Guilt Trips

What does it mean to be a good mother?

I want to be one, but how do you know if you’re doing your job the way you should? How do you evaluate yourself at the end of the day? It’s not like you get quarterly performance reviews or a bonus for a job well done.

Motherhood comes with its own special kind of guilt. Mine started before Alexander was even born. I remember when I was only about 6 weeks pregnant and I took some allergy medication only to find out that it wasn’t approved for pregnant women. Much mental anguish ensued. I was convinced that I had done irreparable damage to my unborn child in my selfish quest to get rid of a runny nose.

Once he was born, it only got worse. In the first days, I was constantly worried that the water I was using to make his bottles contained too much fluoride and was going to give him brain damage. Then there was the first time I gave him gas drops…I gave him the wrong dosage and just knew he was going to have a severe reaction. I could go on. These things are laughable now, but at the time, I drove my husband crazy with my Guilty Mother paranoia.

Even now, at the end of the day, I wonder: Did I play with him enough? Did I hold him enough? They (whoever this mysterious “they” is) say your child is supposed to hear you say 17,000 words a day…did I talk to him enough (I couldn’t say 17,000 words if I were running for public office)? Should I be taking him to Mommy and Me classes? Am I reading enough books to him? Should we be giving him organic baby food? You see where I’m going with this. It never ends. There is always some aspect of my mothering that I question and wonder if I’m doing enough, if I’m enough.

It seems like this is just the mother’s lot in the parenting game. Men don’t seem to have this problem. My husband loves our son and is an excellent father. He feeds him, plays with him, changes him, makes his bottles, cuddles him…he does all the things a loving parent does, all the things that I do. But he doesn’t worry like I do. And he doesn’t seem to have the guilt that I do. He doesn’t seem to worry whether or not he’s a good father.

And Alexander loves us both equally. In the morning, he grins his big toothless grin at me when I get him out of his crib. And, in the afternoon, he grins the same grin at his daddy when he comes home from work.

So, I guess in Alexander’s opinion, Mommy and Daddy both are doing just fine.

All the Thinks I Never Thought

I am sure most first-time moms can attest to doing things that they never thought they would ever do…because, as we know, before you have a child, you don’t really KNOW anything. You think you do and it’s so easy to judge, but you really don’t know anything. Really…even if you think you do…YOU KNOW NOTHING!

So, here are some things I never thought I would find myself doing, back during my know-nothing days:

I never thought I would ever run errands in faded black sweatpants and a spit-up stained t-shirt with my still unwashed hair tucked into a ball cap and not a scrap of make-up to be found on my face, simply because my mom volunteered to keep the baby for a couple of hours and I had no time between the time she called and the time she arrived to get presentable. I never thought I’d put on a pair of earrings and a little lip gloss and pronounce myself “cute.” Ah, how our standards have fallen.

I never thought I would have definite opinions on baby wipes…which are the perfect degree of wetness, which are easiest to get out of the box, which smell the best. In fact, I never thought I would declare that baby wipes are, in fact, the perfect household item, handy for not only their intended task, but also for wiping hands, faces, spit-up upon carpet (or any other spit-up upon item, for that matter), dirty walls, dirty counters, toys, etc. Seriously, I do not think my house will ever be without a box of these things ever again. I could extol their virtues forever.

I never thought I would be the kind of person who would WANT to extol the virtues of items such as baby wipes.

I never thought I would look at a friend’s new minivan and envy her. I always firmly maintained that I would never drive a minivan (I knew nothing). Now, all I can think is, “Wow…look at all that space.” I’m still not ready to throw-over my SUV, but I see the benefits of the mom mobile.

I never thought I would look at a trip to the grocery store as a break.

I never thought I would think that going to bed at 9:30 was late.

I never thought I would find myself trying to negotiate with a 4 month old.

But, then again, I knew nothing.

When Mommy is Sick...

When Mommy is sick, everything just falls apart.

I speak from experience.

Over the past month, I have been sick twice, both times for a week. And, let me tell you, it has totally stunk.

It’s bad enough to feel horrible, to be on antibiotic, to have to go to the doctor, and to have absolutely no will to leave the couch. It’s an entirely different matter to be all those things with a 4-month old in the house. He, frankly, does not care that his Mommy is sick as a dog. No, he still wants his bottle at 4 hours on the dot, his silly one-on-one play time, and his rocking before sleep, never mind that Mommy’s arms feel so weak that she fears she can’t support his sumo wrestler weight. It’s not that Alexander is inconsiderate. It’s just that, for this one moment of his life, it is perfectly acceptable for him to not think of anyone but himself.

So, I slogged my way through the week, praying he would take decent naps (he didn’t), hoping my sickness was all in my head (it wasn’t), and wishing that the feel-better-fairy would pay me a visit (she wouldn’t). Thankfully, my mom and dad were able to help a whole lot since my husband had a very busy week and couldn’t really cancel anything…we couldn’t have made it without them.

Even so…the laundry piled up, the junk didn’t get picked up, and I didn’t get to enjoy my boy quite as much as I wanted to last week, which is always hard since his babyhood is so fleeting.

I guess the other side of the “it’s okay for him to think only of himself” coin is “whatever happens right now he will not remember just so long as someone is meeting his eating, changing, and cuddling needs.” So, that’s something, anyway.

But I have absolutely no desire to be sick EVER again. Quite a change from my school days when a sick day was tantamount to a party.

It’s not much of a party, though, when the only guests are a sick mommy and a cranky 4-month old. Give me the daily grind.

Alexander and Joe

There are many things I used to look forward to in my pre-baby life…weekends, going to the movies, nice dinners, a trip to the library that resulted in a huge stack of books, free time to read those books, etc.

Things are so different now.

Not that I don’t still look forward to those things. I do. Weekends are nice because my husband is around more. I still love movies and dinner out and library runs. But those things are harder to come by now. Weekends aren’t as relaxing because Alexander is always on Alexander’s schedule, no matter what day of the week it is. And, outings are a little more complicated.

So, now, there is one thing, above all other things (besides seeing my son’s first early morning grin) to which I look forward.

My morning cup of coffee.

I literally go to bed at night anticipating how great that cup of coffee is going to taste. I wasn’t like that before A’s arrival. I made my coffee when I got up in the morning, it brewed while I showered, and I drank it while I got ready for work. This was my daily routine, and I really think my coffee habit then came more from a caffeine need.

Now, when 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep is a distant memory, you’d think I would need the caffeine even more. But, I think now, it’s more than that.

See, I’m not in a rush to get the coffee down so that I can make it to work on time. I can linger over it…I drink it while Alexander plays in his bed and I put away clothes in his nursery. I drink it while I return emails and he sits beside me in his bouncer and laughs at the ceiling fan. I drink it while he takes his morning nap in his swing and I sit on the sofa and just watch him.

I never knew a cup of coffee could taste so good. Or maybe, it’s the company.