I was trying to remember back to when I was a new mother.  It was a long long time ago so I was having a hard time.  What I do remember is being scared, exhausted and overwhelmed with the sudden responsibility of taking care of every aspect of another life.  Another thing I remember is that every minute of every day was completely consumed with poop, spit up, crying, and aching breasts.  So I am completely amazed with what I’ve noticed more and more lately.  New mothers have so much time on their hands these days that they decide this is the time to launch a new business.

From what I can tell there is a growing crop of women, usually a bit older, who after having successful, high-powered careers decide to chuck it all to birth a bundle and then stay home to take care of it.  What they failed to realize is that after years of being powerful, with power lunches, power meetings, and power drinks, that the mind-numbing day in and day out of nothing more stimulating than play group, spit up and Sesame Street, they’d need something more.

Naturally, the most sensible thing to do, these women think, is to combine their new life of motherhood with an exciting new venture.  They start a business, a pregnancy clothing line, a blog, a book, a natural food line, all with the backdrop of being a new mother.  They get their other new mother friends to purchase, model, read and taste their new venture, and bang, they are back in the rat race game.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not being critical of these industrious new mothers, in fact maybe I am a bit envious.  When I was a new mother, I barely got out of my pajamas and only brushed my teeth every other day – that was all I could manage.  Designing, manufacturing, and marketing a new (and yet another) line of rock-n-roll baby t-shirts was not remotely possible for me.

I am thinking that maybe these upstart new mothers might realize the same thing, because the other thing that I noticed is that a lot of these new ventures usually peter out by the time the kid is three and definitely by the time baby number two and baby number three come along.  Now I know that some don’t and some women have turned motherhood into a million dollar venture, and kudos to those women, but we must admit they are few and far between.  For the sake of argument I am setting those women aside.

Why is this you are wondering?  Ok, all you mothers out there that have a kid three and older, or have multiple offspring, wipe that all-knowing smirk off your face.  The reason is…. drum role please…. motherhood is f’ing hard enough as it is.  It is mentally all consuming, physically exhausting, and takes up ALL of your time.   Chasing those little rug rats around all day, making sure they are well fed, clean, happy, inspired and frankly just kept alive is a full-time job.

That is probably why you don’t see many women coming up with start-up companies for other phases of motherhood and/or childhood.  They are fewer and far between.  But I am about to change all that.  Now that I’ve been doing this motherhood thing for a long long time, and I know it ALL, I see some great opportunities out there.

I am going to start a blog, yes I know I already did, but this blog called, “Because I Said So” is geared to the mothers with the pre pre-teens, 4 – 9 year olds.  In this blog I will be discussing topics such as, “How you should just pay your kid to stop asking you why.” And, “How to get that orange Tic Tac out of her nose.” And there will even be a recipe section with “Things to serve imaginary friends.”

Then for the pre-teens I am going to write a series of books about a young English wizard boy who lives under the stairs and then discovers that he is special.  Crap that’s already been done.  Ok, I‘ve got to think about that group.

For the teens, I am coming up with a clothing line that has micro chips secretly sewn into the seams allowing parents to track their whereabouts with a small device that, in order to fool growing minds, looks like a cell phone.  With this device, parents will be able to perpetuate the myth that we really do have eyes in the back of our head a little bit longer.

I am also thinking of a testing kit, similar to a drug testing kit.  Only this will test for junk food, so that when your teen tells you that he/she doesn’t want the healthy goulash that you made for dinner because they are simply not hungry, the parent will be able to test for fast food residue under the teen’s nails.

For the college kids, I’ll create a line of clothing that is disposable.  After the kid wears it three, four, six times, they simply toss the disintegrating garment away, eliminating all need to come home with their dirty laundry.

Now, for the other stages of a woman’s reproductive life (that’s right, there is more than just pregnancy ladies) I am planning a t-shirt line.  This would be an upscale line using the finest Egyptian cotton with sayings such as, “Where or where have my eggs gone?”  And, “No I am not happy to see you, it’s a hot flash.”

So to all you new mothers, there is no need to stress.  At least no need to stress about your identity and about the need to feel like you can do it all.  Take if from a more seasoned mother, you can’t do it all, and no one should expect you to.  Motherhood is enough of a new venture.  Relax and try and enjoy it, as you can see there will be many opportunities to rediscover your executive side down the line.

This week my oldest chick has left the nest and flown off to school.  As any mother knows this is a momentous time filled with all sorts of emotions.  Joy, that my baby chick got a good enough score on her SAT to make it into a good school.  Sadness that this mother hen/baby chick phase of our relationship has ended.  Excitement that my first chick has begun such a thrilling time in her life.  Nostalgia, at remembering a time when this old chick began her own journey into henhood.

Because this is such a significant moment in my life, I figured what a natural blog topic, right?

I thought I would write a bit about when I brought her home from the hospital – her so frail and tiny, and me so scared that I could never pull off this motherhood thing.  How profoundly this new little life effected mine, and how watching her over the years grow into such a lovely, intelligent, self-assured young chick has brought me such joy and wonderment.

Then I would move on to writing some anecdotes about our time together as hen and chick.  I would tell you about how on Mother’s Day when she was two, she picked out a Barbie and some pig slippers for me, and how ever year she would make me breakfast in bed all by herself.   I would tell you about how when she was 5 she had her imaginary playmates Pumba and Pinocchio and a complete love of everything Disney.  I would tell stories about all of the lemonade stands my enterprising young chick created, and how proud she was of all the money she made off them, even though they never once turned a profit.  I would tell about the fort she built in the backyard out of old pizza boxes, and the many, many art projects she filled our home with over the years.

Then I would continue by talking about how empty the nest was going to be now that she has flown away.  How quiet it will be without all of the teenage girls running in and out.  How lonely it will seem without all of the late-night slumber parties, and late-morning breakfasts of chocolate chip pancakes.

Then I would seamlessly move on to all of the things I will miss about having her home.  I will miss our gossip sessions about her friends, their boyfriends and all the other drama of high school.  I will miss our once a year self-imposed ditch day, where she would skip school and we would go shopping and out to lunch.  How I will miss doing her laundry, making her her favorite meals, and how I’ll even miss her sulking teenage face at the dinner table every night.

Just as you would be wiping that tear from your eye because of the first part of my blog, I would then move on to what I was thinking of accomplishing now that I had reached this new phase in my life.  How I am going to start doing all things self-improvement.  How I will get a trainer and finally take off this baby weight.  How I am going to work on starting that great trashy beach novel that I always wanted to write but never seemed to have enough time.  How maybe I would go to school myself, work on that degree that I never finished.

Next I would write a funny little anecdote about how my son told me how weird he thought it would be around the house without his big sister, but then wanted to know if he could change her room into an exercise room for him.  (This would give you a little chuckle)

This was the blog I was going to write.  Then I started doing a little sniffing around on the Internet.  What were the other mothers out there blogging about during this end of the summer, back to school time of the year?  What I found was that every damn 40-something woman who had a child going off to enter their freshman year of college was writing a sappy empty nest, nostalgic, what will I do now blog.  Ugh, I was not going to be original at all!

So with that I am abandoning the blog topic of “the empty nest” and instead have decided to write about bras.  Specifically why can’t they make pretty bras for gals with big boobs?

I realize that it is probably easier to create a pretty A or B cup bra, because these sizes lack the support that larger boobs need, and therefore can be made of flimsier, less supportive fabric.  I realize that a little piece of lace can’t hold up a C, D or even E (which is me) cup like lycra or spandex can.  But really, big boob bras are just damn ugly.

What I am wondering is, do the manufacturers of bras think they are somehow evening the score by making big boob bras so ugly?  They figure that, “hey, these gals have the big boob asset, so let’s give the little boob girls something to compete with.  We will make them a pretty see-through lace number, and will stick the big boobs into a large white sling with wide straps and twice as many hooks in the back.”

It’s just not fair, and maybe even discriminatory.  As a big-boobed gal, I have just as much right to flattering lingerie as the little gals.  So please, they can put a man on the moon, can they please put a pretty bra on these big boobs?

As for my nest, sure it’s a little lonelier, quieter, and cleaner.  And sure it’s a little sad to push my chick out, but watching her soar is, in the words of Martha Stewart, “a good thing.”