Free time - love it, miss it, need to get over it

Most of us have heard this conversation go down:

experienced mom #1 says to new mom #2, "She's such a doll. They do change your life, don't they? Can you even remember what you did with yourself before she came along?" To which mom #2 replies "Oh, I knoooow..." It takes nearly all I have not to crash their little chat with, "Um, excuse me? Yes, yes I DO remember what I did with myself before baby."

I get it - brand new moms are in that honeymoon stage of blissful, sleeplessness-induced delirium and moms of older children are suffering from their own brand of delirium. They talk about being so busy chauffering their adolescents to ball games and furrowing their brows over impossible algebra equations that they find themselves longing for the days of sweet baby smells and naptimes, wondering if they should have another. As much as I love being a mother, I think these women may have temporarily lost touch with reality.

Maybe I'm a bit selfish. Maybe I'm just one of those people who enjoys "me time" a little too much. But I know one thing for certain: I could, in about two minutes flat, make a list a football field long of all the things I did with myself before I had my little monkey...of all the things I miss, heck, practically mourn the loss of. Sleeping in on Saturdays, attending a guilt-free department happy hour, reading an entire book in one sitting, deciding at the last minute to go out for a Friday evening movie date, staying one more night on a business trip to wrap up those issues, and the list continues seemingly forever. Of course I can still do most of these things and I do them......IF I plan in advance and secure a timeslot with my (fortunately very helpful) husband. But doing so simultaneously gives me something to look forward to and crushes any fantasy I had of a life of freedom.

Then come the guilty questions. What's wrong with me as a mother that I feel this way when others say they don't? Should I seek counseling? Haha! No. That would certainly cut into opportunities for me time.

I probably look at moms who claim not to miss that freedom as if they were aliens capable of walking on the surface of the sun. I wonder if they led dull lives before children. I wonder if they're kidding themselves. I wonder if I'm kidding myself and wasting time recalling the way things used to be. Maybe I'm the one who has lost touch with reality. Yes, that must be it, because until now, I've been willing to admit this only to my closest of friends (and only those friends who I thought would sympathize with my point of view).

I guess instead of whining and mourning, I should focus on the positives. When I do get an hour or two to myself, it's like I've won some sort of prize and I relish every second of it. If time were a tangible object, you would find me wallowing around in it like a pig in mud. Before, I took that time for granted. Before, I measured accomplishments on spreadsheets at work and by how many social activities I had planned for the month. But now, I get more excitement from watching my sweet boy whiz through Pat the Bunny than I ever could've from being invited to a last-minute Thursday dinner downtown.

What it boils down to is that I need to get over it, count my blessings, and find a really reliable and pathetically available babysitter.

What's the biggest thing you miss having the freedom to do? More importantly, on a scale of 1 to 10, how over it are you?