Well, happy mother’s day everybody. This is my 4th annual mother’s day and I have to say that I think I’m finally comfortable saying, hey I’m a mom and I’m OK with it. My first Mother’s Day (2002), I’m sure I was still reeling from giving birth to Vince 2 months prior – that boy was a crying/nursing/no sleeping champ and on top of it all, I was getting ready to move halfway around the world to a place where no one spoke any English. I don’t know how I made it through that little stressful bit of my life, but I came out on the other side in more or less than one piece.
I don’t know what I thought motherhood was going to be like before I had kids, but it sure is a lot more skin-to-skin contact than was advertised to me on television. I got all my pre-birth information on motherhood from (where else?) watching TV. When you watch TV show like Friends or Sex and the City or even Everybody Loves Raymond and there are babies around, these people can put the baby down in the crib in the other room and make dinner, watch TV, flirt, have affairs and eat at restaurants like they could before, and I was so naive, I believed them! I thought, gosh, I’ll leave my kid in the crib and I’ll just watch Days of Our Lives until my maternity leave is up and then I’ll find a great day care where he’ll either sleep or play nice with the other kids while the day care worker watches Days of Our Lives. Just goes to show you how little I know about anything.
When I was in labor with Vince, I had no idea that 4 years later I would be a stay-at-home mom to him and Edda. Before I had kids, I had no idea what it was like to be touched 24 hours a day. It still drives me bonkers, but I think less so than on my first Mother’s Day. Cheers to motherhood!