Today, as I was dressing Will, he started to get wiggly and whiny on the changing table. To distract him, I started singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" to him. I have done this countless times since he was born, singing this same silly song, complete with pantomiming the clapping, foot stomping, and shouting hooray (I get pretty into it, if I do say so myself).
As I was launching into another rousing round, Will shocked me by doing not one, but all three verses, complete with his own clapping, foot stomping, and hooray-shouting. I was so surprised that I sang the song again. And he clapped, stomped, and hoorayed right on cue. I gave him kisses and hugs and realized. . .
Hey, I taught him that. I did that. I showed him that. I got to see that.
It was absolutely amazing. It's the moments like these that make me feel like a mother.
What moments define you? What was the first time that you felt like a mom? What was a recent experience that reminded you what being a mom truly meant?
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It's minor, but I feel most like a mother when I push her stroller.
Ahhh.. I know that feeling so well. For me, it is when L and I are playing and snuggling and she looks up at me with those big blue beatiful eyes and reaches up and touches my face so sincerely. It is almost as if she is saying "I love you, lady."
Then she proceeds to tug my hair, or my necklace, or shove her finger up my nose or in my mouth. :)
But that moment happened! Short as it may have been.
*hugs*
I have so many different moments that make me feel like a mom! The first time they utter "Mama" and swelling with pride in the store when someone tells me how well-behaved they are...
The biggest one was taking my oldest to preschool. I REALLY feel like a mom having a child in school.
So sweet that Will did that! I hope you can catch it on video and show us sometime. He sounds so precious!
I sing "Five Little Monkeys" and during the "bumped her/his head" part, I put my palm to my forehead. Then when I get to the "no more monkeys..." I shake my head and my finger at them in a deep voice. Well yesterday, while Rowan was on my lap, she took her palm to my forehead, just like I do. So I started singing it and when I got to the "no more monkeys" part she shook her head back and forth. I felt exactly the same way!! I taught her that!
It's really getting fun, isn't it?
Two moments stick out in my memory . . . 5 days after we were united with Lil Pumpkin, after every waking moment being a constant consumption of her grieving so mightily, she actually smiled at me for the first time!
The other moment, when I felt like her mother . . . was after we had been home from China for several months and she said "mama" (which sounds the same in Chinese as in English), and I just KNEW, for the first time, that she intended it for ME, and not for her Chinese foster mother.
Going to cry now!!! Thank God it's Friday and I am going home in an hour or so!
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