So my title sounds like a bad horror movie, and if you talk to a couple of my ex-boyfriends, they might agree, but what it's really about, is that I found my baby book. My 26 (very nearly 27) year old baby book.
Being the first child, my mother took meticulous notes until I hit about a year.
All the holidays, the birth story, the lists of gifts, the photos, its all there, I am a well documented life form. And now that I blog, the rest of my life will be equally well documented, though admittedly, far less cute.
Going over the book I got to thinking (as I often do) about that first year of life. So insignificant in the grand scheme of your life, no body even remembers their first year do they?
But as parents, that first year is SO important to us. We plan, we research, we fight, we fret, and when that blessed day comes, and our babies turn into real live toddlers, we celebrate their (our) survival of that first year with a party to end all others. No matter the actual scope of the party, monetarily speaking, in Mommy's mind, this is the party of the century.
When Lily was born, I felt like I was seeing the world all over again, exploring uncharted territory, fighting through a wilderness with sunglasses on in the dark. Making it to that first birthday party wasn't really a celebration for her, it was a celebration for me, so I could present my healthy, now walking child to the world and say "SUCK IT! LOOK WHAT I DID!"
So when i read my baby book, I am shocked, in a way, to find that my mother went through the same experiences 20 something years before, meaning that mothers all over the world are going through these same things at the same time, and I was not, am not, alone in all of this.
That should propably make me feel better. It might make normal people feel better.
It doesn't make me feel better.
Whats wrong with me?
I'll tell you since you asked.
Somehow, knowing that my mom did it first, that my friends are doing it now, that someone in Nicaragua is going to be doing it in a couple of hours, somehow diminishes my accomplishment.
It makes me compare, makes me compete, makes me feel like keeping that kid alive for a whole year (and now 4) was something less than amazing.
I read about my infantile accomplishments back in the early 80's, sitting up, cooing at my parents, crawling about, making it to my first birthday, wearing the cake and then making it past that day and on again for 26 more years, she even managed to do it again, 2 more times.
So what does this mean for me? did she do it better? Did she do it with more smiles and hugs and energy and all those good things I don't feel like I'm doing correctly?
Apparently, I was a pain in the ass at some point, so that makes me feel much better, and I did end up doing pretty darn good, so she must have done something pretty good.
Despite my obvious issues, I did find a couple of things comforting about my baby book.
1) My mom spelled then Vice President George H. Bush's last name Busch, like the beer, so that's entertaining.
2) She appears to have been equally terrified, equally excited, and equally proud of getting her kid to the first year, so at least I know I wasn't just vain and prideful.
3) I was pretty freaking adorable. Judge for yourself
I wanted to add this last little bit based on a comment from a good friend you can see below, i don't feel like I ended this blog correctly so I wanted to add on.
What this all comes down to, is despite my issues with competition, which are down right wrong, i am well aware, it is in some way comforting to know that my problems and issues are shared, all over the world, throughout the generations, and that feeling of "am I doing this right?" is something that millions of mom's have asked themselves, and their mothers, over the course of a millenia. While it might make me fall in comparision, it makes me feel part of something much bigger than myself, and provides me not only with a cushion of knowledge in which to fall when I feel unsteady, but an audience, who truly understands the need to tell the rest of the world, exactly 12 months after their child is pulled screaming into the world, to SUCK IT!
2 comments:
Amy, don't think of it as a competition. While it might seem that you are doing the same things, each mother and each child are one of a kind and so is there experience. But what has happened is that now you are part of something, as big as the world. Being a mother is a shared reality. We can all have some understanding of each other on a different level. It's the reason young mothers and old great-grandmothers can find some common ground. That's a good thing. That shared bond of motherhood can open all sorts of doors of communication between the generations.
And honestly? Each of us does something outstanding in that first year, and all the years to follow, with our child. And we each have less than outstanding moments - I won't say failures, because they are those moments that teach us about our child and ourselves.
It's all part of being a mom, and being the best that we can be. It's the shared part that makes us even better moms than we might be if we were the only ones to ever have that wonderful experience.
Hugs,
Pat
I totally agree with you Pat, my competitive issues some how overtake the reality of the situation, i write about it so i can laugh at myself, (and so others can too!) I don't think my post came out the way i wanted it to, I was trying to get accross the idea that the shared experience is a thing to be celebrated, and the ability to keep our children alive and thriving, while seemingly insignifigant in the rest of their 80 something year lives, is ones of the greatest achievements in OUR 80 something year lives, is outstanding, and feels like this thing that no one could have accomplished becuase it felt just that hard, or something to that effect.
So if anyone took this to mean something else, I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to be negative, NaPloBloMo has been rough on me!
Post a Comment