Some Things I Still Don’t Understand About Motherhood

Even though I am 16 months and three weeks into the motherhood thing, there are still some things that I am utterly stumped by….
1. Why I sway all the time even when I don’t have a child on my hip…sway waiting for the subway, sway while im out on a shoot, sway while standing waiting at the coffee machine at the office.  It’s so weird. Sway sway sway.

2. This whole concept of picking and choosing your battles. When you have a toddler basically everything is some kind of battle. This weekend my mom gave me a hard time that I let Ellie run the show. I faked insult, “(gasp)…Me??? Let her run the show?!?!?!  Never.  I am strict with her.”

Five minutes later I was giving her got chicken nuggets and I went to cut them up and Ellie said, “No, no, no, no…” and I said, “Fine, but they are hot so you need to wait to eat them.”  And my mom says, “See.”

Now in my mind this falls under the category of battle I am choosing not to pick.  The only ones I do pick are when she is hitting someone or peeling their fingers off of a toy. No mal intent on my watch.  But a being controlling about the form her food must be in before it enters her mouth?  Who am I to judge?

3. While we are the topic of bad-ish behavior there’s another thing that I don’t understand. I take full credit for how lovable my child is – all of the hugs and kisses.  She says thank you and bless you all the time and I smile and nod knowing her behavior is a reflection of my own.  I think to myself, “I am doing a great job.  Yay me!”

But when she hits me in the face I am thoroughly shocked and mutter – “Well I just have no idea where she gets that from.”

And herein lies the hypocrisy.   I take credit for her great behavior.  And I plan to continue this trend…but I (gasp) have no idea where she gets these bad behaviors from.  Despite the lack of logic in my thinking, I plan to continue this trend.

4. The last thing I am perplexed by is why my arms still look pregnant. I understand my stomach and my ass, well sort of,  but that baby was nowhere near my arms and somehow pregnancy took a toll on them too. I don’t get it.