Since having children, I’ve found that certain circumstances that I have encountered with my kids have really made me feel like a mom. Of course I realize that I am a mom. There are times, though, that you look around at the three little ones, and think, “Do I really have three kids? Wow!”. Other times, though, the things that happen make you feel like you are in that special club. The Mom Club that requires gross, messy, or terribly awkward moments for membership.
For instance, I experienced one of those moments when Kyra was a toddler. She quit playing, came over to where I was, croaked out a “Mama” in a pitiful sick voice, and, realizing what was coming, I held out my cupped hands under her mouth for her to be sick in. Yes, you really feel like a mom when you offer your own hands to catch your child’s puke, so as to avoid cleaning it off of the couch and the carpet.
Another of those moments was when Kyra threw up in the middle of the aisle at Home Depot. Public puking = slightly embarassing.
The first time you scoop poop out of a bathtub…that’s one of those moments. The first time you wake up in a soaking spot of pee, and it’s not your own…that’s one of those moments. The first time you give a kiss, and realize too late that your kid has a very runny nose…one of those moments. When you scrape poop out from under a small toddler’s fingernails…that, too, is one of those moments.
Today, I had another “I feel like a mom.” moment. Thankfully, this time, it involved no bodily wastes.
Sometime during the night last night, I woke up to Kyra sharing my pillow, and hearing her chewing gum. Yes. Chewing gum. In the middle of the night. I said, “Kyra Joy, go spit that gum out! Are you crazy? If you fell asleep with it, it could get in your hair.” She got up and spit it out. That is about as far as my middle of the night thought processes went.
Fast forward to this afternoon…
I was in the middle of making a casserole for dinner, when Kyra says, “Mommy, I think I must have a tangle in my hair.” I bent to look at her hair, and what did I discover but a bright red wad of Big Red matted about half way down the length of her hair. My heart sank. Thankfully, I, too, was once a little girl with gum stuck in my hair, and I knew what to do. I got out the peanut butter, applied a generous glob to the offending gum, and worked it in with my fingers. It took a little bit of work, but I did get it out, washed her hair, and combed the last particles of the grainy gum out with a fine-toothed comb. In the middle of this process, with my water boiling over on the stove, the baby crying in the bedroom, Kyra whimpering over the fact that I put peanut butter in her hair, and Elijah repeatedly telling me, “Me no want butter in my hair!”, I thought, “Wow. I really feel like a mom!”.