The Mom

Mommy. We all know the word. Sometimes we love it. Sometimes we hate it. And sometimes we wish it were our husband's name instead of ours.

Here is a recent conversation between the oldest and me:

J: "Mommy, Vanna and I are gonna play house, so when you hear me saying 'mommy,' I am talking to her and not you. If I need you, I'll just say 'mom.'"

Me: "Okay, honey."

A few seconds pass.

"Wait. Never mind. You can still be Mommy. I'll just call her Vanna."

Simple enough.

And then it hit me.

For better or worse, right now my name is Mommy. But...(gulp)very soon I am going to make the almost imperceptible transition from beautiful, talented, she-can-do-anything Mommy to just plain old Mom. (You know, that simple minded well-meaning lady that one lives with who really doesn't have a clue about anything or anyone.)

Plain old helpless Mom.

And then I had a memory from a moment 26 years ago. I was playing over at a friend's house and I heard him call his Mom "Mom." I remember how foreign to me the word sounded, as if he had just spouted out a line of French...and for a moment I felt silly that my own Mom was still "Mommy" to me. But I distinctly remember starting to feel better when I thought to myself, "but she's not Mom. She's Mommy."

Fast forward a few years and the slow creeping change had inevitably come to pass. Mommy wasn't Mommy anymore, and what was once foreign was now commonplace and normal. At this point, saying "Mommy" would have been downright embarrassing, and "Mom" had taken officially over, trumping and prevailing over "Mommy," without me even noticing. Plain old Mom.

Back to the present.

As I wade through memories of teething babies, and vomitty sheets, and grocery store mishaps, and rowdy bedtimes and millions of meltdowns, and smashed fingers and blowing on food, and doctor's visits, and car trips, all the while struggling to be my best self and sometimes secretly (or not so secretly) crying because I just don't feel good enough for this job, I realize: Mommy is a title I have earned. It is something that I get to be called. It is my right and it is my privilege.

And I better hold on to it as tight as I can while it lasts.

Driveway of Doom

I have lots and lots of fears in this world. Thankfully, though, only two of them are completely irrational.

The first fear is one that lingers from childhood: going all the way up and around on the swings. (If you are a Mythbusters fan, you know that this fear/myth has already been debunked...the only way that they could get a dummy on a swing to go all the way around was to strap it to a rocket. This dummy, nevertheless, remains petrified at the prospect.)

The second fear is a more recent yet similarly unjustified one: my sister's insanely steep driveway. To see it from the bottom, you would think you were looking up at Mt. Everest. The air looks thinner, the winds look stronger, and it appears impossibly cold at the top. (As evidenced in this photograph of a picturesque Southern California day...but don't let it fool you.) Thank goodness for the excellent foresight on my sister's part to have oxygen tanks hidden in the bushes down at the bottom. And the Sherpas really come in handy, too.

There is one great thing about this driveway: it is so long and so steep that the house seems about a mile away from noise and civilization. The not so great thing is that driving up it scares the living daylights out of me. Honestly, every time I begin the 45 degree ascent and approach the seemingly impossible-to-reach summit, an intolerable fear creeps into my mind that the car is going to flip over backwards and tumble me back down the driveway to my untimely death. By the time I am approaching the top, I can actually no longer see the ground in front of me, which generally causes me to take my foot off the accelerator (the worst thing you can do) and then my sister has to kindly yell at me to "keep going!" at which point I gun the engine and leave yet another unsightly skid mark on the once unblemished driveway. How nice that I still get invited, huh?

Maybe someday I will conquer these fears and maybe someday I won't. For now, admitting that I have a problem will just have to be the first step in the long road to recovery.

I only hope that that road does not end in a driveway.

Ever Wondered?

Have you ever wondered what broccoli looks like when it's growing? Well, neither had I. It's always just appeared magically in the produce section, no questions asked. But the girls recently helped their aunts plant a garden at their home in California, and now, I am excited to announce that we are all privy to the mystery of broccoli growth.

Pretty cool stuff, eh?

Lesson Learned

Well, it took 3 incidents, but now I know for certain not to leave my children unattended with a box of markers. (Or wrapping paper. But that's a story for another day). All I can say is thank goodness for Crayola Washables.

"I wanted to write my numbers."

Unfortunately, we cannot afford paper.

This one's a little reminiscent of Jesse James.

Incredible Hulk

You should see what she looks like when her

clothes are all shredded in the morning.

Yes, the belly button is colored in.

In case you're wondering, that says "Julia."

We still haven't found the culprit, though.

The Sweetest Things

In the middle of March, we headed to California to meet the new cousins and bless the babies. It was so amazing to snuggle with my two adorable nephews and see all of the sweet babies together.

Lexikins

Mr. Dryden

Little Lincoln

Cousin Love

So Blessed

Three of a Kind

Peace at Last