Nanny Lauree

Motherhood. We meet again.

I've navigated the decision myself and helped other women get past outside pressure to find the right answer for themselves.

One year ago, in a conversation with my coach, I finally voiced:

[box type="none"]I don't think I want to have kids.[/box]

Looking at those words, they seem scary and permanent. There's guilt mixed in there too.

What I also said at that time is important:

[box type="none"]I don't want to birth them myself, but I feel like children will be in my life somehow.[/box]

I didn't know what that meant, but it felt true when I said it. Like a hunch you're going with until events prove otherwise. At that time, it helped me make peace with my decision.

Here I am, one year later. What I said is now becoming reality.

Enter:  Nanny Lauree. This is a shocker, even to me. In May and June I'll take care of a three year-old girl twice a week.

She and I met on Sunday—checking each other out silently from across the room at first, later playing with plastic vegetables. She called all of them zucchini. If you only know one name for a vegetable, that's an impressive choice.

I'm not sure where this nanny-hood will take me.

Maybe it will help me coach busy moms, or women deciding if they want children.

I hope I'll feel as fulfilled and at peace as I did when I said I knew children would be in my life somehow.

I want to be in theirs too. To experience this little girl's view on life. To remember the simplicity and wonder of the world. To teach and learn—each of us taking turns.

Today I celebrate new beginnings. Hers, mine and yours, whatever they may be, and wherever they may take us.