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It all started with a selfie.
For the first time in days, she was happy and smiling and, dammit, I wanted it documented. I needed evidence that my grumpy, ill, and miserable babe was still actually capable of exuding even the slightest hint of the twinkle I have come to know and love.
I should've known better.
It wasn't until Mo and I were walking down the hallway to her new pre-k classroom after dropping Edie off in her class when the significance of this new season in motherhood hit me. My eyes hadn't even so much as watered until Mo grabbed my hand, looked up at me with her big green eyes and said with the utmost conviction, "You don't worry, Mama. I'll go check on Edie in a little bit and make sure she's having so much fun with the other babies. And I'll hug her if she's crying so don't worry. I'll look after her. Okay?"
Immediately, I had to fight my typically defunct tear ducts to hold it together.
One thing that often weighs me down as I go through the day-to-day task of raising my two girls is the uncertainty of it all.
How will I know that I'm doing it right?
How will I know that I'm doing right by them?
How will I know that I'm not completely fucking them up?
The simple answer is that I won't. At least, not right now and maybe not for another twenty years or so. The far less simple answer is that, as parents, we have such very little control over who our children turn out to be no matter how much we want to believe otherwise. With all of its' uncertainty, parenthood can feel like we're being Punk'd, like we're oblivious participants in a rogue social experiment. While trying to blindly navigate its' manic ebbs and flows, I've come to believe that trying our best is not only good enough, trying our best is simply all that we can do.
Marlo, the golden girl who made me a mama, is becoming such a uniquely special little being. Her emotional intuitiveness and sincere desire to leave people better than she found them never fail to catch me off guard with yesterday morning at drop-off being no exception. While it's far too early to call it a job well done, Marlo is quickly serving as a glimpse of the very real possibility that I'm somewhere on or encroaching near the path to doing something very right.
Raising Mo and watching her blossom into the most radiant little human is my daily reminder that no matter how heavy the weight of this responsibility feels on my shoulders or how many times I'm bound to fuck up, motherhood is by far the most emotionally stimulating and personally gratifying adventure I've ever had the honor of embarking on.
Since she was born, I've called Edie, Easy E. While I make an effort to never compare my daughters, as an newborn and infant, Edie was a breeze compared to her older sister. We often joke that we paid our dues with Mo and got Edie as a reward. She's just always been so innately happy and easy to please-- a trait I would find utterly annoying if she weren't mine.
It wasn't until late January that we realized that she was even capable of being unhappy and we were introduced to Easy E's alter-ego, Not So Fucking Easy E. She got her first ear infection and it took over a month to recover. Since then, she's had four more double-ear infections, each one lasting for at least a month and requiring multiple rounds of antibiotics to clear it up completely. Basically, her ear canal is extremely narrow and prevents any fluid from draining, causing a whole lot of fuckery and unhappiness. Even when her ears aren't actually infected, the constant presence of fluid causes pressure, waking her up around one a.m. every. single. night. To say that our family is tired would be a grave understatement and the exhaustion has taken its' toll on all of us. Let's just say that I now know why sleep depravation is used as a method of torture.
We took her to the ENT a few weeks ago and they told us that she also has some minor hearing loss because of the fluid, as if she were under water trying to listen to people. So, on Friday morning, for the sake and sanity of Edie and our entire family, she's getting tubes. I'm trying to not think so much of the possibility of anything going wrong though, naturally, it's proving rather impossible. Instead, I'm trying to focus on getting my happy baby back... on being reacquainted with our sweet Easy E.
However, I must say that my anxiety is through the roof leading up to the procedure. For over a week now, I've been having nightmares of her not waking up from the anesthesia which is rather dramatic, I know. My brain tells me to relax but, please tell me, when in motherhood does the brain have the power to dictate anything? NEVER. When a mother's worst fear of something going wrong or something happening to the person you love the most in this world is not only thrusted to the front of your mind but also becomes an actual possibility, logic doesn't exist. Of course my head knows that this procedure is routine and fairly common and the doctors and nurses taking care of her are qualified but my heart says that there is absolutely nothing routine or common about handing your baby off from your arms into the arms of a stranger and trusting them with her life. I'm working hard to pull myself together by Friday because I really don't want to be that hysterical mom sobbing in the waiting room. I keep telling myself that improving her quality of life (and our family's) is worth the risk but I'm kind of failing miserably.
In the meantime, if you're into this kind of thing, could you send any spare good juju you've got laying around over this way? For our sweet girl and for me. Please and thank you.
I also wonder what my twenty year old self would have to say about wearing a denim onesie and having the same bangs and haircut as my kid. It'd be a safe bet that she wouldn't approve.
I may be hallucinating but I am fairly positive I agreed to being Mo's pre-k's class Room Mom. It's likely that I was overwhelmed by the unadulterated level of excitement of knowing that in five short days I'll be breaking free from summer vacation and felt obligated to repay the saints who are teaching Thing One and Thing Two five mornings a week for restoring my sanity.
So, now I'm Room Mom.
I don't even know what the fuck a Room Mom does. Is it a mascot? Is there a uniform or a costume that I get to wear? Am I required to bring in cupcakes or doughnuts for no reason? Do I start a phone tree? Do moms even do phone trees anymore? It's likely an e-mail chain now, right?
The closest experience I have in this department is being Safety Patrol on bus 535 in the 5th grade. For the record, I took this job very seriously. My sixty-something year old bus driver whom I adored, Mr. Smith, told me I was the best Bus Safety Patrol he'd ever seen. I realize now that he was possibly attempting to inflate my impressionable ten year old ego. Nevertheless, I appreciated the declaration of such success. However, since my only responsibility was counting heads after our last pick-up stop and I was almost always a head or two off, I am likely greatly unqualified for whatever responsibilities being Room Mom entails. I always thought roles like this were for the overachievers and the perpetual Teacher's Pets and, as you may have imagined, overachiever and Teacher's Pet, I was not. I was too cool for school. I made fun of the Teacher's Pets and often accused them of low self esteem.
(It should be noted that while I was no teacher' favorite, the vice principal and I were well-acquainted, remaining on a first-name basis through most of junior and senior year due to all of the school days I was apparently too cool to attend.)
The other option is that being Room Mom helps lift some of the guilt I feel for so desperately wanting to be away from my kids for a few hours every day. Like, "I shower my kids' teachers with doughnuts, hook them up to an IV drip of caffeine because it's a random Tuesday. I buy them the expensive candles not the Target candles. See! I'm involved! I care! I'm a good mom."
What the fuck is a good mom, anyway? I'm not entirely sure but I am fairly certain that my twenty year old self would find pleasure in kicking my twenty-nine year old' ass. As a result, my only real goal in life right now is to maintain some minor semblance of the person my teenage and worry-free self wouldn't want to violently and repeatedly slap.
I am acutely aware that my work is cut out for me.
Room Mom,
Over and Out.
one....
two....
Being a little sister is hard.
Being Mo's little sister is even harder.
"I find it amusing that we're all pretending to be normal
when we could be insanely interesting instead.” -Atlas