This is my third mother’s day – fourth if you’re one of those people that count mother’s day when you’re pregnant because you’re a mother from the first heartbeat. I believe in life from the moment of conception, but I wasn’t really thinking of myself as a mother yet. I didn’t really feel like a mother until I was nursing and changing diapers and praying I didn’t screw it up.
Although this blog began as a book review blog, it is still a blog and by definition it is an online diary. Which means it contains not just one of my passions, but all of them. Books, Kung Fu, Cycling, and now, of course, for the last three years – mothering.
Being a mother, for me, has meant that I have found every possible way to make half my previous yearly income from home. I’m not quite making half as my book sales are chronically lean because it’s in the wrong category on Amazon. I’m a little conceited about the beauty of its cover and enticing back jacket blurb and think it would sell like hotcakes if only the right people could find it by browsing.
Of course, being a mother has actually made it possible for me to finish writing a book in the first place.
Being a mother, for me, has meant that my book reviews take me twice as long to write because I used to be able to completely bury myself in a book until I felt like coming up for air. Now, I don’t get to choose when I come up for air – that is usually chosen for me by a precocious three year old who will say things like, “Mommy, I need more juice.” “Mommy, look, it’s echoes, like in the bathroom.” (After drawing a series of parenthesis like lines getting larger across the width of her chalkboard.) “Mommy, I need a peanut butter sandwich.” “Mommy, you be the orange dalek and I’ll be the white one – ‘Exterminate! Exterminate!” (While dancing rubber Daleks across my kitchen table.) “Mommy, I want to learn something. Can we do a lesson?” “Mommy, can you teach me my letters now?” I love my tiny, vocal, human who will assert her needs and remind me to read to her at every turn and not neglect her schooling.
Being a mother, for me, means endless beautiful walks in the woods. Miles and miles of trails, flower picking, foraging, bird-watching, and outdoor story time. It means multiple trips to the park, the lake, the grocery store, bookstores, and libraries. It means art projects, painting, dancing, extra house cleaning just for the fun of letting her sweep and mop knowing I’ll have to do it again. It means demonstrating all of your passions, all your talents, all your dreams, and all your healthy habits to a small person who is watching your every move and gathering every ounce of information she can from it all.
Being a mother has meant seeing this little girl go from this:
To this:
In what can simultaneously be equated to a blink of an eye and the longest three years of my life.
I didn’t think I’d be a mother. But I’m enjoying it immensely.
