In the winter of 2007-2008, I planned a wedding, got married, and built a house. I wasn't alone in these projects, obviously, but I was fully involved. The following winter, I threw a lot of parties, hosted a lot of dinners, skied a lot of loops with friends and drank a lot of champagne. Last winter, I grew a baby.
She's here now. Her name is Quinn. And that makes me a mother. So now, in the winter of 2011, this is my project: figuring out how to be someone's mom.
In the beginning, when she first arrived, I practiced just saying the words. When we were alone, usually when I was changing her diaper and she was lying on the changing pad looking up at me, I would say, "Hello. I am your mom. I am your mother," stretching out the words to listen to the way they sounded as I said them. They sounded foreign. And I felt like a fake. I have often felt this way in my life…like someone pretending to be something, hoping the real people won't notice and discover my embarrassing secret: I am not really this person. I am really someone less than this person. This time around, it's the mother of all secrets…sorry for the pun, but what better use of it, right?
Once I started to feel a little more comfortable introducing myself to Quinn, the next phase was to see if she'd accept me…to see how comfortable she was having me be her mom. So I would slip around the corner into her room and look over the edge of her crib to meet her glance. As her eyes adjusted to the new object that was my face, I would ask her, "Are you my baby?" And then I'd wait nervously for her to decide.
I respected the fact that she would take her time, as if she was trying to weigh the pros and cons and make a wise choice. And I'm grateful that each time, after a relatively brief pause, she would answer with a full body muscle spasm—arms and legs reaching up and then slamming back down all at once—and a big squinty-eyed, open-mouthed smile. I took all that to be a yes.
So far, she hasn't rejected me. But, that's the phase I'm in now…wondering how to be the kind of mom she won't reject. I had a great role model for 21 years. I think my own mother was flawless—literally. I try hard to think of a weakness, just to prove she was human. I think back to the times we fought, or the times I thought I hated her, or the time I ran away for an afternoon. Each of those times, I was the idiot. I can't think of a single time she failed me, or let me down, or disappointed me. She was my idol and my best friend. And, as a teenage girl, that made me a bit weird, and I didn't even care.
But here's the problem: I'm worried that I can't possibly live up to her. The thing about role models is that they're on a different level. So here I am, in my "mom" shoes and sometimes I can't make them move. It's like I'm standing here in a vast open space and I'm looking down at a pair of yellow wingtips or something, marveling over how strange they look, and then looking around at how much ground I have to cover.
I actually wore yellow wingtips in high school. It was the eighties. And my mom let me. I think she even encouraged me to, but maybe that was because she secretly thought I looked hilarious. At the time, I thought they were very cool. Now, they are a source of great joy for my little sister Amy who loves telling people that I wore yellow wingtips. Amy was the kind of sister who would stand behind a locked screen door laughing when you had wet your corduroys at the neighbors' house playing hide-and-seek because you didn't want to lose, even though you were in the fourth grade.
I was stuck standing still then too…I had good intentions (or at least I thought I did): to win the game. I had an intense desire to win, I always do. I had the resolve. The patience to stick it out for the long haul. I just didn't have the bladder. And that's what I worry about. What weakness will surface in my efforts to be a good mom? What challenges will render me immobile, and ill-equipped?
Recently someone at work asked me how Quinn was doing with her babysitter. "Great," I said, "her babysitter is a much better mom than I'll ever be." The person I was speaking with knows the babysitter too; she teaches part-time at our school. She tried to reassure me, "She's just a different kind of mom." Yeah, I thought, the kind that says "Oooh! I hear some noise in your britches!" while I'm the kind of mom who says, "Man! Your butt stinks! Now I have to change your friggin diaper again!"
I'm almost certain my own mother died without ever dropping the F-bomb. And while I feel a little sorry that she didn't get to experience the joy, the humor, the power of that word, I am also humbled by her unfaltering class, her good judgment, and her restraint. She managed to express exuberance, and be funny, and wield unfathomable power over me without ever using that word…she was more intelligent and more creative. She had artistry as a mother.
I've got yellow wingtips, wet corduroys and a mouth like my Uncle Rey who really was a trucker. I'm screwed. Quinn is going to grow up with the smell of my fear! She is going to laugh at me from behind that locked door. It all comes rushing back…all the former awkwardness in my life, all the fear of failure and loss. It's all wrapped up into this one thing: "I am your mother. Are you my baby?"
Some day maybe I'll feel confident, or sentimental, and I'll write about the way Quinn's face relaxes and her eyes close when I stroke her forehead, the way my mom would do for me when I put my head in her lap. Of course, thinking back to that also makes me think of the times when I thought I needed to be comforted and my mom would smile at me lovingly and then let her hand drop onto my forehead with a thud and say, "Oh, honey! What's the matter?" and then she'd laugh at me…and in doing so she'd force me to laugh at myself.
So, here I am, trying to laugh at myself…That same little sister, who locked me out when I desperately needed to get in, also once told me, "You can't control what hasn't happened yet." This may be obvious to most people, but for anyone who has the kind of control issues I've had, you'll understand how this could be a revelation. Amy has always been wiser than I, despite being four years younger. And I think back to that bit of wisdom all the time, I can't control what hasn't happened yet. And this time, it's for real. Quinn will be the biggest test of my life. The marriage is holding together, getting a little better most days. The house works; it is warm and pretty and people always tell me they feel good when they're in it. And the baby I grew, well, she's amazing…she's healthy and beautiful and I could tell from the first day she showed up that she has the power to see right into my soul.
So now the only thing left to work on is me…everything else is done. And even though I'm trying not to control what hasn't happened yet, and I'm trying not to get so caught up in my desire to "win" this one that I end up embarrassing myself, I do wish my mom could be here to help me figure it all out…to convince me that my shoes will get me where I need to go…and that I don't look too weird wearing them.
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