“How was your sister’s baby shower?” I asked my friend Steph. She was gathering muddy clothes off the floor and wiping dried yogurt from the table while our 4-year-old sons hammered a plank of wood to bits in the front yard.
“Meh. All Jen wanted was one last hurrah as a childless adult. Instead, everyone talked about their kids and how they just ‘can’t imagine’ their lives without them.”
I’ll never forget when a friend told me a story about a mom she knew. “She totally yelled at her kid,” my friend said. “In public!”
I try to practice equal-opportunity parenting: be kind to my kid in private, be kind to him in public. I try not to do things out in the world that I wouldn’t do at home because it makes me feel icky. Kids, of course, don’t live by the same rule. Scratch their butts in private, scratch their butts in public; what’s the difference?
Cal beams when he sees us. His smile comes together in an adorable instant: two teeth appear in a wide-open mouth. His cheeks flush. Blue eyes squint. Then he makes a gibberish baby noise that somehow manages to convey love, delight, and recognition all at the same time.
I'm working from the premise that motherhood is not just all diapers, tantrums, and setting limits. It's interesting. Okay, sometimes. 