Motherhood, no assembly required

As a mother the first time you hold your baby there is a sense of aw that cannot be rivaled. It doesn’t matter if you carried the child in your womb or adopted, that moment is the same. This is your child and you are from this day forward responsible for everything that happens to them. In that moment you are equipped with your mommy armor(which FYI, is not vomit, urine or poop proof) , that unseen super hero cape, the ability to see from behind your head, hear things that no other being on earth can hear, and the love of noodle art, from the macaroni mosaics to the penne pasta necklaces. Thus your journey into motherhood begins.

Motherhood. It is the something you are never truly prepared for no matter how many books you read, or how much advice every woman who came before you tries to give you. The only sound advice I ever heard and held true is: Go in with an open heart and open mind and you will be just fine.

But I was suckered into reading some of those parenting books while I was pregnant. Nowhere in any of those books do they prepare you for your two hour old infant peeing your hair. Your three year old cutting off her hair and all the hair of her dolls as her dad sleeps. Your toddler daughter corn on the cob and beef ribs off the bone, when she has no teeth.

Nor did they tell you how to cope when one of your children was broken and you weren’t able to fix her with a smile or a hug. Or how it felt when you saw her hear certain sounds for the first time in her life. It was almost like that feeling of aw when I first held her, words just can’t describe it.

As mothers we cry, we laugh, we tease, we taunt, we post awkward things on Facebook, and humiliate on Twitter. We yell, we scream, we are terrified when we aren’t certain of things, but we love. And we love with every ounce of our being no matter what our children do. It is the blessing and the curse that we take on without any hesitation to no fault of our own.

There is no manual to real motherhood. No istructions on how to assemble the perfect kids. We live each day knowing we are doing good things for them and occasionally they will tell us. When they are not calling us giant poopy heads and refusing to eat dinner. You won't find a chapter in that in many books either! 

Best wishes to all the moms out there.