Hi. I’m Kia. Well, not really, but that’s the only name you’ll ever know me by. Unless, of course, you already know me irl (in real life) and you’re privileged enough that I’ve given you the link to my secret little world here…

So there’s that: my name. Kia. No, not the cheap car. I have arrived at the name Kia as a result of a name search online. I searched for a name meaning, “Good Mother.” The only result, out of the ten gazillion names in the universe, was Eustoquia, a Greek name. Let’s be real here: I’m lucky enough to have spelled it correctly the first time. I won’t get it right much after that; so I shortened it. Quia would have been almost equally complicated, so I settled for Kia. Done.

But who am I? I’m probably not nearly as interesting as you hope. I’m a woman. I’m a wife. I’m a mom. Most likely, this journal will be a mish-mash of all of these personalities, but leaning heavily on the mom stuff. You might think that by choosing a name for myself which means “Good Mother,” is somewhat cocky, if not a little bit conceited and a lot self-absorbed. You’d be right if you didn’t know my motives.

Motives. I’m here to try to convince myself that I am, indeed, a good (enough?) mother to my son. (I haven’t come up with a good name for him yet. Well, irl I have, but I’m not about to divulge his true name to the creepiness of the interwebbers, am I? No. Not hardly. So I haven’t decided what to call him in this wired-up world yet. We’ll get to that another day. For now, he’ll be the four-year-old son without a name. ) So, yes. I need to be convinced of my mothering skills.

I spend a lot of time doubting decisions I have made, regretting comments I’ve let slip, kicking myself in the ass for playdates I should have skipped, reading books for answers that fortheloveofgod have to be out there somewhere, etc. Anyway, there’s this person in my life, Auntie M, we’ll call her, who’s working really hard to help me realize that, all doubts and questions aside, I am the perfect mother for my kid. No one else will ever love him like I do. No one else will ever spend as much time trying to influence him positively like I do. No one else will cry tears of anguish, joy, exasperation, exhilaration for/because of him like I do…

So while I may not be The Perfect Mother, I am The Perfect Mother For My Kid. This journal is going to be my place to daily/weekly/monthly remind myself of this simple fact. And trust me, I will need constant reminders.

I’ll leave it at this for now. More about me, and the kid, later!

Kia