Going from Rilee’s Mom, to being her “Mommy”-
Moving on from being a something, to being her someone
I can easily wake up every morning and claim that my daughter Rilee is more than enough of a reason to get me out of bed; while equally claiming with vigor, that she is also the reason I wish that I could stay in bed all day. With such a contradiction at hand, it sums up the feelings a parent has towards parenthood. The project was simple. I must pick something to conquer for the next three months that would somehow transform me, or complete a transformation that had already begun. I could not pick yoga, for my patience level is minimal, and pending knee surgery, some of the moves would have me in the Savasana pose, also known as the corpse pose, before I was even able to begin another session. Finding time to meditate would also pose a problem, being I cannot pee without my daughter running in to the bathroom with a penny screaming, “Yay! Mommy you did it”, referring to the fact that after 25 years of life I was successfully potty trained. So naturally if I was to try to relax, she would claim mommy was sleeping, and that I needed to wake up. Dancing for me is like the tango of awkward two left feet, meets shy wall flower, which if your math is bad equates to a HORRIBLE mix. Art? Nah, I wouldn’t be able to draw anything more than the occasional shape, and I am already a certifiable pathological picture taker, so picking up that for this process would be cheating.
As a family, we already “commune” with nature enough. We spend weekends outdoors on the lake, or hiking, or riding bikes. Praying is something I try to do daily, but would feel bad for making an excuse to have to do it, and somehow the whole “Dear God please don’t let me kill her” in regards to the diaper cream she just opened and smeared everywhere, didn’t seem to qualify as productive prayer. So, in this being a self-observation paper, it was only right to allow myself time to observe more thoroughly. There wasn’t just one thing that I wanted to do that I felt would transform me significantly, nor was I going to do a multitude of things and try to piece them together. So as I sat in my car with the “Mommy I hear the color song again” playing in the background, I thought. In the shower, while juggling a slippery wet, wanting to splash instead of wash, 2 year old, I thought some more. While rushing from class to work, to my other work, to home, to cook dinner, and do homework, and bathe and tuck in and read and love upon a little girl, and a husband (he would require another paper), I thought some more. In all of my thinking I concluded that thinking just was consuming too much time, until the other day when I read a blurb somewhere that went, “My 3 year old called me mom today. When did I stop being his mommy?” and I couldn’t help but cry. (Why yes, I know what you’re thinking; a grown woman, sitting there crying because someone’s kid called his mother mom, but as a parent of an almost 3 year old I had to really ponder the notion that one day I too would be hearing that word and all the innocence of mommy would be lost.)
