It's been awhile. A long, long, loooooooonnng while. My second daughter was born April 18th, and she is just a little love! I have decided that I want to work on my writing, so this blog will be my practice. My goal is to publish one post a week, on whatever topic I want. Today I want to talk about motherhood.
I have six months as a mother of two under my belt. There are times that I feel solidly like a veteran mom, and other times where I feel like I've started all over again. That despite having gone through the issues of feeding and sleeping and development just a year ago, I have absolutely no clue what I am doing. I've decided that that is how the human race keeps going. If mothers remembered the early months of new infants, we would never have a second, or a third, or more. My memory of so many other things is crystal clear, but I could not tell you what my first daughter was doing at six months old to save my life.
The thing I find most mind-boggling about motherhood at this point, is that I still don't feel like a mother. I love my daughters. I feel protective of them. I worry about them, I miss them when we're apart, I laugh at the ridiculous infant things they do. But when I think of all the things I do, the things I am, the labels I can give myself--wife, daughter, sister, friend, reader, crafter, baker--mother is the most foreign and uncomfortable. It's a jacket that's too big, the sleeves hanging past my fingers, the hood drooping over my eyes, the bottom hem brushing my knees. And I wonder if I will ever grow into this coat of motherhood? Will it ever feel familiar and comfortable and worn-in?
Last night as I fell asleep, I wondered vaguely what it is that makes a mother a real mother. Would I feel more motherly if my girls had come out my vagina instead of a large cut in my abdomen? If I had nursed instead of pumped or formula-fed? If I had read more books, or spent more time doing yoga or if I hadn't been slapped with PPD and PPA twice? When is the magic moment where I stop being a wooden puppet mom and turn into a real mom?
