Now That I'm Someone Else

LIfe and loves of the bubble bath queen

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Mommy, mommy, mommy......

Recently I got an email from my mother telling me she is proud of the woman I am and also thanking me for making her a mom. That’s right, I started it all, if I hadn’t decided to be born she would still be a pregnant teenager.

That email got me thinking about how becoming a mom changes us. It is such a huge change, even if you fall into it by accident, you can’t help but be changed by it.

Think of all the things that would not be part of your life if you had never become mom. As I look around the house I see the baby blanket draped over the couch in the family room, the one my sixteen year old has had since her first birthday and still cannot go anywhere, except to school, without. Then there are the women’s shoes that are not mine. Bookcases full of books I haven’t read. Ravioli in the pantry, Mountain Dew in the fridge. Music I would never have heard, TV shows I would never have watched, I mean really, who watches The Secret Life of the American Teenager, if you don’t have a teenager to watch it with you. Hair extensions, bright eye shadow colors, rubber bands for braces, and contact lens stuff clutters the bathroom, not mine, hers.

This wonderful little person who is growing into such a wonderful young lady has brought so many things into my life, but she has brought so much more out in me.

It’s no longer all about me, it’s all about Mo. From the second the fertility center said it worked, life became about Mo. I ate better, I slept better, I was happier. Before she was even born she taught me things I wasn’t aware of, until now. Like how to walk with an extra twenty five pounds on your front, that is an important skill, considering how long you carry that baby around in your arms after it’s born.

Then, once they put her in my arms I learned that a human being has a capacity to love that we are not even aware of until we love someone totally dependent on us. I learned patience, starting with labor, which will not be hurried even when you are sure you are going to die. I learned to laugh instead of cry when things didn’t go my way. I learned that the bowel habits of a newborn will consume you. I stepped out of my comfort zone, so that Mo would never feel constrained by my inability to be comfortable in certain situations.

Being Mo’s mom made me want to be a better person, for her. I’ve learned in the last sixteen years that I knew nothing before she was born, and now that she is sixteen, I know nothing again. I’ve learned to do things I don’t like, so that she will give new people, places, experiences a chance. I eat my vegetables, all of them, Mo doesn’t, but one day she will, for her babies. I found that I have a whole slew of mom sayings and one day my daughter will catch herself saying them to her kids and have the same reaction I did “ Oh shit, did my mother just come out of my mouth?”


“Eat your dinner, kids in Ethiopia are starving”

“Do what you have to do and you will have plenty of time to do what you want to do.”

“Don’t cross your eyes, they’ll get stuck like that.”

“To have a friend you need to be a friend”

“Little girl, go find your real parents” (her father made me stop saying that after she asked if she was really adopted)

“Life’s not fair baby girl, suck it up and get over it”

“Pull your pants up, you’re selling crack again”

“Stop humping her head, no one likes that” (That’s for the dog, but it is an important life lesson, cause really, no one likes that)

“Boys are dumb and smell like ass”

“I love you and I’m so very lucky to be your mom”

“Clean your room before the health department comes in and shuts us down”

“Boys have cooties”

“ You can do anything if you just apply yourself”

“I’m going to sell you to the Gypsy’s for beer money if you don’t stop…(fill in the blank with annoying child habit)

“No smoking crack or surfing porn while I’m gone” ( I like to cover all the bases because I have found if you do not specifically forbid it they will say- but you didn’t say I couldn’t, so now, I cover everything)

“You are my sunshine, my only sunshine”


I can’t imagine becoming this other person at such a young age like my mom and sister did, but they did it and managed not to kill and eat their first born, which Kay and I are very grateful for. So thanks mom, for not killing me, although, I now know I deserved it. There is a reason why God starts us out so small, I don’t know anyone who would keep a PMS’ing teenager if they hadn’t loved them always.

I’m still becoming the person that being Mo’s mom makes me. Every day, every year, we grow into a different phase of it. This year’s phase is that my baby is driving and really having a life of her own, making choices that are more important than what to wear to homecoming, and I have to let her.


So thank you my beautiful, talented, wonderful, one of a kind, baby girl. Thank you for turning me into your Mom and being patient with me while I learned (I’m still learning, so please, still be patient). I would walk through fire for you.

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