This one wasn´t supposed to be all about mothering.....

Song: "Ophelia," by Natalie Merchant.

Motherhood is not for the faint-hearted. It is a crash-course in letting go, in giving up all control. The most beautiful experience in life is, logically, also the most difficult, the most heartwrenching. It is hardest for those of us who have been blessed with free-spirited children.... children who are prone to doing all of the discovering for themselves. Children like my Ari. She is lovely, but she is also reckless. She runs through life, as I do. She did not inherit that trait (i.e. rushing) from her father. Ari gets into trouble all the time. She hurts herself by trying to do things too quickly, and it is so frustrating to be a helpless witness. I tell her to slow down, to be careful.. all the time. But there is only so much I can do.

Her toddler-years are serving to prepare me for the harder years, the years of the real growing-up, with its decision-making.. What will I do then?? Step back, yes. That is what mothers must learn to do eventually. But how?? When we love them so much.

Another challenge is peer-pressure. On Momversation.com, the issue of "mommy wars" was recently discussed. The term is a little dramatic, perhaps, but it is true that mothers don´t mother alone, and for some reason, we can´t keep our ideas to ourselves. (hence the multitude of mommy-bloggers.) Our mothering choices, no matter how trivial, are always up for grabs; fair game for warfare. Or at least we think they are. Well, maybe those of us who think that these mommy-wars actually exist only constitute about 5 % of the entire mom-population. Those of us who frequent mothering-websites, mommy-blogs... We put ourselves up for trial. Self-justification?? Reassurance? There might actually be an easier way to do this. Some women might not care at all what the next mother thinks about attachment-parenting, or, say, using boiled water to sterilize bottles and such, versus tablets. Or maybe they don´t even think about those things. Do we care too much??? Are we too self-conscious in our parenting??

You see, the other day, Ari and I were walking through the mall....well, I was walking, and she was chillin´in her stroller... but, anyway, I decided to stop in the candy-store. Just because I could. I think it was the smell of the popcorn. I thought, "what the heck, we can and we will!"
Disappointed with the poor selection of black licorice, I nonetheless bought 60 cents worth of candy and decided Ari should try a piece. So, I handed my child her very first piece of candy. She has eaten other junk before, such as a chip, or a cookie, and ice-cream, but this was her first real candy. I gave her a soft banana-marshmallow. Covered in yellow sugar. She was delighted with it, of course. But all I could think as we made our way through the mall, was "What do they think of me??" The other mothers. A silly thing to worry about here in Spain, because Spanish kids are stuffed with sugar from a very young age. The lady at our video-store has been eager to give Ari a lollipop since she was about a year old, and frowns in pity when I say "No, thanks, she is too young..." But, I did worry. I also worried about the small bruises on Ari´s legs. "What if they think I am a bad mother??" The poor child is so marked by her recklessness. But the worries are so often directed toward the other mothers- universally- instead of toward my child herself. And, to give myself some credit, Ari really doesn´t seem too concerned about her scars and bumps and bruises. She learned the lesson before me: growing up is almost synonymous with falling, and hurting oneself. And, in the end, my children should be the first ones to defend or criticize my motherhood.

My second daughter is a kicker! Ari did her fair share of kicking and elbowing and punching, too, while in the womb, but her little sister is much more active. I feel her moving all the time. Perhaps she sees it as her one chance at getting my attention. "If mama won´t pay attention to me when I´m floating around calmly, I will just have to bounce against that underbelly!"
Nah...I know. But it did cross my mind, that at some subconscious level, this child is having to be very lively in the womb so that I will actually pay attention to her.
Ari really didn´t kick and punch so much. I felt her moving from time to time, and there were moments of incessant activity, but not this consistently. It didn´t foreshadow her postnatal behavior in the least, however. She was a fairly calm baby, but she is the most active (hyper, perhaps) of toddlers. So, there is no saying what this next daughter will turn out to be.