be found at lynnpainter.com or on Twitter @LAPainter.
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After seven years, Lynn Kirkle is stepping back from Momaha.com to focus on her writing career.
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