A Mother of a Day

November 2010

I am a mom.  I am "MAMA!"  I am the mother of Luka Alejandro Valentino.  I have been a mother for exactly 910 days.  And it has changed me.

I know now that my tolerance for some things (like people being mean) is lower. I notice that I cry way too easily these days, particularly if there is a storyline fact or fiction involving a young boy.  I find that I am less concerned with certain professional achievements and focused more on getting to spend time at home playing.  I feel bursting joy, absolute terror, tiny heartbreaks, overwhelming pride and a thousand other colors every single day.  I worry about the many dangers (to small people with limited verbal skills) present in regular life encounters and environments.  I am willing to endure repeated physical discomfort in order for my son's sheer pleasure - in particular sitting on my shoulders for prolonged walks to preschool.  I now spend money on things I never would have dreamed of, including dozens of trains, fish sticks, numerous books about pooping on the potty.  I focus on things like school options, developmental milestones, immunizations, babysitter schedules, sticker charts, and making sure  there are about a thousand toddler giggles produced a day.  I am distracted by online shopping, and not for myself.  I am cautious about strangers and traffic and ocean waves and hot stoves and uncut grapes. I am thrilled at new concepts grasped, new sentences constructed, revelations coming to light and I carefully document them in journals and social media channels, while I watch my own IQ to continue to dwindle in direct proportion.  I allow a certain level of animal abuse to take place in my own home (because it seems my cats' tolerance for some things - like small people being accidentally mean - is actually getting higher). I am certain of the fact that there are truly not enough hours in the day. I am frustrated by the observation that (despite being one hell of a multi-tasker) I simply can not be good at all things at the same time.  I am (more and more) accepting of real limitations on my ability to "have it all," at least simultaneously. I am hypersensitive to the messages we are sending to kids (especially young boys), and hyper aware of the choices I make and their potential impact.  I am desperately holding on to the feeling of each small-voiced "I love you," and the memory of each made up toddler song ("the itsy bitsy poopy went up the poopy spout"), and each fantastic miscommunication  ("Would you like meatballs in your soup?" "No, I put my balls in the soup but it was too hot.").

And I feel a love on a visceral level that is inexplicable, indescribable, unimaginable, terrifying, and fulfilling in a way that can make me cry just reflecting on its depths.

I have been a mother for 910 days. Each day more mind-blowing, hilarious, and filled with love than the last. It sounds impossible but true. This Mother's Day, if I were to have a moment of quiet solitude to think about what this means to me, how I feel, how my life has changed, and who this small person is becoming, I might just spend the whole day weeping with joy.  So instead I am going to brunch.