I’m such a good mom November 3, 2007

I had the day off yesterday, so Zoe and I met Chris for lunch, and afterwards, the two of us went to the nearby mall to run some errands and just get out of the house.  I brought one of our cheapo sippy cups for Zoe.  Now Chris has warned me many times that these sippy cups would lose their lids easily if dropped, but I had never had a problem with them, and Zoe was only drinking water, so I wasn’t too worried (this sentence is an example of foreshadowing).  We were on our last errand at Target when Zoe threw the cup out of her stroller.  I carefully re-fastened the lid and handed it back.  She continued to try to throw the cup out, so when she finally succeeded in dropping it, I just put it in the cup holder where she couldn’t get it.

A few minutes later, she started fussing so I grabbed the sippy cup and tried to give it to her to drink.  This is where the cheapo, not tight lid comes into play.  I tipped it in front of her face and the lid fell off and the entire contents were poured all over Zoe.  My finely honed mommy instincts kicked into high gear as I continued to pour the water on Zoe and then stood there laughing at my daughter’s look of shock.  It did stop her fussing.

Who am I? And for that matter, who are you? August 16, 2007

As I’ve mentioned before, I just don’t quite feel like a mom yet. It’s been more than 18 months since I knew that there was something more than just the possibility of motherhood, and over 10 months since I became, undeniably, a mother. But I don’t quite feel like a mother. Or even a mom. Those words just don’t quite fit me yet. It’s not that I don’t love Zoe. Not even close. I don’t even have trouble with the idea that I have a daughter - and a terribly sweet and cute one at that - it’s just that I every once in a while get hit with the realization that I’m a parent. How truly odd!

Part of what’s odd about it is that I don’t have the same problem with other labels for myself. I spent as much time working to become a librarian as I did trying to get pregnant, but I have not had any trouble adjusting to the label “librarian.” You know how sometimes you try on a shirt and it just fits right, and looks right, and you just want to wear it all the time? And then other times you try something on, and even if it fits, and even if other people tell you it looks great, you’re just not comfortable in it? It’s like that, but with words. I do remember feeling a little strange with the term “wife” when Chris and I first got married, but I did get over that, so I’m assuming the mom label will eventually fit me.

So on to you, oh readers-of-this-blog. Who are you? Any labels that fit you oh so perfectly? Any that you aren’t quite comfortable with yet? Or any that didn’t fit at first that you’re starting to feel more comfortable with? (Yes, this is a none-too-subtle ploy to get people to comment because I’m curious to know who is reading this.)

thoughts August 2, 2007

It appears now that there are likely 12 dead (4 confirmed dead, 8 missing and presumed dead), plus 79 injured due to the bridge collapse. It’s a horrible toll, but far less than I had feared last night.

Seeing all the images of the 35W bridge has been surreal. That’s my city, that’s my river. What’s it doing on CNN and the front page of all these newspapers? But the image that hits me the hardest is the one of a woman holding her 3 month old daughter, standing in front of the bridge, with her car, crushed by a truck, in the background (it’s the first picture in this gallery). From what I could gather from the captions and articles about her, the woman was alone in her car when the bridge collapsed. Her husband came and brought her daughter to her. There’s something in the way she’s holding her daughter that’s so familiar, and I can instantly imagine myself in her shoes, and feel the need to hold my daughter close and just bury my face in her hair to convince myself that I’m ok. My favorite of part of the stories is the brief mention that in the aftermath, she “sat near the bridge, nursing her baby.” I don’t know this woman, but I know that were I in her position, I would have done exactly the same thing. And I can feel how, after the mind numbing fear during the collapse, the fear that I’d never see my daughter grow up, that she’d grow up without a mother, I can feel how holding her and nursing her would ground me, and calm me, and prove to me that I was still here and that we would be ok.

Maybe I am a Mom February 20, 2007

While it isn’t hard for me to accept that I have a daughter, it’s still weird for me to think that I’m a mom. But it occurs to me that only a mom would write a story about her daughter that includes snot and spraying breast milk, and then describe that story as “charming.”