Hello everyone,
Today is Mother's Day. And so, in honor of this day, I thought I'd write a bit about being a mom.
I tried to come up with a witty analogy for motherhood.
It wasn't easy because (a) most of the good ones were already snapped up by Erma Bombeck (b) I haven't consumed nearly enough coffee yet to be witty and (c) to be honest, motherhood is largely only truly witty in retrospect.
But, if I aspire to be nothing else, I aspire to be witty in the face of insanity.
And by and large, from my experience, being a mother involves a good deal of insanity.
So the best analogy I could come up with is that motherhood is like a lawn chair roller coaster.
And I'm not talking one of those sturdy redwood chairs, or even one of those cheapo molded plastic chairs.
I'm talking about the old-time lawn chairs, made out of hollow aluminum tubes and woven plastic straps. The ones that tended to collapse or fall over without warning.
No safety straps. No lap bar. No stop button.
A lawn chair rollercoaster.
Perfect.
So here I am on this lawn chair roller coaster that is mother hood.
This rollercoaster has taken me to very strange places. This rollercoster has made me say very strange things.
Motherhood means trying to be brave in the face of the realization that your highly lactose intolerant 1 year old daughter was just (quickly and stealthfully) fed 2 tubes of gogurt by her adoring brother.
Motherhood means leaving an entire shopping cart of food in the produce aisle at Safeway and bolting out of the store, child clamped under your arm, because your 2 year old son just decided to have a massive "I-want-that-candy-bar-right-now" tantrum.
Motherhood means trying for the 5th time in a year to find a way to style your 4 year old daughter's hair because she managed to shear off one entire side with the play dough scissors that couldn't cut through soft tofu.
Motherhood means walking your 6 year old son up to the apartment of a neighbor and making him apologize for covering her outside wall with the mud balls he couldn't resist making and throwing after a particularly massive California rainstorm. (Motherhood also means standing in the rain and making said son scrub the mud off the wall--at least, all the mud he can reach. Which isn't much)
Motherhood means alternating between refereeing and ignoring the bickering, bickering, bickering, bickering, bickering, bickering......
Motherhood means finding pee in your son's upside down bongo drums, and sleuthing out that your daughter, in a fit of brother-induced annoyance, did the deed. Motherhood means finding yourself saying "Don't pee in your brother's bongos", while in your head chanting to yourself "I am a college graduate. I am a college graduate. I am a college graduate". Just to soothe your ego, you know.
Motherhood means sitting in a steam filled bathroom in the middle of the night with your congested baby, administering pop sicles and wet washcloths for fevers and making stressful hospital emergency room trips to get head gashes stitched up.
Motherhood means trying to soothe your husband after your daughter played a connect the dots game on the computer--using a ballpoint pen on the screen.
Motherhood means peanut butter. And mac and cheese. And peanut butter. And mac and cheese. (repeat ad infinitum).
Motherhood means doing insane things in the name of international good will, like pressing adhesive blue plastic dots to your children's anuses so that their Japanese public school will declare them parasite-free enough to join in the school swimming lessons. Or begging your 6 year old daughter to please poop so that you can send a fecal sample to the school for the yearly health check. (note: She was unable to produce on command. The school, grudgingly, agreed to give us a pass on this requirement.)
Motherhood means making unpopular and often bizarre decisions. New girlfriends visit in the living room only. No tinting your hair pink with the leftover egg dye. I will not buy the 2 inch long fake eyelashes. You may eat 2 doughnuts only. NOT the whole box. If you leave partially eaten food in your room and it grows into a fuzzy green and black blob, I'm making you either live with it or clean it up yourself.
Motherhood means watching your eternally grubby, mischievous baby girl turn into a beautiful young adult who is constantly mistaken for being at least 2 years older than she actually is. (Note: She is still highly mischievous. Don't let the polished exterior fool you.)
Motherhood means watching your gangly, shy little boy turn into a 6 foot tall young man full of self assurance. (Note: Still a bit gangly, in spite of the 3000 pounds of food he seems to eat each day).
In short, it's a lawn chair roller coaster ride.
Wobbly and dangerous and highly questionable.
But, if, against all odds, you manage to stay in the chair and stay alive, it's worth it.
