Monday, November 01, 2004

I am not the mother I thought I would be

Before I had my first baby, I was one of those people who walked around saying stupid things like "When I am a mother, I will never do that." Uh-huh. Right. My, how things change. For instance, I now feel that french fries are a good source of.... Well, I don't know what they are a source of exactly, but I'm sure it won't kill my daughter to eat them. I know I said I'd never allow such a thing, but that was before I found myself starving to death and wanting to do something, anything, to get her to eat and leave me in peace with my burger.
I also said I wouldn't fall into gender stereotyping. Ha. Girl Terror has butterflies on her blanket, pink is her overwhelming color of clothes, and I have tea parties with her and her dolly at least once every 2 days. Boy Terror went out yesterday totally covered in blue. He's too young for me to warp in any other way, but give me time.
I used to look at other mothers, and "tsk tsk" when I saw the straggly hair, the shiny nose, and the spit up covered sweats. I said high and mighty things like "I will never go out in public looking like that! Don't those women have any pride?" Now I know. They have pride. It's just buried at the bottom of the overflowing laundry basket. A good day for me now is if I am wearing all clean clothes, and have washed my hair before scraping it into a ponytail.
I want to start wearing a sign when I am shopping: "Don't judge me. You try keeping a 2 year old occupied while you are getting ready to go out. I bet you end up in the aisle next to me, wearing a spit up colored shirt, buying Sugar Coated Balls of Crap cereal so that you can have 5 minutes of peace, too!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh this one hit on the mark. Yesterday when my hubs came home from work I was still wearing the same work-out bra, extra-large tshirt, and thick white socks that I wore to sleep. The only change in my attire? I'd thrown on a pair of black workout pants. And yes, I went out of the house looking like that (I added a black baseball cap to camouflage the horrible hair on my head). But that's just happens to most of us...

koreen (aka: winn) said...

Amen! I know this comment comes a couple of years later, but... this is me. My biggest fear: someone I know and love will nominate me for "What Not to Wear".