Learning to be a mom

Listening to: the scrape of shovel on soil (my husband digging out the back patio)
Reading: Beloved by Toni Morrison
Outside: Overcast but cooler (I don't start sweating just sitting still, yay!)

Well, life is a journey after all. You walk a lot, and you take a rest every now and then, and sometimes you have to run to catch up. Milestones take forever to get here and then they're gone in a flash.

Likewise, I'm approaching my pregnancy as a major mini journey, chronicled and remembered, and so here are the things I've done so far:

- I've gone through that first month where you're not even aware. You almost pass out at a relative's big birthday bash, but you blame it on your severe cold that's spinning your balance out of control.

- I've lived the 12 weeks (yes, that is three months) of pure, relentless pregnancy sickness hell. Learning how to vomit quickly and efficiently - in public restrooms or private - I know how to do that now. Goodbye, morning sickness and all its woes! I am particularly glad that milestone has come and gone!

- I've felt my baby's first was-it-really-her kicks, and I will never forget that moment. My lunch break in the sun on a park bench, half-eaten sandwich in hand, and it's like the world stopped turning for a moment. Oh, my.

- I've seen my baby grow in the first and now second ultrasounds (I can't wait to hold those tiny feet in my hands).

 

Blurry blobby Jellybean didn't want to stay still yesterday!

 

- I've grown out of 90% of my jeans/shorts/skirts. I'm now down to Walmart-shopper cotton shorts. I know. But, at times like these, elastic waistbands make life a million times easier. Comfort rules!

- I've moved everything from bottom drawers to top drawers. Socks, bras (upgraded size, twice), undies and clothes now reside higher. As bump grows, the floor seems a longer way down. Merely just the first of lots of rearranging my life around my little girl.

- I've worried. About everything. About anything. I wonder if she's happy in there (yes, yesterday we found out we are expecting a girl!). I wonder if I toss and turn too much at night and she's sloshing around in there. Was that little can of Red Bull ok. Did I do irreversible damage by running for the train that one time. Will she like me. I worry about the future, job security, my (seemingly never ending!) path to publication, and so many big and little and important and stupid things.

- I've stopped worrying. True, you never truly stop, but I've found you can wear yourself down for absolutely no reason if you keep on worrying too much. So, as Baby Suggs tells Sethe in Beloved, it's time to just lay it down, sword and shield all. Just let it go.

- I've taken a completely new interest in baby stuff. Moses baskets, prams, teddy bears, oh my! Having never been "into" babies when I was younger, this is a total and completely reckless transformation. Even my husband wonders what happened to the old no-nonsense Vee. Where is she? I don't know. Perhaps she is yet another milestone that has come and gone, waving goodbye on a sunset road.

- I have dreamed.  Of Christmases made magical again, seen through a child's eyes. Being there and being a friend. Of being a good mom and doing my best.

And this journey continues. I'm walking down this road, the next milestone's still waiting for me to come up to it. Sometimes I think, my baby's first steps to me will be the last milestone, glittering and hopeful in the distance. But that's, of course, only the beginning.


Happy Saturday, all.