On Becoming Mom

What I haven’t mentioned thus far about being Sam’s mom is the anxiety. I don’t mean panic attack anxiety; I mean a kind of anxiety that keeps things a little surreal. I don’t know if my anxiety stemmed from the years (and years) of waiting to have a child or from the miscarriages and infertility treatments or from a life long battle with anxiety. But often in the last year and a half, I seemed to be stuck in a fusion of anxiety and awe.

 

The only experience I can relate it to is the time when Phyllis led me up this mountain side. I had quit smoking and she wanted to show me that now I could go where the cigarettes had kept me from going before. While I appreciated it, my lungs didn’t. By the time we arrived at the meadow, I was out of breath. The view was worth it. It was awesome and the light headedness contributed to the wonder.

 

That’s sort of what it has been like with Sam—wonder and awe and a fear that I’d never again catch my breath. That’s how it was until last week.

 

At a garage sale, I picked up a toy tool set. Sam has been very feisty lately; full of his own bad self and his impulses to hit and kick so maybe the hammer wasn’t the best choice. Sure enough when I wasn’t looking he hammered my shin. Wow, it stung. The kind of hurt that makes a mother forget Dr. Sears and Dr. Spock and every other baby doctor. Enough sting to trigger an impulse to swat. But I didn’t. Thankfully. Instead for the first time since his birth, my breath caught. For the first time, I got off that top of the world feeling. I wasn’t in awe of this little wonder of mine rather fully present and bruised.  

 

With one swing to my shin bone, Sam seemed to say, “Aw Mom, SNAP OUT OF IT.”

 

And so I did. And with it came that visceral rush of love that sometimes awe and anxiety can keep at bay…not at that exact moment but later after I stopped limping.

 

Right then, I thought, “I’ve got to teach this little pisser not to hammer me.”

 

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