How did I get here?

I am a babysitter. I didn't use to be. In my former life, I was on my way up in the world. I spent four years in college earning a degree in journalism and media. I worked on the college's newspaper as a reporter and editor for two years. Then I spent a year on the production crew of a local television station. After graduating, I moved to a job as a copy editor at the local newspaper. Fast-forward a few years to when the newspaper's editor asked me to write a blog for the paper's Web site. He wanted me to begin a parenting blog, which was a new idea for our newspaper and it's parent company. I was the mother of two little boys. My editor figured I had a lot to say about being a parent. He was right.

By the end of my first year as a blogger, the blog had morphed into a weekly newspaper column, become a podcast that could be downloaded from iTunes and won a national award from our newspaper's parent company. It was the first blog to be syndicated by our parent company. Nine other newspapers were either posting it to their Web sites or running it in print. It also had received mention on a few Web sites, the local television station I had previously worked at and a local radio station. Parents seemed to connect with what I had to say.

Then I got pregnant a third time. It was the beginning of the end of my life in the fast lane. I was soon to be moving at a crawl's pace.