It has been a little over twelve years ago (12 years, 1 month to be exact) that I became a mother.  Chris and I were married a little less than two years when I got the biggest surprise of my life, I was pregnant.  About 12 (no shit) pregnancy tests later it became real that, yes, Chris and I would be parents.  Holy shit!  Seriously?!?  At what point did God think I was capable of being a parent?  I felt…shocked, excited, nervous, scared, happy, elated, but most of all, I felt blessed.  In fact, I firmly believe that Jenn sent Parker to us to help is over come our grief from her death.  For what it’s worth, and so not the point of this post, a baby will NOT erase grief, one will be distracted from said emotion, but it will not be gone forever.  Any hoo….

As a kid, I always thought that I would get married and have kids but it wasn’t something that I had all planned out.  Yeah, I played with dolls, dressed my cat in baby clothes, and nurtured any animal I came across (note I said ‘animal,’ not ‘kid’), but I never daydreamed about my own children or went crazy over babies and kids.  And, yes, I babysat kids that I really enjoyed but I was indifferent to them; they were fun and sweet in that moment but I didn’t think about them after I went home.  In all honesty, I didn’t babysit because I LOVED kids, I did it for money.   Don’t kid yourself, most people do it for the money, that’s why babysitters charge an assload these days.  Not that I’m putting a price on my kids or anything……  As far as my babysitting career went I watched the same kids until their parents decided they could either stay at home alone or spend the night with a friend and no longer needed someone to stay with them or, should I say, PAY to stay with them.  This change coincided with changes in my life that made me get out of the babysitting business…..the simple happenings of life (I got a part time job, a boyfriend, and started college).  Without babysitting I didn’t have much interaction with kids and it was no big deal.  When I did think about becoming a mother I hoped and prayed that the mothering instinct would find me because I was not what one would call a natural nurturer.  Fast forward a few years…….

Park was born in August of 2001 at 33 weeks, weighing 2pounds, 14 ounces, and spent one month in the NICU.  Again, I believe this was once again an intervention from up above.  Chris and I were taught how to feed, diaper, and care for our brand new baby before being thrown to the wolves and sent home with a little human.  It took many years for me to realize how fortunate we were to have the NICU experience and everything we learned from the nurses that we didn’t have to learn on our own.  The first time I saw my baby I was so overcome with love that I actually questioned my love for my husband.  I never had the great ‘falling in love’ epiphany with Chris, I just always knew I loved him, so what I felt when I first saw Parker was completely overwhelming.  Along with being overcome with love, I felt that mothering instinct kick in and I knew that, in that moment, I would do anything to protect my baby boy.

My mothering instinct was, and for the most part still is, focused on love and compassion rather than basic need.  For example, I held Parker all the time, kissed him all the time, and constantly professed my love for him.  These actions felt normal to me, natural, not forced.  As for the basic needs aspect, I fed him every 3-4 hours like clockwork, bathed him twice a day, changed his diaper before and after bottles, naps, you know, typical, appropriate diaper changing times.  These things didn’t feel like natural acts, they felt scheduled and obligatory.  I guess you could say those things are and should be scheduled and obligatory but I couldn’t tell the difference in his cries and that always scared the hell out of me.  I didn’t know the hunger cry, the gas cry, the dirty diaper cry……they all sounded the same.  It was this lack of instinct that made me feel like a poor mother, and from that moment on I always referred to my poor parenting moments to ‘mother of the year’ moments.  I made a joke of my lack of instinct and played everything off as though I really knew what I was doing and everything was no big deal.  I didn’t act like one of the typical new mom’s (except for the first visit to the pediatrician in which I packed everything but the kitchen sink) that wouldn’t let anyone touch her baby unless they washed their hands (that lasted a week), wouldn’t let anyone else feed her baby, let anyone else put her baby to sleep, etc., etc.  Because I saw Parker as our gift from Jenn, Chris and I readily shared him with my parents just as they instinctually cared for him as a precious gift.  As far as anyone else was concerned, I acted like that new pain in the ass mom.  The neonatologist said not to take him to crowded places, we dined out at odd times (dinner at 3pm, anyone?), he said not to be around cigarette smoke or people that smoked, this being the most difficult rule, we abided by those instructions.  Chris’ parents smoke and have done so for years, this meant that Parker couldn’t go to their home and had to either spend minimal time with them or they needed to be somewhat smoke free when they came to visit.  I was very adamant about the rules, as was Chris, I mean how could you not be?  They are right there in black and white.  They are there to keep your baby alive and well, these rules would never lead us astray.  The only ‘BIG’ rule we didn’t follow was putting the man to sleep on his back.  NICU babies are put in their most comfortable sleeping position, their bellies, and breaking a comfy sleeping position was something we just couldn’t mess with…..we all needed out sleep.  As the man got older I gradually removed the stick from my ass and let others enjoy him as much as we did; life is short and family should be celebrated…..it is what it is, even from someone as snarky as I.

Time passes, Parker grows, Madelyn comes into the family and my parenting skills continue to slip.  I didn’t care that they found the mud and rolled in it like two pigs, in their Sunday best.  Those things didn’t bother me.  Not only is he a curious boy, but they are also kids, they should be allowed to explore their surroundings without their mother being up their butt directing their attention to what I think they need to see.  The biggest change with this more laid back parenting was that I didn’t take as many pictures.  As a baby, I took 50 million pictures of Parker, but as he got older I chose to watch him explore first hand, not document his every ooh and aah with a picture.  Really, a camera and taking pictures has been the last thing on my mind since P became mobile.  No reason, just not a priority.  This always made me feel like less of a mother, it still does.  With Madelyn, I took pictures of her as a baby, but I returned to work much earlier after her birth than I did with Parker so I don’t have as many early pics of her as I do him.  Again, I chose to spend my time holding her, kissing on her, and giving her my unconditional love, taking pictures was the last thing on my mind.  But isn’t that the deal with the second kid?  Very little documentation of their childhood?  Or am I just trying to make myself feel better?  In our current world of smart phones with cameras I take tons of pics of the kids, but I’m still not one of those moms that can whip the camera out of her purse at a moment’s notice.  I’m that mother that doesn’t take the picture until the moment has just passed; I’d like to say that I’m an in the moment kind of girl and want to focus on my kids instead of a damn camera.  Any hoo…..  I get first day of school pics and generally document the big things in life but I don’t think I will ever get to the point that I will be double fisting camera’s waiting for the right shot.

As I’ve mentioned before I want my children to explore their surroundings and make their own discoveries; discoveries they come to tell me about, not ones that I have guided them to find.  One could look at my logic as lazy, I can see that and appreciate that notion.  I don’t want to chase my kids around the yard while their are right in front of me, why can’t I sit and watch them?  Does sitting and watching make me a shitty parent?  So my kid wouldn’t have the bloodied up knee if I had been up his butt when he fell and prevented the fall, where is the fun in that?  Isn’t that the purpose of ‘monkey blood’?  It was cool to have ‘monkey blood’ sprayed on your wounds when I was a kids; what has happened to our children that they don’t want monkey blood?  Of course nothing to do with the fact that I don’t think they even make monkey blood anymore, but, ……. I digress.  As a mother I try to give every other mother the benefit of the doubt, who am I to judge you and your parenting style (unless you have allowed a type of abuse then I think you should rot in the depths of hell), we are all different, have different priorities.  I’ve always had a thing about judging others but it wasn’t until I went into recovery and took true inventory of all aspects of my life did I really think twice about judging others.  My children saw me drink, saw me drunk, saw me hung over, that, my friends, is a shitty parent.  If I was to look at the glass half full or find the silver lining to my drinking problem, it would be that I was ‘fun mom,’ I was never mean to them while I was drunk; fun or indifferent-yes, mean or abusive-no.  One can say that them seeing me in that condition is abuse, I say that those people can kiss my ass.  That would be one opinion that I will argue to the death.  Again, shitty parenting…. completely and totally, but abusive…..absolutely not, and I owe no one (except maybe my children one day) any further explanation.

Today, I believe that my experiences are making me a better parent, I didn’t say perfect people, I said better.  Yes, I want to know where my kids are in the afternoons and I want to know about their friends, but I refuse to be up their butts guiding their activities, monitoring their friendships, or fighting their fights.  I don’t want to be friends with their friends, hell, I make it clear to my own kids that I am their mother, not their friend, and should be treated as such.  I want to know about your friends because I don’t like being blindsided, I don’t like secrets, and I firmly believe that who your child chooses as a friend speaks volumes about who they are and their character.  Knowing friends gives me a little insight to their good times and bad times, what they agree on and what they disagree on, and, hopefully, how I can help my child through those tough times in life.  Hovering is one of those things that has never been a thing for me and I don’t intend to start doing it now.  One of Parker’s teachers once asked the parents if they ever asked their kid if they had homework, what it was, etc., etc., because, in her experience, most just went through the backpack to find information.  She said, ‘ask your child about their homework and trust in them that they will tell you the truth.  Just put a little trust in them and I think you’ll be surprised.’  Her words resonated with me, TRUST IN THEM.  It is my job as a parent to teach them and with that, instinctually, comes trust.  Parker once told me that I didn’t trust him (after he and I got into an argument about whatever).  At the moment of his announcement I was seriously taken aback, but then it hit me, he only sees trust in black and white, not gray.  Once I explained to him that I trusted him to make good decisions while I wasn’t around, I trusted him to make smart decisions regarding behavior, school and friends and that I trusted him so much more that he could possibly understand, I felt like our relationship had been tweaked in a good way.  He knew I trusted in him, but I also knew he trusted in me to see him through the life of a tween.  Maybe I am too trusting, who knows?  Again, however, that would be judging my parenting style and I’m not interested in the judger’s opinion.  I’ve decided that I’m just going to keep rolling on, and, in the words of Gideon Cross, will ‘revisit and revise’ when needed.

Call me naïve, call me stupid, but don’t judge me or call me a shitty parent.  I have done plenty of that to myself and have recently found some footing on this mountain called parenting.  Since becoming a mother twelve years ago, I have grown as a mom and will continue to do so…..everything is a work in progress, is it not?  All I want is for my kids to know that I love them with every bit of my being, that I want them to be happy, healthy, and trust that I will always be there in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

Pope Benedict has called for today to be a day of fast and prayer for peace in Syria.  I could really give a rat’s ass about what is happening in Syria but I do care about what that means for the future of my children and if the Pope wants me to pray for peace then that is what I shall do.  **Side note: I am pretty sure that it’s not ok to refer to the Pope and use the term ‘rat’s ass’ in the same conversation but it is what it is and I am who I am, deal with it and pray for peace. <3<3<3