I am mother (working title)

I am 

Stretch marks

Loose skin

Big breasts

Faint smile

I am

Puréed bananas

Homemade laundry soap

Cloth diapers

And Amazon.com

Ripped jeans

Lacy underthings

Boo-boo kisser

Impressor 

Story time goddess

Nightmare warrior

Banisher of fevers

Queen of vommit

I am frustration patience need

I am

Mother

All woman

Nurturer 

Lover

Mother mother mother

A Poo-tiful Situation

If you are not a parent, you will never believe what just happened: 

Rosie (14months) was crying so I wrapped up taking out the trash and ran upstairs to get her from a nap, clocking in at 1.5hrs. When I got up there, it was a horror story. There was diarrhea dripping from the mattress onto the floor, smeared all over the crib rails--and I'd never seen anything quite like this--Rosie's sleeper was drenched neck to feet to wrists with poop soup. So I took her to bathroom dripping and gagging, splattering the floor with liquid ass. I ran bath water, unzipped her as carefully as possible, but her butt was a geyser and she squirted lava all over me splattering the tub, wall, toilet, and the carpet of course. She was so slippery from poo juice I nearly dropped her putting her in tub, getting ass all over my pants. I lovingly squirted liquid soap all over her from the container and hosed her off while making a face I never wish to see. I had to scrub half the upstairs with bleach including my skin, which is now forever unclean. 

Parenting 101: never have anything you love so much you can't throw it away when it becomes covered in shit.

Told You So, Post #3

Things I've learned the hard way this year: 1) A disaster is only a disaster if someone you love is seriously injured. This past year, in my first year of marriage, we had a fire. Our victorian property had a carriage house converted garage that burnt nearly to the studs. Unfortunately, many of our belongings were still unpacked in their impermanent home. My husband had taken a small break at my request when the fire happened. I smelled smoke and went to the kitchen window to watch our belongings burn. Many of our childhood things were in there, but thankfully my husband was not. 2) Financial hardship seems to pounce all at once. Bought a new car, my stove quit that day. 3) Being angry really only makes you suffer. Find a solution. 4) Kids don't care what anything looks like. 5) Your skin will suffer under stress. 

Told You So, Post #2

Things I've learned the hard way: 1) Always check a Pull-up before you pull it down. 2) Ovens are hot mirrors and children are apparently parakeets. 3) Ice cream will inevitably end in tears. 4) A puppy will not be easy just because now you've taken care of an actual baby. 5) Sex is almost impossible and ultimately ends in more children. Words of wisdom for the day friends and future mommies, and Ya, Ma, I know, you told me so.

Sunflower Hair

Sunflower Hair

 You look perfect in this minute--hovering like dust in the air--our minute, with you looking at me, me looking at you, and I see it, your innocence and surrender defining your love for me. I can see myself in you, but I somehow recognize myself less every day. (I wonder will it someday entirely disappear?) Those large, almond shaped eyes, green unlike my own. Darling, you are beautiful, light bouncing off your sunflower hair. I am laying on the bed, dress pulled up to bare my legs. The upstairs of this old, pink Victorian house gets hot and stuffy in the summer time as it would an attic. I want to hold this minute, cradle it like an infant fresh, writhing, stinking of placenta all warm and bloody. I think, I would like to remember you this way exactly, smiling and totally in love with me. But I know better dear girl. I know you will grow, because I will grow you. I know you will need to be yourself, and be less like me. I know you will forget sometimes you love me, and maybe I too. But anyway, I want to remember you, no us, like this: just together, alike, smitten, glowing and radiating and emitting and full of everything. I wonder if you see me--I mean really see me--the way I am full of faults and impatience with poor skin. (Do you know yet to see yourself in me?) In this minute, the sunlight is fading and you turn away, beautiful, tiny and disinterested.