Mom musings

Now that I've been at this mom thing for almost two months, I truly feel as if I'm getting into a groove. It's exhausting and sometimes frustrating, sure, but I don't feel like such a blithering idiot anymore.

One thing that I've wanted to talk about for awhile is the label of "bad mom." I've been a professional journalist and writer for 11 years. I've written scads of articles and edited even more, for both the Web and online. Writing and editing (and words in general) are my life. And yet, if someone were to call me a bad mom, it would hurt me deeper than any critique of my work. I hate that label, and I hate that I've used it on myself when I've done something wrong with the Boo. It's a hateful thing to say and packs quite a punch. Let's strike it from our vernacular.

Some other observations:

• Dancing with my son to classical music calms him like nothing else. So does his swing (he's sleeping in it right now). I swear, whoever invented that thing, like the epidural man, should go straight to heaven.
  
  
• Sometimes stopping the screaming is just a matter of handing him off to someone else. One night I was trying everything in my bag of tricks and the baby just wouldn't calm down. I simply handed him to M, and he fell asleep for four hours.
  
  
• I could make faces at Boo for hours. So could he at me.
  
  
• Watching M with Boo has made me fall in love with him all over again.
  
  
• In no way am I belittling the childless by choice. I feel it's a very personal decision whether you have children, and why bring unwanted kids into this world? However, once you have a child, your marriage changes. No longer are you a couple. You're a family.