By Carol Kaufmann
Let me guess. You’ve given birth for the first time in your thirties, maybe forties, during a successful, all-consuming career. You used to consider yourself fairly together: a well-used PDA, food in the fridge, and regular plans, like dinner and yoga. Then, Precious Baby came along and that life vanished.

The initial heady period of motherhood sustained me for a good three weeks. During my two rounds in the maternity ward I spent virtually every hour holding my Precious Babies (PB), smiling down at chubby folds in skin and every exquisite gesture. The prescription drugs kept me from feeling the c-section’s incision and the realization I wouldn’t be sleeping for more than three hours straight for a very, very long time. But eventually, the well-wishers and food-bearers trickled to nothing and my husband and I were left with unwashed piles of laundry and the guilt of unordered baby announcements. Maternity clothes looked stupid and, after nine months of wear, bored me, though none of my other pants would rise past mid-thigh. I was grumpy and eating way too much dark chocolate. Worse loomed the nagging question: Would the rest of my years be a blur of washing bottles and stolen catnaps?

Can you relate? Maybe right now you’re wondering, with a sinking feeling, if you, too, will ever get back to normal.

Yes. And no.

I’m learning, slowly and painfully, how Motherhood requires a major mind shift. Obviously, prioritizing your children is paramount, but equally so is adjusting your own world view. I call this the Mama Trick.

Your home, personal calendar, car, yard, Blackberry, office files, gym locker, refrigerator, whatever space used to feel like your own is never going to be up to the par that once worked for you. Par is history. But it’s ok. It’s OOOOOOO KAAAAAYAYYYYY.  Each day, if you and your children’s basic needs are met, you win. The rest is gravy – even that daily  shower where you use soap, shampoo, AND conditioner. You’ve taken on the most important responsibility in the world: the care and nurturing of another human. If you succeed at that, what else is there?

I know, I know. You still don’t feel like it’s enough, do you, Superwoman? Me either.

So if the race to the end-of-day finish line is simply not satisfying in that deep, soul-fulfilling way, try this. Give yourself one task. ONE. You could choose to file your nails. Reorganize your panty (still a size or two above your norm, right?) drawer. Rush over to the Banana Republic sale (with or without the coupon you intended to use). But times have changed. And Mommyhood has changed your time. What you choose to fill your day (hour, half-hour, five minutes) with is now, by process of elimination, more precious. So make your daily do-for-me thing count. Download your photos of your child’s first three months. Journal a few sentences. Call the friend who makes you laugh harder than anyone else rather than watching TiVoed Grey’s Anatomy episodes. Haven’t you seen them all, anyway?

When my Life With Kids gets truly hectic, I slip into what I call “Organization Fantasy Mode.” Just last week I found myself daydreaming about eliminating all the clutter in my house. My brain went wild. If my mind couldn’t ooze tranquility, my four walls could. So in my overactive head, I reorganized the family room, eliminated some major (heavy) pieces of furniture that contained family heirlooms, turned our dining room into a playroom (would we ever be using the family silver now?), and converted our bedroom into a bastion of peace. The problem with all this is that while streamlining looks good in my mind’s eye, the reality requires lots of hefty lifting, moving furniture that may or may not fit past absurdly small doorways, a complete purging of the attic, painting a few tables and walls that will no longer be covered by previously mentioned furniture, and relocating most of our electronic equipment – which I don’t know how to reconnect.

Even without small kids (and a job and cats), such a project would take the better part of a week. With small kids? A six month minimum. But since tranquility in some part of life is now crucial to me, I settled on initial task: Discarding old shoe boxes. It doesn’t sound like a lot, true. But this tiny job, accomplished in about fifteen minutes, made room in our attic hell for the aforementioned family heirlooms. I’m on my way. And given everything else that life hands you in the early days of motherhood, that fifteen minutes made me proud – and even a little more balanced.

Think about it. In your former childless, perhaps even self-obsessed, life, did discarding shoeboxes ever take on such meaning? Did it ever positively exhilarate you? Try it now: One Mama Trick.  And notice how you feel like Wonder Woman wrestling baddies to the ground with her lasso.

And while you’re catapulting your own proverbial shoe boxes from your cramped attic, consider your new identity. You, this new gal with the disorganized abode, never-ending laundry piles, and little people who constantly need need need, you’ve YOU’VE become something better, someone more important, than you’ve ever been.

You’re someone’s mother.

Carol Kaufmann will regularly share her Mama Tricks with The Well Mom. Her work has appeared in Reader’s Digest, National Geographic, The Washington Post, and in the anthology A Woman’s Europe. She lives in Alexandria,
Virginia, with her husband, toddler, newborn, and two obese rescue cats. 

Some say doing stand-up comedy is like therapy – only cheaper. Ventingto a crowd of strangers can be cathartic if you have a passion for thespotlight…and the chutzpah to bare your soul.  41-year-old Sarah Maizes hasboth.  The LA mom of three is living a surreal life: busy mother byday…comic diva by night.

“I can’t believe it,” she told The Well Mom recently, as sherushed off to New York City to debut her irreverent take on modernmotherhood at the Comedy Expo and the legendary club, Stand-Up NY.

It’s the next step to stardom on a surprising path that beganmore than three years ago when the pretty brunette hit rock bottom. Shewas struggling with an identity crisis spurred in part by the demandsof caring for infant twins, plus an older daughter who had just beendiagnosed with autism.

 “Youare a different person after having a baby. There is nothing thathappens in a man’s life that changes so completely who you are. Everygoal you had, the way you lived your life, it changes in an instant,”she soberly explains over coffee in the corner of a sunny coffee shopwhere she sometimes pens her material.

In a split second, the ex-New Yorker went from accomplishedliterary agent, author and Mattel marketing exec to full-time mom.After a year at home with a toddler and infant twins, she felt herselffading away.

“There were no creative juices flowing. I was exhausted. I didn’t know who I was anymore,” she recalls.

Comedy changed all that. On a whim, she signed up for an improvcourse at a local comedy club, much to the happy surprise of herhusband Steven.

“I was thrilled. I thought it might invigorate her,” he says.

But no one knew she actually had some raw talent. Over the nexttwo years, Maizes worked on her craft as a student at the Acme ComedyTheater and was later invited to join the company where she nowperforms once a week. When her 40th birthday rolled around, she decidedstand-up would be her next challenge.

“She has that fire in her belly,” says friend Jodi Miller, Maizes’ newly hired comedy coach and fellow Acme cast member.

Now the passion seems to be paying off. Within weeks of postinga performance on You Tube, more than 100,000 people clicked to watchMaizes rant about the down and dirty of motherhood from martini playdates to her sex life. Watch Sarah’s act below.

Revved up on Red Bull and adrenaline, she devotes 30 to 40hours per week writing, performing and working on her new book. Shetackles most of it at night after the kids go to bed.

The frenetic schedule is no joke. But Maizes says she’s never felt more alive.

“Comedy helped me find my center and to deal with all of the things life had thrown at me,” she says.