I’ve
been thinking a lot about what it means to be a mommy. I’m all up in the midst
of it every day, and I have a million stories to tell, but until you actually
think about the full scope and spectrum, you may not know what you’re getting
yourself into. So I thought I’d give a little explanation of what a mommy has in
store…
Being
a mommy means you must know the exact location of every toy, book, and piece of
clothing that has ever passed through your house at any given moment, and
failure to know means a demotion in your child’s eyes.
Being
a mommy means that as soon as you turn your back on a clean room for a second,
you will turn back around and see it destroyed.
Being
a mommy means you spend your days sitting in pillow forts, fighting with
imaginary swords, and drawing eyes and mouths on matchbox cars. It also means you
roll on the floor, read countless books with different voices for every
character, and crawl for a good part of your day.
Being
a mommy means that sometimes the words coming out of your mouth surprise you.
This could go in one of several directions, but what I mostly mean is that
becoming a mommy makes you become more creative in expressing your frustration
because as soon as you let a word slip, your child will be repeating it in the
most inconvenient of places. So even if you’re awakened from a nap by your
child who had explicit instructions not to leave his bed, and he’s tapping you
ever-so-gently on the nose because he really needs to be wearing his robe right that very second, you may not,
under any circumstances, say anything even close to what you’re thinking.
Being
a mommy means your sweet child will say, “Mommy, I have a song in my heart and
I just have to let it out,” or, “I keep saying [insert random word/phrase]
because it feels so good in my mouth.”
Being
a mommy means you have honed the art of simultaneously listening and tuning out
the same little voices.
Being
a mommy means your supergluing skills are second to none, and you can build a tower, carwash, or zoo from Legos like a champ.
Being
a mommy means you will spend a lot of days drenched in pee-pee and spit-up and
leftover food all at the same time, and if you're wearing perfume, makeup, or jeans your child will
ask you, “Are you going somewhere?”
Being
a mommy means your child thinks you are the most amazing, beautiful, skilled,
creative person on the planet. It also means she wants to be permanently
attached to you and has developed some amazing spider monkey skills to make
sure that happens.
Being
a mommy means that you are never ever ever
finished with the laundry. In fact, it means that until you wise up, you will
look out into the living room at your basket of freshly folded clothes and
realize that your child has unloaded all of said clothes onto the floor.
Awesome. Because folding clothes is just not as fulfilling until you’ve done it
twice.
Being
a mommy means watching your kids grow up and feeling so proud and wanting them
to freeze in time at the same time. It means watching them somersault for the
first time, or take their first steps across the living room, and having your
heart almost burst and your eyes fill up with tears. It means eagerly waiting
for them to become more self-sufficient and wishing they’d never do anything on
their own.
Being
a mommy means that everyone always needs you to be doing something for them
that is completely unrelated to what you are actually doing.
Being
a mommy means that every once in a while your energetic child will ask you, “Mommy,
want to snuggle up with me in my blanket?” and you will drop everything
immediately.
Being
a mommy means you will get considerably less sleep than any human should try to
function on. And despite your exhaustion, when you finally get your kids to bed
at night, you will find yourself staying up doing random things just to have a
few minutes alone. If you don’t know what I’m talking about then you obviously
have a nannie and we can no longer be friends.
Being
a mommy means that every once in a while, a sleepy-eyed little one will come stumbling
into your room in the middle of the night, just because he woke up and needs to
be cuddled.
Being
a mommy means that the phrase, “Do you need to go potty?” comes out of your
mouth every thirty minutes like clockwork. It also means you will randomly
embarrass yourself when you ask grown-ups the same question.
Being
a mommy means you sing at least fifty percent of what you say, stalk your
little people with a camera, and snuggle them every single second they’ll be
still.
Being
a mommy means that at your most frustrated moment, tiny little arms will wrap
tightly around your neck and little fingers will get all tangled up in your
hair, and you will feel exactly what it means to be unconditionally loved.
So,
what do you think? Are you interested?
