...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Wednesday, May 14, 2003
      ( 3:46 PM )
 
Mama-hood

I'm 3 or 4 days late on Mother's Day, but I have some thoughts and I wanted to get them down. It was my first Mother's Day (in my heart, it was my second, since I am also the mother of an angel who never saw her first Mother's Day or birthday-but that's a story for a different time). I didn't spend much of the time contemplating Motherhood because with an almost-one-year-old, there isn't much time for contemplation. I usually catch contemplation time while doing the dishes or mowing the lawn, neither of which I did on Mother's Day. I did get the best present I could have hoped for: the Kid slept in till 7:45! Now THAT was a treat for me, equivalent to my pre-baby days of sleeping in till 10:00 or so.

It's still strange to me to be a Mama. I never really pictured myself as one. I never had those adolescent visions of being a wife and mother and all the accompanying agendas. I always thought I'd be a single career woman or activist my whole life, traveling the world, feeling like I'm making a difference, etc., etc. But here I am working a job that I thought would just be work I did to get me through college, supporting my small family, with husband and baby boy at home...finding delight in walking behind a toddler who likes nothing better than to waddle down the sidewalk, stopping every few seconds to squat and pick a flower. I find happiness in the tiny moment when, as I step through the door at the evening, a short person turns from whatever activity he was doing and a look of thrilling happiness washes over his face and he races towards me, arms out, not caring what may be in his path to cause him to stumble and fall over.

At the same time, I think about the things I still want to be and the things I still want to do. The places I haven't been yet, the mountains I haven't climed, the seeds I haven't yet planted. I suppose that perspective just has to change...and maybe those things will happen with my son, instead of me doing them on my own.

I don't know how much I've actually learned. The entire process of mothering seems to be just a series of trial and error experiments. One thing I find to be true above all else: it's tiring. I read from Annie that she is still tired, and hers are 18 and 21 years old! Well, I remain inspired by other Mamas who have not only made the most of motherhood, but who have excelled. A quick trip around blogdom and I read how Sinister Sister celebrates Mom's Day by simply being a mom, and Fussy receives her first ever homemade gift...and it doesn't even matter what it is (what is it?). I love these mamas and the other blogging mamas who share not only the unique Mama-view on the world, but who put that Mama-view to use politically, socially and very, very interestingly.

It's nice there is a Hallmark-card day for Mothers. But I have found so far that being a Mama means simply being. Celebration of who we are should happen on a regular basis and come from ourselves -- being a Mama means something every day, not just one day a year. It means carrying on like every other day before it, not giving up, ignoring the exhaustion and finding the happiness in the small faces and little hands. I think it was said best by Wampum:

"Mother's Day, Schmother's Day - I've got a quarter acre to till before the full moon on Thursday."

Amen.



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