Hello, Pushkin

I've been thinking about how to fill in that blank for a week now, ever since the Parent Blogger network I'm part of partnered up with a site called Light Iris to issue this blog post challenge.

I am a mother because...

I haven't come up with much. To tell you the truth, eight months after Mae's birth, I still feel like I'm figuring this mothering thing out day by day (or sometimes moment by moment). I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. She's the greatest little person to spend the days with. She's smiley, and healthy and hitting all the developmental milestones.... but, all the same, my confidence is so easily shaken that, some days, I feel like I barely deserve the title 'mother'.

Pushing Mae in the swing at the park, the mother standing next to me makes an off-hand comment: "It's not as warm as they forecast." Immediately, I'm convinced that what she's really trying to comment on is the obvious fact that Mae is not wearing mittens while her golden-haired son has got on adorable teddy bear mitts which he is not even pulling off at every opportunity and this is, obviously, because she is a good mother and I, clearly, am not.

My husband comes home from work and asks, innocently enough: "Did you water the new tree today?" "No," I snap back. "I didn't get around to watering the tree because..." and then I rhyme off a ridiculously long list of the things I did that day, including every diaper change and every meltdown I had to deal with because I wouldn't let Mae eat Kleenex... all in an effort to spell out for him that I am not lazy and that, while he's away earning the money, I don't I sit around all day in my underpants neglecting our daughter while I watch Oprah (Okay, bad example. I do watch Oprah and, sometimes, Mae is only in her diaper, which is a lot like underpants but, I swear, that's the only downtime I have some days between baby care, dishes and loads of laundry).

And, of course, I'm not suggesting that my insecurities really have anything to do with my husband or with the other mom at the swings. There have been a few people (a very few) who have rudely suggested that I should be doing this or that differently when it comes to Mae but, comparatively, I've been about a hundred times harder on myself.

It's like I can't quite shake this feeling that the other moms I know are really mothers, while I'm just in disguise. Sure, I love my daughter with an intensity I didn't know existed before. And, yeah, I'm pushing the stroller. I'm wearing the shirt with spit-up on the sleeve. I can read Mr. Brown Can Moo in the dark, with my eyes closed, with or without the actual book in my hand. But I don't really know what I'm doing. I'm only muddling through, making up the words to the songs as I go. Whenever somebody tells me how good Mae is, I shrug my shoulders: "She just came out that way," I answer. "She's a great baby." And she is. She's got the sweetest, happiest nature; the funniest smile.

But maybe, on this, my first mother's day, I could try giving myself some of the credit. I might be feeling my way through the dark with this motherhood thing, but I'm staying on course all the same. I'm figuring it out one step at a time. I'm raising a great kid. And I'm willing to bet that every mother feels that same uncertainty - even the mom at the swing set. How could she not?

It's not like any of us come into this job with prior experience in being sent home from the hospital with a total stranger who cries, doesn't sleep, can't talk and can't even support the weight of their own head. It's not like any of us can possibly be prepared (no matter how many books we've read, how much advice we've been given, or how much help we've got) to be the primary caregiver; to know how to protect that little person and help them grow up to be a responsible, caring, fully functioning adult. I mean, Jesus Christ. It's huge, and it's hard, and it's scary, even when it's amazing and rewarding and totally magic. It's the biggest, most complicated, most lifelong job I can think of.

We're all stumbling through motherhood and, for the most part, we're doing the best we can. As hard as I can be on myself some days, deep down I believe anyone who takes on the job with a loving heart and the best of intentions deserves to feel proud of herself.

So, I've been thinking about this question all week, and this is what I've finally come up with:

I am a mother because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway, and I'm doing it with all of my love, and I'm doing it with all of my energy. When it's all said and done, that aught to be enough.