This photo was taken several months ago during my second or third lame attempt at getting back into shape A.B. (after baby). I e-mailed the photo to my friend, Laura Morgan of LoCo Boot Camp, with a single line, "I took my one hour today."

I am fat. There I said it. It's out there. Talk amongst yourselves.

Most people are probably terrified to talk about this. Why would she write that? Isn't she embarrassed?

Griffin will be 1 this week. He's already had an impromptu birthday party while we were in Michigan visiting family. He smothered his face in blue frosting and tried to feed his mom and dad with cake stuck to his little digits. I teared up a little, because it feels like yesterday that Mike and I were taking him home from the hospital.

Two blog posts ago (read: nearly four months ago), I wrote about how it's important to strive for a schedule. Work-at-home moms may not have the structure a 9-to-5 offers, but certainly they can compartmentalize their time into: baby, self, husband and job.

A couple weeks after I had Griffin, I called my mom.

To apologize.

“I am so sorry I ever caused you grief — at every stage,” I said, adding, “This mothering thing is hard.”

Like most kids, it took me awhile to realize my parents weren't always parents. I don't think they became actual people until I was in college, out of the nest. When I became a mother, scared to death to bring this beautiful newborn home from the hospital, I finally realized what my mom's life has been like.

Why is it that whenever I plan to write my blog there's an interruption? For weeks, the little voice in the back of my head that reminds me of various forgotten tasks has been screaming, "BLOG! BLOG! BLOG!"

Before I became a mother, time rushed like a roaring river. After I became a mother, time dried up like the Sahara.

I moved to the Lowcountry from Indiana as a very green newspaper reporter, thinking that Hilton Head Island and Bluffton would be a rung in the ladder until I finally arrived in Chicago or New York.

That was ten years ago.