July 3, 2001

• A Good Mother?

  
  

  "Quit that"
  "Stop that!"
  "Ouch!"
  "Mommy!  He hurt my feelings!"
  "It's MY turn now, Mom, tell him it's my turn!"

  
  

  What on earth possessed me to have children?  They are my flesh and blood and I love them, but some days I'd rather give my life for them than live with them.  Relax, this isn't going to be one of THOSE journal entries. 

  
  

  I remember when Michael was born.  He was so tiny.  Six Pounds and nothing.  He was all purple and slimy and had a black eye from the labor.  His cheeks were the only fat part of his whole body, and his hair stuck up in even tufts.  I'd never seen anything more repulsive in my life, and I'd never loved anything or any one anymore than I loved him in that moment.

  
  

  When Tucker was born I was tired.  It had been a LONG and rather bad day in my life.  No worse than the bad day any laboring woman experiences, but I was more than ready for it to be over.  So when they finally laid him in my arms, I cried as much with relief as anything.  But, I fell in love all over again.  I held him and talked to him, and even made calls to my friends when he was less than half an hour old to introduce him by phone.  (Obviously, I had some good drugs in my system.)

  
  

  I nursed my babies and rocked them.  They got freshly pureed vegetables from my food processor, no store bought, over-processed excuse for food for my precious little ones.  They had just the right nursery set-up with just the right toys to stimulate their little minds.  Then they started talking.

  
  

  These wonderful little creatures looked up at me with big brown eyes, and expressed an opinion!  Who'd have thought?  The first couple times it was almost cute.  Then they became rather insistent about the whole thing, and that wasn't so wonderful.  Now, they get out of bed in the morning thinking, "How long will it take us to make her do something on her list of things she swore she'd never do, today?"

  
  

  I have spoken to them in MY MOTHER'S VOICE!  That was much more of a shock to me than it was to them, I know because they didn't seem to notice anything odd at all about it.  The other day Michael was very carefully sitting on his brother and pounding him methodically when I walked in to investigate the screaming.  Michael looked up and said, "I had to Mom, he hurt my feelings."  What do you say?  How do you handle that?  I took a route that no child-rearing expert has ever suggested to me.  I told him to sit his behind in the little chair in the corner until I calmed down or I was going to do something really evil to him.  I know you're supposed to set the timer, one minute for each year of age.  But, I'm pretty sure he was in the corner a tad longer than seven minutes.

  
  

  Other times they are cuteness unbelievable.  Tucker came to ask for my help.  "What do you need, honey?"  he gave me "THE LOOK" and said very patiently, "Help, Mommy."  So I tried again.  "Why do you need help?"  This time he carefully enunciated for the benefit of the old crazy woman, "I'm a little guy, I'm not big, I'm just light and fluffy!"  I gave up.  I just went with him and followed directions as he gave them.

  
  

  Michael was explaining to me about the diet of a polar bear.  I was rather impressed and asked him where he learned all that.  "Mom, *I* watch PMS!"  Okay, so this did turn out to be one of those journal entries.
  

  
  

  I took them shopping this morning.  We needed some last minute things for the 4th of July picnic tomorrow.  When I was putting away the groceries, I discovered that I'd purchased 2 hot wheels cars, four bricks of cheese, and a box of Preparation H in addition to the stuff that I had on my list.  I understand the cars and the cheese . . . at least they like those things.

  • 5:22 pm
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