My kids at school often used to ask me when I was pregnant with Savannah, 'Are you a mommy?'. And my response to them was always, 'Not yet, but I'm working on it...'. Looking back now, I was wrong. I was a mommy. And I only hope to get better and better at being one.
I'm not sure how others define motherhood, although I'll bet it's often a personal definition, rather than one from the dictionary. As I'm also sure that different mothers, themselves, would describe it in different ways.
Oh, how subjective everything is... and how hopelessly inadequate words can often be.
I hope to be a 'cool mommy', but I'm not sure how one might go about this. You know, you had the friends, like in high school, who seemed to have the coolest parents. They were so totally cooler than your own, or so you might have thought at the time. And, I'd like to strive for something similar to that. But, now that I'm an adult... I think my parents are cool as hell. I couldn't see it before. And they are some of the very best friends I have in the world, as well as being my parents. So, I guess am striving for the one-in-a-million kind of mother, who happens to be cool all the time, and not only after twenty-some years and all the rest.
I'm such the idealist, as I'll bet a lot of other first-time mothers are, but... who cares. Maybe I can actually pull it off. And that would be very cool, to me at least.
But honestly, mommyhood is scary and frustrating and confusing a majority of the time. There are countless of not-so-nice things that go along with it. But, there are also the fantastic, magical and marvelous things, too. It's such a balancing act, a constant conflict for mommies (and daddies, too). And the good things, are so beyond good... I can take the bad ones, too. But, that's a skill of mommyhood I definitely need to work on.
I expect that when all of this mommy-limbo stuff is over, I will be a better mommy than most. Since I know I will sincerely appreciate the fact that I'm lucky enough to be bringing home this beautiful and tiny phenomenon. And that, because of her, I will be the best mommy I can be. And hopefully, she'll come to decide one day, that I'm as cool as I think she is... We'll just have to see.
Posted by lara at April 20, 1999 05:21 PM