
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.