Just A Mom

A couple weeks ago, I threw my Mom a birthday party. It was no big deal: burgers, Mexican dip, a pretty cake, a cheese ball. But with a one year old, everything is about 100 times harder than it should be: In Target, as I was buying the paper products, G spilled mini-Cadbury eggs everywhere. At home, while I was ordering the cake, G (impressively) picked up my hot coffee and treated herself to a taste, which then went everywhere, and quickly became no treat at all, for anyone. In front of my computer as I was trying to send the invites, G got herself stuck behind the couch. Even better, in trying to get herself unstuck, she got stuck in the sticky "child safe" mouse trap behind the couch.

A one year old ups the difficulty rating of any task no matter how small. But I am a mama and even though no one put any warning labels on the cute packaging, I understand that this is just the way it goes now. If I want to run, work, read the paper, clean the bathroom, shop for groceries, or even just go to the bathroom, I have to work my schedule, as well as my multi-tasking skills.

So, my cousin walks in the door to my Mom's birthday party.
He says to my Dad: "Wow, you look great!"
He says to my brother: "Wow, obviously you are keeping fit out there in California!"
He says to my other brother: "Are you tanning up there in New York? You look so young!"
He says to me: "Hi!"
So I say to him: "Hey! What about me? Don't I look good too?"
His response? "Oh, you're just a mom."

Ah moms. We do. We go. We make it happen. But at the end of the day all we are are moms. Just moms. Even now with doctor moms, running moms, corporate fancy-pants moms, thong-wearing moms. It doesn't matter. A mom is still "just a mom."

At least we have progressed beyond the mom jeans.

It's annoying, society's? media's? everyone's? idea of a mom. This despite my own feelings of strength as a mom. (Also my own feelings of emotional disarray at times, but that's for another blog.)

When G was first born, we would go to Safeway daily, just to get out and feel like we had done something. Everyday in those first months of mamahood, the Safeway loudspeaker would blare a commercial that went something like this: "Want something fresh and tasty to jump start your day? Pears are a good energy boost. They are great for moms and athletes alike."

In my urban hood, the mamas I meet are cool, smart, friendly and not restricted by their identities as moms. They are also really into their kids and totally focused on them while still maintaining their own personalities and interests. Maybe the reason for all the dated and dumb perceptions of moms out there is because mamas today are redefining mamahood, making it mean something broader and therefore something harder for people (like my cousin) to fully understand.

My grl and I like to challenge other runners we come upon on our afternoon runs. If boys hate to be passed by a grl, they REALLY hate to be passed by a mom. When they see that this is a possibility, they will either turn left as we go straight, or they will suddenly feel the need to tie their shoes. This is hugely annoying to us and we feel that these boys have not given us our due. The next time this happens, though, maybe I'll try to make him feel better and scream out to him as he crosses the street away from us:

"Yo! Don't worry about it, man! I'm Just A Mom!"

Mama Brain

I lose things all the time these days: my id, my green hat, my keys, my right, silver old high heel that I needed desperately for a wedding recently.

The other day, I packed running shoes in my bag before we headed to my Mom and Dad's, so I could run that afternoon. As I did so, I thought, "Man! Why won't these fit in my bag today?" I discovered later, upon dressing for my run, that I had packed my husband's size 11 running shoes, instead of mine.

Such flakiness is referred to as "Mama Brain." It's a fuzzy head. It's an absent look. It's a feeling that you have just forgotten to do something but you can't quite remember what it was.

At basketball games, no matter how long I have been guarding the same girl, I will forget which one I was guarding after a turn over. "The girl in the red shirt? The one in the blue shirt? Oh, I bet it was the one who JUST SCORED!"

I want to wear shirt as a disclaimer that says something like, "I am a mama! Please forgive me if I am a total idiot! I am trying to keep another, very small, very weird and very loud human alive."

On many a run with G, I get such bad Mama Brain that as I am running, with G, right there in front of me, I stop! in my tracks because I think I have forgotten G somewhere. "Oh shit!" I panic for a second before I remember that I am pushing the grl.

I have lost my brain, but at least I haven't lost G yet.

It seems that I used to have time to think about BIG STUFF, like life and love and the world and good people and bad people, and people I liked, and people I didn't, people's whose clothes I thought were cool, people who never looked at me no matter how many times I passed them in the hall at work. Now, I think that I am not thinking most of the time. OR, maybe I am thinking SO much that I don't even realize that I am thinking, and therefore coming across like I am not thinking.

There, that was just thinking.

The bottom line is that G takes up so much of my brain that there is very little of it left for things that don't really matter.

There's a guy at work whose whole life is about going out to the cool new bar or the fancy new lounge. I can't help but chuckle/judge a bit. He says things like, "For every foot of snow that falls, they are going to be serving $2 off all rail drinks!!!"

Clearly, he and I are not in the same place.

Your life changes with a kid, so it only makes sense that your head would too. You brains cells are in overload trying to grasp the Crazy Town that is your life. You have to pare it all down to the stuff that really matters: Poop over pettiness, Pack n Plays over packed bars, day-to-day over daydreams, smiles over sleep, friends and family over foes.

It's amazing what you can learn from a one year old. (Silent shout out to the sleeping G!) I think (!) that I'll embrace my Mama Brain from now on.

Da-Da

As a thank you to her mama for the very cheap rental of her body, the sucking of every once of her calories, and the miles and miles of walks around the city so she could sleep, the G has learned, "da-da."
This morning I looked at her and said, "mama" and she responded, "da-da."
"Mama," I said.
"Da-da," she demanded.
This went on and on until she said, "da-da" one last time and then smiled at me.
The grl is playin' me.

When my Dad turned 65, we all threw him a big party. My brother wrote him a song. I wrote him a poem. There were decorations and food and surprise guests. When my Mom turned 65, there was...I can't even remember. I am hoping that we called.

I've heard my mom talk about the different relationship a mom has with her kid as opposed to what a dad has with his kid. Having a little perspective these days, I am starting to understand what she was talking about.

Why are moms and dads so different? Moms are so constant that they are easy to forget? Moms know you better than dads? Dads, you never want to disappoint, and moms, you disappoint all the time?

I broke my leg when I was in the third grade skiing down a mountain in Colorado. I hit a tree. It was bad and dramatic, and the ski patrol came and bundled me up in the sled. My Mother, so many years later, still can't talk about it. I remember as I was sitting in the snow looking at my leg turned out at a very unnatural angle, I kept screaming over and over, "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!" My Dad knelt down next to me and took off his red gloves to reveal his big, strong, weathered hands. (I think I remember this because it always surprised me when he took off his gloves in the snow. I thought it was too cold.)

In the weeks that followed though, it was my Mom who took me to the doctor, picked me up at school, talked to Mrs. Clark about missed work, invited my best friend over, and made me gourmet picnics in the backyard with my big old cast hanging off the blanket.

Maybe it's ok that moms have a different relationship with their kids than dads. (And it's ok that the G says da-da and not mama.) I know if given the choice, my Mom would still be a mom over a dad. She would take her kids' (at times) biting words and disrespect. She knows us best, I think she would say, and therefore she has seen some of the best too.

I picked up G to put her down for her nap this morning, cradled her and started singing. She laid still in my arms- a rarity- and just looked at me with those big, brown eyes, listening. When I finished the song, she smiled. I laid her in her crib, put the blanket over her and she smiled again.

Jenny Sanford's mom

I think my girl is beautiful. I tell her as much, dozens of times a day. I sing her songs about how sweet and smart she is, or just entire songs made up of two words, over and over again: "Gilly, Gilly, Gilly Girl."

My very physical lady loves to climb on the table, the chairs, the kitchen counter, me. She can wiggle her way off the bed (probably 2-3 feet high) and land on her two feet. I watch her do it and then applaud.

On the playground a couple weeks ago G approached some moms and kids and said clearly, "Gilly." She hasn't said it since then, so maybe it was a total fluke, but I said to the moms that day, "Wow, what does that mean if her first word is her own name!"

I've been thinking a lot about Jenny Sanford's mom these days. (Jenny's the wife of the senator who had the affair with the Argentinian chick.) How did Jenny's mom raise her daughter to think that the way her husband treated her was ok? Jenny was magna cum laude from Georgetown, classy, pretty, from a prominent family, why would she hang with a guy that mistreated her from the beginning? How could Jenny have such low self-esteem?

Can you trace a girl's confidence to her mama?

Yikes, that's a bit of pressure.

It's a tough world out there for chicks. There are all these rules: Be determined, but not bitchy. Be pretty, but not too sexy. Be sporty, but stay feminine. Be curious, but remain pure.

I guess it's a lot to try to teach your daughter, especially if you don't really understand the rules yourself. And then, the rules are always changing, with generations, with technology, with equality. It's all just too hard to figure out. Maybe I'll just tell her to make up her own rules.

I just thought of a new tune to sing G that maybe she'll like. I think, though, I'll keep the lyrics the same.

For DC Mamas looking for something to do

Hey DC Mamas!

G and I checked out Spark Lab at the newly renovated American History Museum yesterday at 14th and Constitution Ave. (The lab is open 10-4 everyday. Enter at Constitution Ave and go right to the West wing.) It was a very cool alternative to our standard library visit. It's good for all ages kids. They conduct experiments with the older ones, but score for G! they have a little part with blocks and puzzles for kids under 5. G dug. Met some cool peeps too. And then we just walked around the huge lobby area where G shed all her footwear. The woman does not like to feel restricted!

Museums in the wintertime rock! No one is around; except for the English woman who asked me where the Gap was because I "Look like someone who would know where the Gap is." I am still trying to figure out if that is a good thing.

Year One

I tell friends who are big and pregnant for the first time, things like, "You're gonna be great!" and "It's awesome!"

What I really think is, "Oh shit, I do not envy you."

A year ago last week, I went into labor with the G. T and I walked into the hospital calm, smiling and holding hands. We walked out three days later exhausted, clueless and totally annoyed that we could not figure out how the damn straps on the car seat worked. (My brother actually had to drive to the hospital to help us.)

G floored us.

The lady popped onto the planet all crinkly and red and weird looking. I was embarrassed of her nose. There was something weird about it and I wondered if everyone else thought the same. T left my side immediately to be with her and I felt replaced. I wasn't all aglow and in love with her. I was hormonal and trying desperately to figure out this weird, new planet on which I had suddenly found myself. And G was literally sucking the life out of me: The hungry girl was nursing every two hours! grappling for my boob like some sort of blind rodent. I would look out the window into the alley at midnight, at 2 am, 4 am, 6 am...and I'd wonder how the heck I was gonna do this.

Our favorite survival story comes at the end of a G screaming day-into-night marathon. We were so fed up and exhausted and at our wits' end that we threw on some jeans, threw G in the stroller and walked to the bar for a much needed beer. G stopped crying. And we stopped being totally annoyed. T's advice to anyone now with a colic baby is simply, "Keep a six pack in the frig."

"Why do people do this?" We'd say to each other. "And on purpose! And more than once!"

G turned one this weekend. The year has felt like both the fastest and the slowest year of my life. She has opened up my heart. She has demanded the best of me. She has seen the worst of me. She has made me a better person. She has exhausted me and challenged me. It's been tough, but I sort of wouldn't want it any other way. After all, anything truly worth doing requires real effort, determination and strength. I am proud of our battle scars.

Today G sleeps a bit more. We understand the workings of a car seat. And T and I both think our smart, strong, highly vocal lady is the coolest thing on the planet. Even better, (and thankfully!) we're pretty sure she likes us too.

Happy one year my crazy lady!

Cookies for Breakfast

We went to our second music class the other day. G likes the percussion instruments, but she seems sort of freaked out by all the weird high pitched "Weeeeeeeee!" and "Boink!" sounds the teacher makes. It is pretty strange the way adults behave with kids, so free and uninhibited in ways that they never would be in real life. I wonder when it is we start teaching kids the opposite, when we teach them control! and discipline! and inhibition! No wonder life is so confusing. We learn one thing and then we learn the exact opposite.

I dunno what sort of disciplinarian I will be, and I wonder if I should have that figured out at this point. I did give G cookies for breakfast this morning and I know that can't be good. (There is a mama-police angel that sits on my right shoulder that quietly scolds me for such things.) But it did get G to stop crying and the cookies did have oatmeal in them. And they were homemade! No preservatives!

Waiting in the airport this weekend, G and I watched as one mother over and over again told her kid to stop sitting on the floor. G and I were both sitting on the floor, eating M&Ms. I am sure that mom and I were totally judging each other.

G and I have had many battles at this point in our relationship; battles of sleep, battles of moods, but yesterday we may have had our first Mom-Daughter battle. I tried to get her to understand, "no" to biting me. I pulled her away and stood her on the floor and shook my head, firmly reciting, "no, no, no." She turned her back to me, walked to the door, looked over her shoulder with those deep, dark eyes and shook her head. The woman, I am quite certain, was mocking me.

There is always so much discussion and strong opinions about who is harder to raise: girls or boys. Many women seem to favor sons over daughters, including my chick cousins. This has always disturbed me a bit since 1. I am a girl and 2. not liking girls just because they are girls seems totally backwards to me. It's sort of like not rooting for your own team. My own Mom, I think, has always valued her strong friendships with women, so it wasn't until later that I realized how hard women can be on other women. Some women look at me and seem to totally hate me when I am running down the street with G, for no reason, other than, I guess, cause I am a fit chick.

I think the G has already learned how far a smile will get her. It's almost a game with her to try to get strangers to look at her. She has no concept of who she is smiling at on the street: black, white, short, tall, rich, poor, man, woman. She is not competing with anyone or judging anyone. She has no concept of any of that. All she wants is a smile back.

However I discipline G in the future (or whatever I let her eat for breakfast) I hope that I can keep that kind of openness to other people, (and to other girls) alive in her. The world could learn a lot from ma G.