Feeling Like a Mom

After I had my baby and my forty days of rest, I remember the first few times I ventured out on a short errand without her. It was the strangest feeling. I lost my baby weight quickly and so when I went into the store or the bank, I felt like no one knew I was a mother. And I didn't like that. I wanted to shout out to everyone "I just had a baby!" so they would all know. I felt so strange without her. She had become a part of my identity so quickly, and yet, at other times, I would look at her in disbelief when I realized that I was her mother. There were even a few times when I forgot--for a nano-second--that I had a child. "Oh my goodness. I have a baby," I'd say out loud and run to her room to look at her.

Now she's almost 5 and I'm trying to pick a kindergarten. Eek! But even though I have been a mom for that long, I don't feel like my mom, or rather how I imagine my mom felt being a mom. In some ways I think of Phoebe as my sidekick. I take her to plays, book signings, the beach, fondue parties. She went surfing with me for the first time when she was 2 years old. Also, we're not a traditional two parent family, so in that way I don't feel like my mom, but today I had an totally motherly moment.

I decided to make Phoebe a scarf for Valentines Day. She picked out some purple puffy yarn a month ago and it was just sitting there, so I went for it. I don't crochet at all. Really. Not at all. But luckily the yarn was forgiving so I basically just used the hook to tangle it up in a shape that resembled a scarf. As I sat there crocheting I felt a motherly spirit superimposed on mine and I felt very much the picture of motherhood as I sat there in all my zen crocheting goodness. I laughed in my own self-consciousness of it, but it felt nice. Maybe because I don't sit for very long like that anymore unless I am at the computer or doing hypnosis.

Though I am a mom all day, every day, for the rest of my life, I think it's interesting the things that make me "feel like a mom."

What makes you feel like a mom?