Chessa sits on the counter, looking in the mirror as I brush her hair.  It’s finally getting longer; the soft brown hair is curling at the nape of her neck.  I hold it in my left hand and wrap a ponytail with my right.  I pin back the front, the pieces that are too short to meet the rest. 

I lean in to kiss her cheek before I pronounce her ready to go, knowing that in a few moments she will be running, throwing balls and riding her bike.  In the mirror I catch a glimpse of her eyes, the exact shade of Craig’s, looking back at me.  Between the two of us (ok, mostly him) there’s a higher than average chance that she’ll be graced with at least a little bit of athleticism. 

And to be honest, I couldn’t be happier than to think that sports will be a part of her life. 

Some of my earliest recollections are of playing softball in grade school.  Some of my best memories are of playing volleyball in high school.  And some of my closest friends are girls who I bonded with over the smell of old leather, the squeal of tennis shoes stopping sharply on the high school gym, the bruises and scrapes from learning how slide and the shared sacrifice, disappointment and pride.

I want that for her.

Sports taught me how to win with grace.  I learned to shake hands and congratulate the opposing team on giving it their best shot before running off the field to celebrate with my teammates.  Conversely, I learned how to lose and accept that I left it all on the court.  I learned how to give more when I thought I had nothing more to give.  One more serve. One more time of hitting the floor before the ball did. One more point. 

Sports taught me how to depend on another person.  Trust is an inherent part of the game.  The best teams aren’t always the ones with the most talent or who put in the most hours; instead they are often the ones with the best on-field relationships.  I learned that teams win when egos are checked at the door and everyone moves in the same direction.  Together.

Sports taught me confidence. With a father who didn’t let me give up and spent hours catching the balls  I pitched, I learned that if you try a little harder, fix what isn’t working and just keep going, you’re able to do things you didn’t think you could do. 

It wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I remember anger over close games that were lost or bad calls by officials.  I remember the sting of being the only senior without a solid, starting position.  I remember going to one soccer practice and deciding that all of that running up and down a field chasing a ball was not for me.  I remember a long, quiet bus ride home after an embarrassing loss. But in all of those disappointments, as cliché as it will sound, are lessons learned. 

Perhaps the most important lesson being that life, and the game, goes on. 

And, I want that for her.

There’s a story my mom likes to tell.  About how it came to be her four-year-old daughter’s turn to request a song during circle time at daycare.  Instead of asking for Itsy Bitsy Spider or You Are My Sunshine, I confidently declared that we should sing What’s Love Got To Do With It. 

When the ladies at daycare didn’t immediately understand that I was referring to the 80′s hit from Tina Turner, I sang it for them.  Singing, “What’s love got to do, got to do with it?” and “Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken?”  I can almost picture my pre-school self standing up, in jeans and a ponytail, holding an imaginary microphone in my hand and shaking my hip. 

Thinking back on it, I’m not sure if my mom was proud, charmed or mortified when she heard the story later that afternoon. 

26 years later.

I am singing along to the radio with Faith Hill, belting out the lyrics to Mississippi Girl when I notice Chessa listening intently and tapping her toes.  A few days later at the pool, she’s a little fussy so I ask her if she wants to sing songs. 

“You Are My Sunshine?” I ask her.  No.

“Happy and You Know It?”  No.

“Jesus Loves Me?”  No. 

“Mississippi Girl?”  OKAY!!!

So I sing the chorus to  her and she giggles and dances.  Shaking her butt and stomping her foot. 

Later that week, we start the same conversation. ”Sing songs?” I ask.  This time she doesn’t give me the chance to make suggestions.  “SSIPPI GURL!?” 

And life really a cycle of events, isn’t it? 

——-

I just got done telling my husband, “I feel like I don’t write about Cole enough.  He’s just so easy, he doesn’t give me any content!”

“You can write about how he talks all day long.  Even though we have no idea what he’s saying.” 

So, there you go. I have an easy, easy baby (knock on wood).  He wakes up happy and chattering to himself.  When I walk into his room and smile down at him, his eyes light up and he graces me with gummy grin of a baby.  Throughout the day, he eats and sleeps only getting fussy when his bottle is delayed or when he needs help drifting off for a nap. He talks to his grandparents and anyone else who visits him during the day.  He talks to his activity mat and his toys. He talks to his exercauser.  Happy baby coos all day long.

At night, he grins at me when I pick him up, he plays happily while I make dinner and sits in my lap while we eat.  He gets his bath, takes a bottle and drifts off to sleep in my arms or curled against my chest. 

It’s just… wonderful. 

I didn’t know I could get this lucky twice. 

Disclaimer:  This post is written before I have attempted any type of getting Cole to fall sleep on his own.  Sometimes he does, sometimes he doesn’t.  Also?  While he is drooling like a rabid dog and putting his entire fist in his mouth, I don’t think we’ve entered the teething stage yet either.  When those two things begin, I reserve the right to take back everything I’ve said here and sell him out for being a holy terror.

It’s mid-afternoon and I’m getting dressed for Cole’s doctor’s appointment.  Chessa is in the bathroom playing at my heels, pulling my cotton balls and hair spray out of the bathroom drawers.  Between brushing my teeth and asking her to please put mommy’s stuff back, I bounce a little on my toes and pull my jeans up over my hips. 

I suck in my breath to zip them and notice that when buttoned my belly looks even flabbier than it did in my leftover maternity sweatpants. 

I sigh. 

“Mommy’s chubby,” I say to my not-yet-two-year-old. 

“Mommy. Chubby,” she repeats. 

Dammit. 

Part of me wants to chuckle, but another part of me twinges.  I can’t talk like this in front of her.  I can’t let this be what she thinks women are supposed to do. 

Be critical of themselves.  Judge themselves by the number on the scale or the size in their jeans.  Roll around on the floor trying to get their jeans to stretch out in the butt while complaining about the piece of cheesecake she had for dessert last night. 

I’m not an overly critical person.  I have a fairly decent self-esteem. While I don’t always have the best sense of style, I think I look pretty good in the right make up and in clothes that fit.  But yet, when people compliment me, I get flustered and brush it off, always thinking that it’s not quite deserved. 

“You don’t look like you just had a baby,” I hear. 

And respond with “Oh, you should see me without a shirt on.” 

And I don’t think I’m alone.  A coworker has lost some weight – maybe 20 pounds, maybe more.  I’m bad at judging weight.  But the point is she looks fantastic. 

When I tell her that, she grimaces a little and says “Oh, thanks, I still have some work to do.” 

Why can’t women take compliments? 

Why can’t we say, “thank you!” and leave it at that? 

Why can’t we show our children, our daughters, that they can be proud of the way they look? 

I know there’s a fine line between being accepting of your body and a snot about it.  I know nobody likes the girl who thinks she’s pretty and says so.  But, as a mother, having a child who is critical of her looks is one of my greatest fears about raising a daughter. 

I know it will be a while before she asks to put on my blush.  It may be years before she sees the scale in the bathroom as anything other than something to step on and off of repeatedly.  But the studies that show how early girls are faced with eating disorders, teasing from kids at school and low self esteem scare the bejezus out of me. 

I don’t want my 5-year-old being afraid to put on a swimsuit.  I don’t want my 7-year-old asking to shave her legs.  I don’t want my 10-year-old only eating broccoli for dinner because she’s on a diet.  And I don’t want my 12-year-old wearing more makeup to school than Dolly Parton does on stage. 

How do I teach her that it’s not about fitting into a size 4 pair of jeans or what the number on the scale says?  How do I teach her that while Mommy puts on make up before she leaves the house, Chessa doesn’t need it to look pretty?

How do teach her that being friendly, smart and fun are more important in choosing and being friends than what a person looks like?  How do I teach her that going outside to play, going for walks with me or swimming and riding bikes with her father is a great way to get exercise so she doesn’t need to worry about eating the occasional piece of chocolate cake. 

How do I teach her the fine art of accepting a compliment? 

In all the ways that my bad habits could influence her, this one may be the one that scares me the most.  How do I teach her the difference between wanting to be healthy and wanting to be skinny, when I don’t always understand it or practice it, myself?

Not the one I played softball with, she was nice. 

The one that shows me little tiny glimpse of myself in my daughter.  Most of the time, people look at her and comment on how much she looks like her daddy.  “Little Craig,” they laugh or “oh… you’re daddy’s girl, aren’t you,” they say.  The child looks like him, she has his determination (or stubbornness if you want to call it that, and most of the time, I want to call it that) and she already has an uncanny interest in football.  

But, once in a while.  Just once in a while I look at her and think.  “Oh sweet Lord.  She’s mine.  All mine.”  

Like last week.  I left a glass of water sitting on the coffee table when I went to get her from her nap.  A few minutes after I brought her downstairs she, naturally, spilled it.  I jumped up and caught it before all of the water left the glass.  I grabbed a towel and cleaned up the mess, but forgot to put the glass out of her reach.  I walked to the kitchen and heard her following me. I turned to look at her and saw her carefully holding the glass.  Before I could thank her for bringing it to me.  She stretched out her arm, looked me right in the eye and turned the glass upside down.  

Or a few days ago, when one of Craig’s former players stopped to visit us with his girlfriend.  Now this guy is in his early 20’s, he works at a gym and is a good looking kid.  He’s also a great guy with a heart of gold.  My daughter, my one-year-old daughter got a look of him and was immediately smitten.  She batted her eyes, she tapped her toes and she grinned at him before quickly looking away.  Over and over and over again.  

I have no trouble envisioning the days ahead when she’s stomping up the stairs claiming that I’m ruining her life.  When she’s staring me down over her homework or pleading with me to talk her father into letting her stay out a little bit later.  She’ll turn on the charm when she needs to and turn it right back off if she sees it not working.  And then, just like those two times in the last week, I will know that she’s mine.  All mine.

I’ve mentioned before that I’m working my way through Babyproofing Your Marriage, right?  It’s a good read and I find myself nodding in agreement at least three times on every page. Except for one thing.  

The part where it says that the mother is the protective, gentle parent. 

Also.  Over the last few weeks I’ve read blog posts by other great mommas who talked about their protective nature, their response when the baby cries and their love of having the baby close.  I identify with them.  Sort of.  Erika talks about how she and her husband are so different when it comes to parenting.  Uh huh, totally with you.  And  Brandee talks about how she’s not the mother she thought she would be.  Yep, that, right there.   

I am not the mother I thought I would be. But in a different way.

I’m not the gentle parent.  I’m not the parent that jumps when my daughter cries.  I’m not the parent that hoovers over her like a helicopter to keep her from bumping her head. 

The week before I went back to work, I wanted to move C to her own room.  In all honesty, she was outgrowing the bassinet.  But also, I was afraid it would be a tough transition and wanted it to be over before I had to be in heels and a skirt at 8AM.  The first night of putting her to bed in her own room, it was Craig wholooked at me and said, “why do we have to do this again?” 

Now that she sleeps through the night, when she stirs at 3 or 4 in the morning, I wait it out.  Often times, I take the monitor out of the room and wait outside her door.  Because if he hears her, he’ll go to her.  And I know that if I wait, just five minutes, she’ll drift back to sleep.  But if we pick her up, she’ll be up for an hour. 

When I pictured Craig and I as parents, I pictured him tossing the baby in the air, while I cringed and chastised him to be careful and “don’t drop her.”  But now, in my living room, you’ll find me wrestling with baby, tickling her to hear the belly laughs and letting her test her boundaries and bump her head while I get the side eye and the “be CARE-ful”  from my husband. 

When I think about the mother I thought I would be and the mother I’ve become, I’m not sure whether to be proud or ashamed.  Some days I feel like it makes me cold and uncaring.  I worry that I will push her too much as she grows up. I worry that I will always be the one to tell her “no”.   Is he parent that makes her stick to a bedtime, lets her throw the tantrum and doesn’t give in, the same parent that doesn’t let her quit at soccer after the season starts or pushes her to take her SAT’s one more time? Is that the parent who judges too much, too quickly and pushes too hard?

And other days, I’m proud that I know my daughter will not break. She will cry when occasionally when I put her down for a nap, but she will still grin at me when she wakes and I pick her up.  She will hurt herself on the corner of furniture and on our tile floors as she learns to crawl and (God help me) walk.  But she will get back up and try again. 

Am I alone in this? Does anyone else worry about the parent they will become when their child hasn’t even celebrated a birthday?  Are you the good guy at home or the bad guy? Do I worry too much about what the books say, that I lose a connection to my kid? Is it different between mothers and sons or dads and daughters?

I’m accepting that there’s a balance between Craig and I as parents.  And if I had to guess we’ll switch good guy, bad guy roles many times as C grows up.  I may be the parent that makes her go to bed and clean her room, but he’ll be the one to greet the boys at the door.

Ever since she was born, all I’ve heard is how much C is her father’s daughter.  A few days after we were home from the hospital, he handed me a picture and I awed over it, asking who took that picture of our little one. In my groggy, sleep-deprived, new mommy state, I didn’t realize it was actually a picture of Craig as a newborn.  A few weeks after that, I left our bedroom for a minute with the little one sleeping in the bassinet and Craig asleep in bed.  When I came back, I saw them both still asleep but in identical poses with their hands up over their heads. 

If I hadn’t been for the fact that I was there when she was born, I would be beginning to doubt that she was, in fact, my daughter. 

Until yesterday.  When she tasted my Oreo and fell in love.  The “oh, that’s yummy” look in her eye was one I’ve seen in the mirror.  She may not have my nose, my chin or my dark as night brown eyes, but by God, my child has a sweet tooth! 

The first Mother’s Day with a baby really gets a girl thinking.  Thinking about all the times I blew off with a quick card for my mother because I didn’t think it was a big deal.  Thinking about the lessons I’ve learned from my mom.  Thinking about the memories and recipes that both of my grandmothers have shared with me. Just thinking. 

Yesterday I found myself in the same position that many mothers do.  Wanting to enjoy the day and just be with my child, but also wanting to celebrate with my family.  So, because really, having someone entertain my child while I cook IS fun and relaxing for me, I hosted brunch for Craig’s parents and dinner for mine. 

There was a plan to eat brunch at 11:30.  The plan included my child napping around 9 so I could shower and get the hashbrown quiche started by 10:30.  Are you laughing yet?  For an hour, as I battled with my daughter to nap, begged, pleaded and swore under my breath, I thought about the contradiction of motherhood. 

Motherhood is rewarding and it is thankless.
Motherhood is instinctive and it is learning.
Motherhood is lonely and it is never being alone. 
Motherhood is raw and it is breathtaking.
Mohterhood is being vulnerable and it is being strong.
Motherhood is heartbreaking and it is uplifting.
Motherhood is having too many pictures and never having enough.

Motherhood is ordinary.  And it is amazing.

These moments, these challenges, these everyday contradictions of being a parent are what make me a mother.  Without the frustration, I wouldn’t feel the love so deeply.  Without the guilt I wouldn’t appreciate the sacrifice.  Without the joy, the tears might just be too much. 

It is the contradictions that keep me grounded.  There is nothing special about these moments, except that they are mine.  They are ours.  They are what make us mother and daughter.  And she is what makes us a family. 

So, on Mother’s Day we still celebrated.  We just celebrated an hour late. 

“Someday when you have a daughter, you’ll understand.”

I heard that phrase from my mother 346,876 times growing up.  When I slammed doors after being told that I couldn’t go out for the third night in a row in high school.  When I cried on her shoulder over rumors that were started when I was senior and looked up to see tears in her eyes too.  When she tried to talk sense into me in college because I didn’t understand that the way I was being treated was not acceptable.  She would hug me and say “Someday, honey, when you have a daughter, you’ll understand.” 

I didn’t need to wait.  I didn’t need to have a daughter to know that a mother is fiercely protective of her child.  I didn’t need to have a child to know that when they hurt, the mother hurts.  I didn’t need to become a parent to know that sometimes you do what’s best for your child, not what’s easiest. 

Somewhere between the ”my life is over, I can’t believe you won’t let me go” rants of a teenager and “can I come home for the weekend and heal a broken heart” tears of my early 20′s, I learned what being a mother meant.  And the one thing that she was wrong about was that it would take me having a daughter until I would understand.

Today was a bad day.  If I had to guess it was the combination of an overwhelming workload and PMS.  PMS on a Saturday I can handle.  An overwhelming workload on a day that my hormones aren’t all out whack from recently growing a human I can handle.  PMS on a Tuesday at 10 AM when I realize I’ve missed another deadline and look at the next three months of planning where enough work exists for four of me?  Not so good. 

It was a day that 18 months ago would have been rewarded with a cold beer and fried cheese.  And for a moment, just a moment, I found myself missing the ease of having a bad day and wallowing in it.  Coming home and soaking in a hot bath with a glass of wine and a good cry. Or bitching to a co-worker at happy hour.  Or running to the mall and buying new shoes. 

Then, I came home to this face. 

Bundled up in the car seat for the 100-yard ride from Nauni's house to ours. What? It was cold out.

And we giggled.  I clapped while she practiced rolling.  I put her down on one side of the floor and picked her up when she rolled to the other.  She ate carrots and yelled when I didn’t get them in her mouth fast enough.  We gave her a bath and I laughed as she splashed me.  I took pictures, calling her name and making funny noises to try to capture her smile. 

And when I rocked her to sleep and felt her head heavy on my shoulder and the rhythm of her breath on my neck, I found myself wondering why my day was so bad.

Don’t let those big eyes pull you in or the loving embrace of the doll fool you.  She looks all sweet and innocent here.  All loving and gentle.  All ” OH  MY GAWD what a sweet baby, I just want to reach into the computer screen and scoop her up.” And she is a sweet, sweet child with her doll and her father.  But with me…. no such luck. 

When I feed her, I get clawed in the face.  When I change her diaper, my hair gets pulled.  She scratches, she pinches, she tears earrings out of my ears and she tries to pick my nose. (In the interest of full disclosure I’m constantly picking hers too, so we’ll call that one even. )  Twice this week I’ve had to change clothes ten minutes before leaving for work thanks to diaper blowouts.    Have you ever tried to bath a baby in heels and a dress?  Not easy and usually ends in only a slightly better disaster than in which it began. 

It’s a good thing that this little girl doesn’t pack much heat behind her punches or I’d have some explaining to do!  So, someone tell me, when can I expect my kid to stop trying to kick my ass?