Here is an excerpt from the blog I kept for a while a few years ago:
Thursday, May 17, 2007
time i wonder when i will start to feel like a parent.
i always thought that once your child is born, you inherently embody parenthood and instantly become a responsible adult. now that my offspring has sprung out of me, i figured the switch would be flipped and i would feel like a different person.
but i don't. i just feel like me. plus one.
one quite helpless and needy one.
it occurs to me just how much TIME i had before iris was born... time to do whatever i pleased, even if it meant just showing up to class/work on time and doing boring things, i was able to move at my own pace and i TOTALLY took it for GRANTED!
and i guess my only observation of parenthood so far is that there is no time. or not enough time. or, well, there is enough time out there, i just don't have any of it. or what little i do have slips by so fast that it's already gone by the time i realize i haven't done anything with it.
and to be honest, i don't know what i would DO with all the time i would have if i weren't a parent. my days would be awfully long and boring, i imagine.
anyway, i just gave birth yesterday and iris is somehow four months old.
i always thought that once your child is born, you inherently embody parenthood and instantly become a responsible adult. now that my offspring has sprung out of me, i figured the switch would be flipped and i would feel like a different person.
but i don't. i just feel like me. plus one.
one quite helpless and needy one.
it occurs to me just how much TIME i had before iris was born... time to do whatever i pleased, even if it meant just showing up to class/work on time and doing boring things, i was able to move at my own pace and i TOTALLY took it for GRANTED!
and i guess my only observation of parenthood so far is that there is no time. or not enough time. or, well, there is enough time out there, i just don't have any of it. or what little i do have slips by so fast that it's already gone by the time i realize i haven't done anything with it.
and to be honest, i don't know what i would DO with all the time i would have if i weren't a parent. my days would be awfully long and boring, i imagine.
anyway, i just gave birth yesterday and iris is somehow four months old.
...
I feel like a parent now.
It took a while to reach the point where I feel like, yes, I in fact feel like an all-out MOM.
Obviously, after reading that previous blog, it wasn't after having my first child. I still didn't really feel mom-ish even after having my second child. I still had that 'but really I'm just a really cool person and I have all sorts of other really awesome things to do with my life, I just happen to have these two tiny human beings clinging to me at all times' mentality. Maybe I started feeling a bit parent-y when my VW bit the dust and we bought a minivan, but only a little (the van is an awesome ride and my VW was a piece of crap that I couldn't wait to get rid of).
What really made me feel like I am totally, 100% parent was when it hit me just recently that I totally love where I am in life right now. Right now. There is nothing else that I would rather be doing than raising my children and falling in love with them every day. I finally embrace the routine of dishes, laundry, and meal-making. I enjoy the challenge of trying to keep up with the routine. I accept when keeping up with the routine is completely impossible and the dirty clothes and used dishes, and toys pile up around me (which is, more often than not, the way it is around here)! But more than anything else, I love that I am here for these two fantastic children that I am lucky enough to call my own. I still "just feel like me. plus one" (well, now it would be "me plus two") like I did before, but the "me" part has changed. I don't define myself through my children, but I do certainly define myself through being my children's mother. It is at times exhausting, frustrating, and boring, but that's life. And life is good.
Great post! I'm glad you're loving where you are right now in life - and it's awesome that you're able to stay home with them (even though I'm sure that some days are VERY long).
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