Definition of Mom

~

I'm a mom.

This does not mean that I feed and bathe and clothe my children, although I do those things. This does not mean that I sit up with them when they are sick, or take them to the doctor, or teach them to mind their manners, although I do those things too. Anyone can do these and not be a "mom."

Being a mom means listening to the Pirates theme song 13 times in a row because it makes your daughter giggle and your son rock out in his carseat.

Being a mom means begging your child to go on the potty and then practically throwing a party when she does.

Being a mom also means going to Taco Tuesday with your mommy girlfriends and talking about potty training over $3 Coronas and $1 tacos.

Being a mom means reading the same stupid Elmo book over and over and over and over and over again because that is the only book your son will let you read to him.

Being a mom means knowing how to grocery shop while avoiding the cereal, cookie, and ice cream aisles.

Being a mom means playing princesses with your daughter while playing cars with your son -- at the same time.

Being a mom means agonizing over what would have been a simple decision in your "pre-mom" days -- perhaps about whether or not you really care that your child is watching her second movie of the day.

Being a mom means knowing how to hide veggies in oatmeal, peanut butter and jelly, and mac and cheese, since those are the only foods your daughter will eat.

Being a mom means saying "Wow! What a great drawing! Can you explain it to me?" instead of "What on earth is that?" so that you don't crush your young Picasso's feelings.

Being a mom means visiting the zoo once a week for a year so that your son can say hello to his "favorite" monkey (who you suspect died 6 months ago and the zoo got a replacement but didn't tell anyone).

Being a mom means being able to stumble into your son's room at 3:30 in the morning, change him, feed him, and tuck him back into bed without waking up yourself.

Being a mom means not blinking when your daughter comes out of her room dressed in a ballet tutu, rain boots, bathing suit, headband, and gloves.

Being a mom also means making your son change when he comes out of his room dressed in a diaper, flipflops, and a cape and proclaims that he is ready for school.

Being a mom means not shuddering at snot, vomit, poop, blood, or pee when it comes flying at you from your child, but gagging when you see another mom's child with the same gunk.

Being a mom means sometimes you will snap at your child "What do you want?!?!?" when they have been whining for 30 minutes straight (and if you haven't then you are either lying to yourself or haven't been a parent long enough).

Being a mom means being able to take one look at your child and say "Who hurt you?" when your child is not crying.

Being a mom also means that you use that "Who hurt you" moment to teach your child about forgiveness although all you want to do is to go wring the little bully's neck and smack his mother.

Being a mom means growing eyes in the back of your head, at least four extra arms, and two extra feet.

Being a mom means being strong even when you are terrified, being faithful even when you doubt, and being happy even when you want to cry.

Being a mom means that you will be under-appreciated, overwhelmed, exhausted, and irritated --and sometimes all at the same time.

Being a mom also means that you will get to hear the most beautiful laughter, see the loveliest smiles, taste the stickiest kisses, smell the sweetest after-bath-time scent, and feel the best hugs every day from your children.

Being a mom means that you will enjoy every minute of motherhood (even the ones where all you want to do is cry).

To My Daughter on Her 17th Birthday

Before my children were born, I decided to write letters to them that they could open on their birthdays. Since I figured they would not be able to read when they were born, I addressed the letters with instructions to be opened starting on their 13th birthday. I wrote a letter when I was pregnant, a letter on the day the baby was born, and I write a letter every year on their birthday. My daughter's third birthday was two weeks ago, so she gets to open this when she is 17...

My Darling, Preciousest Baby Girl:

You are such a BIG girl. I know that you are 17 now, and I can't wait to meet the adult you are becoming, but right now you are my precious little 3 year old daughter who likes to tuck in her baby dolls and pet my hair, who loves to cuddle on my lap while watching Princess movies and who takes my hand with a "Come ON Mommy" while you drag me over to come color or play with you, and who demands "Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-La" and "Baby Mine" lullabies every night and throws a fit if I try to sing them out of order.

You are the most interesting little person. You are kind to your brother - mostly - and so talkative. You are also such a little ham with a big, infectious giggle. You can be a little shy at first, but once you warm up to a person or situation, look out! You are so friendly and loving! I worry that you are too friendly sometimes, that you might get hurt because you are so open and willing to be friends with people, but then I remember how painfully shy I was and realize that your way is better. You are also a bit of a bossy, stubborn little thing. Some people might think that is bad, but I think it's a good thing. Women in this world need to be a little bossy and stubborn; we need to be the leaders future generations can count on. So be bossy and stubborn -- it shows that you know your own mind and are not afraid to speak up. But please temper these qualities with the ability to think and compromise. Don't order people around just because you can and don't hang on to a belief/practice that you know is wrong. It's okay to change your mind once you get more facts.

I start to cry when I think of you reading this letter in 14 years... you are my little girl and I don't want you to grow up; I love you so much and the thought of losing this little girl actually causes me physical pain. But I know that I will love the kindergartner just as much, if not more, and the elementary age sweet girl just as much, if not more, and my preteen and teenager daughter just as much, if not more, as I love my 3 year old baby girl. And I can't wait to see what the future brings.

If I am doing my math right, you are going to be entering your senior year of high school this year. And I remember well how hard that year is -- not necessarily in terms of schooling, but in terms of standing at the cusp of adulthood; you are no longer a child but are not quite an adult yet either. I know that to you, my 17 year old daughter, I may seem overbearing and demanding, probably uncool and difficult. Try to understand that it is because I love you and I can't bear to let you go just yet.

What do I hope for you, my 17 year old daughter? I hope that you are not afraid to speak your mind. That you continue to be kind and friendly. That you are strong in spirit and self. That you still have an infectious giggle and are loving. I hope you have style and grace. And I hope you kick ass when needs be, but are not afraid to let others take the reins now and again. I hope you know how to relax and how to study, that you can have fun and be responsible, that you can be smart and silly, that you can be strong and gentle. I hope you know that you can come talk to me about anything and that you and I have a good relationship of love and trust. Mostly, I hope you know that I am proud of you and that I love you so so so so much.

I love you, my preciousest babiest girl,

Mom

The Stories Parents Tell...

~
My daughter finally gave up the binky. It's been six weeks now, and I thought we were doing pretty well... every now and then she asks for it, but then I remind her that Sleeping Beauty if borrowing it; she accepts it and moves on.

Until last night.

We went to Disneyland to see the Fantasmic Watershow and Fireworks Display.

Both of my kids loved it, and we got to see Belle, Snow White, and the Little Mermaid. My daughter was in princess heaven.

When we left though, she suddenly screamed: "STOP MOMMA!"

Stopping abruptly -- to the people who were behind me and crashed into me, again, I'm truly sorry -- I asked what was wrong, as I was frantically checking her over for a scratch, cut, broken bone, bullet hole... whatever it was that was making her scream so loudly.

"We need to see Sleeping Beauty," she explained.

My husband and I shared a confused look. "Why?" I asked her.

"To get my binky back," she said matter of factly.

Oh, bloody hell.

"Well, she doesn't have it right now," I hedged.

"Did she give it to Prince Philip?" my daughter asked.

I grabbed onto that like a life line. "YES! Yes, she gave it to Prince Philip!"

"Well, well, well, then we need to go find Prince Philip," my daughter said.

Clearly, she would not be deterred. "Well, he's not here," my husband said.

"Where is he?"

"He went on a quest," I told her. I was quite proud of that one, sure she would let it go. Oh, not my daughter.

"How did he go?" my daughter asked.

"He went to fight the dragon," I told her.

"Will he give me my binky when he comes back?" my girlie asked.

"No, he'll give it to Sleeping Beauty," I explained.

"Okay, lets go wait for Prince Philip with Sleeping Beauty!" my daughter decreed.

How did I get outsmarted by a 3 year old?

Remember When...

... This ...


... Plus This....


... Equaled hours upon hours of THIS:

Things Overheard in my Household

~
1. "Brudder and I are good. You and Daddy are bad biggies. You make bad choices."

2. "Boyo, do you want a cheese sandwich?"
"NO!"
"Okay, what do you want to eat?"
"KAT!"

3. "I get two birthdays. Brudder doesn't have any."

4. "We need to move my shoes so the whale doesn't eat 'em."

5. "Baby Girl, can you come here please?"
"Yes, dear!"

6. "I love you, my little munchkins."
"I love you too Little Mommy, but brudder doesn't love you so I should get a cookie."

7. "I don't hafta go potty. I already went for a hundred years."

8. "Baby Girl, you don't get to yell. Only Mommy and Daddy get to yell."

9. "Boyo, put down the fireplace poker. We do not try to kill Sissy in this house."

And my personal favorite:

10. "Is it bad that I'm taking prenatal vitamins with wine?"

Because Everyone Needs A Smile

How can you not laugh?

Birthday Party

~
My daughter's birthday party was yesterday.

I'm happy that she was thrilled with her presents, the cake, the locale.

I'm pleased that I didn't completely lose my mind planning and hosting a party for a bunch of 3 year olds and under.

But what I'm REALLY proud of?

That this...

became this....

which became this...

Happy Third Birthday Baby Girl!!!

To my darling THREE YEAR OLD daughter:

You are my preciousest, messiest baby girl!

I love you, Jelly Bean!
Happy Birthday

NOW

~
I walked out of work today for the last time.

Finals are graded. Classroom is clean. Keys turned in. There is nothing left for me there.

And I feel.... finally at peace with the circumstances.

I'm still a little sad. I'm still a lot scared.

I had an epiphany as to why I was so panicked before. Actually, my husband had it. With a sprinkle of my sister's wisdom too. And a side of a good friend butt kicking, stop-feeling-sorry-for-yourself talking to.

When I called my sister hysterical, and I told her: "I just taught my last class!" her retort was "No, you didn't. You just taught your last class at your job. You will teach again."

And my good friend said: "Stop thinking of this as permanent. It's not. You are home for now. And you define the 'now.'"

And my husband said: "Of course you are upset. You define yourself as a teacher. And now you aren't one. Now you can be whatever you want."

So......I'm a blank slate. And I get to define 'now.'

I'm getting T-shirts made with these two sayings.

My Daughter's Birth Story

~
My daughter turns 3 this Saturday, and I've found myself reminiscing about the day she was born. That, coupled with the fact that 5 of my friends have had babies in the past month, made me want to document her birth story. Added bonus? This way she has it forever.
~
I began feeling contractions on June 11th at about 3:30 in the afternoon. They were in no way "progressing" (doctor speak for getting stronger in order to actually push a baby out), but I was eager to meet my daughter and, quite honestly, I was done being pregnant.

So I did all the things they tell you to do to speed labor up. I went on a long walk. I took a shower. I ate spicy foods. Finally, an hour later, I decided I was ready to have my baby girl, regardless of the fact that she was not "progressing."

My husband came home from work and we loaded up the car to go to the hospital. We were quickly admitted, I changed into one of those horrible blue hospital gowns, and I was strapped to a monitor. And we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

I think my contractions stopped.

Finally, a nurse came in and told me that I was only a half a centimeter dilated, but after reviewing the monitor print out, she told me that I was in the early stages of labor. The sent me home and told me I would probably be back by midnight.

At home, we ate some chicken noodle soup and my husband, after waiting with me for 5 hours, asked if he could go to bed. Sure, I said. I wasn't feeling much pain (you know, the kind you see on TV when a woman goes into labor? Yeah, that was what I was expecting). I was just uncomfortable.

So my husband went to bed and I didn't. Couldn't sleep. Too uncomfortable. So I decided to walk. I grabbed my IPOD and my cell phone, threw on my sneakers, and walked around my neighborhood for an hour.

Oh, did I mention that it was 1 in the morning at this point?

My husband called me, panicked, at 2 when he woke up and I was not in the house. I went home, more and more uncomfortable. I decided that I should start keeping track of my contractions and their duration, but I didn't really know what I was doing, since we were Lamaze dropouts.

Finally, at 4:30 in the morning, after a 4 mile walk and 3 lukewarm showers, I shook my husband awake and told him we were going to the hospital.

"Are you sure this time?" he asked groggily.

I deserve a medal for not smothering him at that moment.

At the hospital, I was told I was two centimeters dilated and they were going to keep me. YEAH! The nurse then made me walk around the damn hospital for two hours. At that point, I demanded an epidural; I was so tired of being uncomfortable. (I am mildly ashamed to admit that I was only 3 centimeters dilated at this point.)

Dr. Wu (may God forever bless this man) showed up and gave me my epidural. I was immediately happy and pain free.

And allergic to the epidural.

I'm not entirely sure what happened, but I know that I suddenly got chilled, started shaking, alarms went off, and everything went gray. My one clear memory is the terror on my husband's face. Still, two doses of IV Benadryl later, I was good to go.

I was also asleep.

I slept until the epidural wore off at 3 pm when I woke up crying. They gave me another epidural and more Benadryl, and I went back to sleep.

At 9:30 pm, my kind day nurse of the pain free epidural and sleep-inducing Benadryl was gone and had been replaced by evil Nurse Ratched. She abruptly informed me that it was time to push. My room was suddenly full of people - my nurse, baby nurse, Dr. Wu. My OB wasn't there, but since he hadn't been there for much of the pregnancy, I wasn't too surprised. The lights came on. The stirrups came out. My husband was drafted to fold me in half.

I started pushing. And pushing. And pushing.

Nothing happened.

"You aren't trying," Nurse Ratched barked at me. "Push harder!"

I looked at my husband and said rather loudly, because the baby nurse started to laugh, "I do not like this woman!"

She then told me, "You aren't pushing right. We are turning off your epidural."

I think she said that just to punish me for my comment about not liking her. But I was in no position to say anything. I looked at my husband: Do something, I told him telepathically.

"Wait," he said. "What? Why? We were told we could have the epidural through the delivery."

"She can't feel anything and she isn't pushing hard enough," Nurse Ratched snapped at him. "If she was doing it right, I could leave it on."

My husband looked at me and shrugged. Easy for him to be dismissive. He wasn't the one folded in half like an accordion, struggling to push out a watermelon.

So my epidural went off.

Oh. MY. GOD.

OWWWWWWWWW!!!!!! is not a strong enough word.

After 45 minutes, I started crying. "I can't do this," I sobbed. "I want to go home."

My husband rubbed my back, and Nurse Ratched got right in my face. "Shannon," she barked. "If you are going to panic, this is not going to work."

Really?!? What's option 2?!?!?

I think my daughter could tell that I was not happy with Nurse Ratched because just then, my water finally broke all over herand she had to leave.

After that, it was smooth sailing. I vaguely remember yelling at my husband to count faster (his job was to count to 10 while I pushed, so I would know when to rest); my OB finally showing up, talking about basketball; and Dr. Wu shooting me up with something when my daughter crowned (did I say, God Bless that man?). I don't remember much else until I saw my daughter.

The doctor held her up and put her on my chest. There are some moms who say that the world fades at that moment, that all they can focus on is their child. In my case, it's sort of true: I can tell you that Nurse Ratched was telling me to push out the placenta, and the doctor was asking my husband if he wanted to cut the cord. But I ignored them and everything else just wasn't there. I only could see her face; I can't even tell you what my husband was doing at that moment. All I knew is that I had a baby, a sweet, purple and red baby girl who was screaming her head off, and I started to cry.

"Look at what we did," I said to my husband as I gathered my daughter up and pressed a kiss to her purple forehead.

"Hello, preciousest baby girl! Welcome to the world," I whispered, before the baby nurse took her to bath her and give her the APGAR test (which she passed with flying colors, I might add).

My daughter was born at 10:24 pm on June 12, 2007, weighing 8 lbs, 4 oz, and measuring 20.5 inches long after 36 hours of labor.

And she has gone from this:

To this:

SAHM, Part II

I'm going to be home with my kids next year. And this scares me, but not because I'm going to be home all day, every day, with my kids.

Okay, not just for that reason.

My other concern is: What will this do to my marriage?

Don't get me wrong, my husband and I love each other. But our marriage suffered two rather large seismic shocks in the last 2 years, 11 months, and 3 weeks. The births of our children were more joyous than we expected. The raising of our children is more difficult that we could have ever dreamed. And it affected our relationship in ways we never thought of.

Sure, when you have a baby, you think you know what you are getting into.
You know that you are going to have sleepless nights. And you know you will have to spend money on things like diapers and baby food. And you have a feeling that your sex life might suffer. And you think that your marriage will change -- perhaps grow stronger as you raise a person together.

But no one tells you that newborns have to eat every 2 hours and they don't give a damn that it's 3 in the morning and you haven't slept in 2 weeks.

Or that diapers are $40 a box, and you go through 2 boxes a week.

Or that baby food is ridiculously overpriced and your baby will refuse to eat it half the time, and will knock it on the floor the other half of the time.

Or that baby toys will take over your living room.

Or that you and your husband can go an entire day where there only conversation you have is about your child's bowel movements.

Or, forget suffering... what sex life?

Or that you are an idiot for thinking that your marriage will get stronger - for the first six months to a year, it's all about survival and you and your husband are two ships passing in the night.

Or that at times you actually think your newborn might be plotting your death.

And after all of that, my husband and I are just now starting to get our marriage back on solid seismic footing.

So I'm worried that my staying home will be a large aftershock to those previous earthquakes.

Besides the obvious worries and stresses about money, I'm worried about something more simple. My husband, as much as I love him, is taciturn at best. And one of the things I knew we could always talk about is work -- we are both teachers, so that gave us something to "bond" over.

So, once we talk about the kids, what are we going to talk about?

The End of an Era

~
Okay, maybe not an era. I don't know, does 5 years count as an era? Somehow, I don't think so.

Still, 5 years is a long time. 1,825 days. 43,800 hours. 2,628,000 minutes. Or, to put it another way, 1/6 of my life.

For 5 years, I have taught at an all girls high school. When I started there, I was fresh out of a teaching credential program, nervous and ready to take on the world. I was engaged to be married, living in a condo my parents owned, driving a broken down Saturn.

I taught my last class there today.

As I leave, I am a married, mother of two with an MA, paying astronomical mortgage payments on a house I sometimes lovingly and sometimes reluctantly call home. And I drive a minivan. I grew up while I taught there.

And I'm not sure how I feel about leaving.

It's just now starting to sink in that I am not a teacher there anymore. Sure, I have Awards Day tomorrow, and three days of finals next week. But I'm not going to school as Ms. Gerlach - Super Star Teacher. I'm going in as Ms. Gerlach - An Adult in the Room for Supervision Purposes.

I've been so busy today - making finals, sitting in on meetings, grading, cleaning/packing up my classroom, and -- oh, yeah -- teaching, that it's only now, as I sit at my desk with a glass of wine, that I can process this change.

I'm numb. And relieved. And sad. And terrified. And sick to my stomach. And excited. And I want to cry.

I'm sad to leave my students and my friends. I'm excited and terrified to be a full time mommy. I'm sick to my stomach and terrified about our financial situation and the fact that I don't have a solid plan for work yet. And I'm relieved that I no longer have to deal with the nonsense that has been my life for the past 5 years.

I talked to two of my sisters and a good friend today about what I was feeling - how I'm a tangle of emotions, how I'm not sure if I should be laughing or crying, how I'm not sure if I should grin or throw up. They all gave me great advice:

One sister: "In 3 weeks, you are going to be so happy. The change is scary. But in 3 weeks, whether you have a new position or not, you are going to be in a great place."

Good friend: "Being afraid of being home with your kids is normal. It's an adjustment. But we're here for you."

But perhaps the most realistic advice came from my other sister:

"You're sad because you are thinking about all the good stuff. Stop it. Think about all the crap they put you through. The good stuff was rare. The crap was daily."

Still, for tonight, I think I'm going to finish my glass of wine, tear up a bit, and remember the good stuff.