A Mother’s Love

I look at this photo taken right after Noob Baby’s birth, and I wonder if that person really looks like a mother.

Can you see the uncertainty? Timidity?

I know there was shock.

Honey, how does she look? Is she ok? Fingers? Toes?

I think only seconds passed as they cleaned her up and gave her her score. Maybe it was minutes. I don’t remember except that it was long enough for me to hear my OB say she had taken her son to see the new Indiana Jones movie. Something about him thinking it was scary? or funny?

Did he like it?

I can’t believe I made small talk about that ridiculous movie while my child, my mini-me was being passed around.

I hadn’t cried at my wedding. I didn’t cry at all during her delivery or after.
I cried watching Benjamin Button. Benjamin Freakin Button.

I admit I feel guilt at this unexplainable imbalance.

It seems that going through the everyday motions, the mundane routine of measuring bottles, folding tiny laundry, rolling up diapers, pureeing baby food, playing blocks, in the car seat, out of the car seat

or enjoying the intimate moments of singing broken lullabies, whispering in soft ears, nursing under moonlight, kissing little feet, tussling wispy hair ….

… haven’t really made me feel like a mother.

But yesterday, I truly felt like a parent. While driving home from the Urgent Care in tired silence, I looked at Noob Daddy and said

We’re parents.

It was just a precaution forNoob Baby’s ongoing fever. She’s seems ok, and almost back to her normal self – 28 jumps in the jumperoo today.

But from the midnight fever till the 8:00 pm trip to the Urgent Care, it seemed I finally experienced so many emotions on one January Tuesday, that it set in.

She cried relentlessly from midnight till 3 am with the 103 fever… I couldn’t do much but hold her tightly and stroke her hair.

It was something about her frustration, discomfort. And she couldn’t tell me.

She learned to hold her arms outstretched signaling for me to carry her. Yes, on this same January Tuesday.

It was something about her needing me close. And she knew how to show me.

She threw up several times, a couple times out of her nose.

It was something about me feeling helpless. And I don’t usually feel this way.

She laughed and splashed in the tub as if none of it had happened.

It was something about her being carefree and silly

that filled me bursting with worry, laughter, fear, vulnerability, sympathy, protectiveness, closeness, rawness… and of course…

love.