I wrote this many months ago. It's interesting to go back and see where my head was in different stages of my daughter's babyhood. I wish I had written more. I was always writing in my head, but as a new busy mom it rarely made it to paper. I debated whether to still post it, but it deserves it's moment since it really captures where I was, and while I've evolved and my experience is somewhat different now, I'm just simply not a laid back cool cucumber mama. I suppose I should update with a toddler version!
I'm jealous of the laid back mamas. For one, people always refer to them with such admiration.
"Ohh she's so laid back." oozes the (insert grandmother/friend/observer/neighbor.) They adore her.
Subtext: This is a cool cucumber mama who does not get frazzled, who lounges in her backyard both with manicured nails and the ability to say "meh" to the dog poo on her son's shoe. So chic/girl next door/wonder woman all wrapped into one. She embraces a bygone mama of the 1970's who lets her children explore the neighborhood until dinnertime and monitors from a distance.
She lets her son eat on the run, candy wrapper stuck behind an ear, and almost glances when he climbs a broken tree branch.
She is so cool and I rage with envy and wonderment.
"She hasn't napped yet today," She shrugs as if it's a minute detail about the forecast in Switzerland. When my daughter hasn't napped, there's a magnitude 8.5 earthquake in our home. This is why I bite my non manicured nails when she only naps 30 minutes, and we adhere to a nap schedule. Trust me, I didn't choose this. My daughter did. I attempted non-chalant-swing-that-child-whererever-we're-going. I wanted to be granola mama. It went so perfect in my head when I was pregnant. We both wore those matching hippie headbands. I did gardening while wearing her in a sling on my back. We rolled in the grass. We skipped naps like nobody's business.
Now introduce frantic, OCD, worrying, helicopter mama. There's no oozing about her, except maybe the ooze that secretes from her left eye as she squints and twitches at her 12 month old walking to the edge of the patio. She restrains herself from jumping in since she isn't sure if he understands one foot heights yet and wants to appear unbothered in front of her friends.
I used to have questions for those mamas:
1. How do you do it?
2. Is it a 1+ child phemomenon? Will I achieve that if I have more kids?
3. Is it simply your personality? Have you always been chill? Did you not freak about eating deli turkey when pregnant?
But now, I honestly don't care.
I've tried the laid back mid century America approach and it feels like a burlap dress. Scratchy and uncomfortable. I'm that mama who restrains in an attempt to appear cool, but inside I'm tightly wound. Maybe I will ease up a bit as she gets older or if I have more kids, but I inwardly sighed when a friend revealed that she still check that her 8 year old child is still breathing before she goes to bed. I hear about mama's doing that the first month or two but I still do it and thought I was overly neurotic. Then I read some article that OCD-like behavior is a normal physiological process of early motherhood and I sighed again. It's exhausting enough taking care of a tiny person. I'm not going to beat myself up about what comes natural to me.
