YOU'LL NEVER KNOW UNTIL YOUR MOMENT COMES
When I was pregnant I wondered a lot about what sort of Mom I would be. Because I was so disillusioned with the aura of mystique surrounding pregnancy, I think I was concerned motherhood would be similarly anticlimactic and uncomfortable. I can't think of many things I have been that wrong about in my life. Motherhood has certainly never been dull and as for the uncomfortable part of the equation... well, that's a VERY kind way of putting it. It's more like willingly giving your body to science to dissect while you're still breathing. A really bad idea if you can avoid it.
Last week, before our entire house was blindsided by the wretchedness of a monstrous flu, I had a revelation. Owen had been awake since five am, vomiting every twenty minutes. He was exhausted but unable to get comfortable enough to sleep and so he simply lay across my chest, mumbling and softly groaning from the dark, deep covers of our bed as Teletubbies marched across the TV screen. These were desperate hours, forcing us to resort not only to the poison of television but to programming that threatened to make me suicidal at any moment. Owen began to make those little gasping and gulping noises and I jumped up from the bed and sprinted towards the bathroom. Halfway across the room, I realized I wasn't going to be making it to anywhere with tile. And so, without a second thought, I held out my hand and let my son throw up. In my hand.
Don't get me wrong- there was an entire thought process behind this action. I looked at our new carpet gleaming in it's beige majesty at my feet. I thought about how long it might take me to scrub vomit out of the fibers and how Owen only stopped crying when comforted by the context of closeness to my skin. There was only one choice to be made here and I made it without regret. Hands are easy to rinse and can be washed with a baby on one hip. Carpet? Not so much. This decidedly gross reaction was not solely based on practicality though. I have to admit some level of motherly instinct here, an honest desire to provide whatever assistance I could in Owen's hour of need.
If you had asked me if someday I would ever willingly hold out my hand for someone else to throw up in, I'm pretty sure I would have emphatically said "No," probably accompanied by something along the lines of "Are you f**ing crazy?" But there I was, with a handful of yellowish, baby vomit and not a single regret or an ounce of squeamishness. When you're someone's Mommy, getting grossed out by bodily fluids is a luxury time does not afford you. I guess you're never sure what kind of mother you'll be until your moment comes. And then you know, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Spit on your kid's face in the checkout line to remove a chocolate stain or hold his soggy, mucus filled tissues in your jacket pocket? Yeah. That's me.
Posted by Kaz at December 21, 2006 4:15 PM