The Making of a Mom: Part I

If the G is my Christmas present, her cold, flu and ear ache are three lumps of coal. Why didn't I know that my kid would be a miserable sick kid who would not be knocked out by doses of children's Tylenol and Motrin? Her first Christmas and it was was filled with screaming (her), cursing (her parents) and a trip to the ER for meds.

I think I figured at this point that I would know a few things about being a mom. I would have the mamma-conviction that I have come to expect in my own Mother who always knows everything, and even if she doesn't, she makes it sound like she does, and I buy it.

Our fancy and not inexpensive ear thermometer, we have come to learn, can be two degrees off. So when the G's temp was saying 102, it was probably more like 104. Yikes.

I never really thought much about being a mom until I became one, but I definitely thought the whole thing would be different, that I would feel different. At times, I can forget that I am a mom altogether. I still feel like me, like I have always felt, at 10, at 16, at 23. I look around at other moms on the playground, in the grocery store, on their way to work, and they seem to know things that I don't: the best preschools, the best play groups, the most expensive gymborees, that items called, "Buggie Wipes" exist. They have a confidence about them that I don't, a conviction that I don't.

On the way home from the ER, T and I stopped at the drug store. We bought two cheap rectal thermometers. G screamed that night again, even though we were convinced that she wouldn't. There was more cursing and more failed attempts to sooth the old gal. I did, however, throw out the ear thermometer. Some moms may be born, but this one anyway, will definitely be made.