On being a Mommy....

 

I just knew that i would be the BEST Mommy in the history of mankind. There would be no other Mommy like me ever again. I would be as close to a perfect Mommy as any could find. I would be the Queen of Mommyhood Land and all would hail me as such. In fact, i would be looked at and awwwed at constantly on how well my child acted and behaved, how she was dressed, how her manners were impeccable, and how sweet and loving a child i had. I would even start writing a book on how wonderful i was at being a Mommy.

Not only that, friends, i would NEVER (and i mean NEVER, EVER!) do some of the things that i saw those 'other' Mothers do....after all, 'those' Mothers obviously didn't have a clue on the 'right' way to do things. I, in my fantasy world of greatness, was a 'natural' mother and didn't need anyone to teach me anything. I had read ALL of the books on how to raise a child, what to do and what not to do, how to deal with cases of whining, crying, tantrums, potty training, safety issues, the so-called terrible two's (which i thought was nonsense, btw...) and how to teach responsibility to a little child. I would be the Mother Teresa of Mothers. I would never (there's that word again...) be one of those Mothers who screamed at their child, one of those Mothers who directed their child's every move, one of those Mothers who put those harnesses on their child to keep track of them, one of those Mothers who fed their child Mac 'N Cheese for lunch and dinner (because that's what the child wanted...) or one of those Mothers known as 'helicopter Mothers' who hoover over their child's every mood because they wanted no harm to come to their child. And i would certainly never bribe my child to get her to do what i wanted her to do. NEVER. EVER.

Yeah, you see where this is going, don't you?

This Best Mommy in the history of mankind obviously didn't have a child while all of these fantasies played out in her head. No one told me that little girls could (and would...) poop in the tub. No one told me that if you said the word 'no' to a child at least a trillion times that the said child wouldn't listen. No one told me that a little girl would run out (in front of my ONLY new neighbor who came to visit me, btw) slap, butt-naked, waving a diaper over her head, giggling. No one told me that a little girl would try to eat worms or dirt. No one told me that a little girl would poop so much that i thought that something surely must be wrong with her. No one told me that EVERY child throws a tantrum in a grocery store just as you are trying to get a few things; and scream so loudly that others would think i had run over her with a store buggy. No one ever told me that i would have to read the same book over, and over and over (and OVER...) again in those funny voices for each character in the book. No one ever told me that little girls insisted on drinking their own bath water after taking a bath in it. No one told me that i would sing in my ungodly, off-key, cat scratch, horrible voice, nursery rhyme songs that i made up because i forgot the real words to the song and my daughter would sing back to me in the same voice.

And of course, no one could prepare me for how much i love this child.