Moms in the Trenches

Nothing can quite prepare you for the first time your child throws up on you. I’m not talking about spitting up after a bottle. I mean real, yucky, adult-like throwing up.  And when you’re a mom, all she wants is to be held while she does it – in your lap. 

There’s no class on how to handle that!

I’ve always been the squeamish type.  When someone around me was sick, I couldn’t be anywhere nearby or I’d be sick too. Then, compassionate soul that I am, I would follow him or her around with disinfectant spray.  Nothing says love like that!

I’m also a neat freak.  Those of you who know me aren’t surprised.  You might, in fact, say I’m anal about cleanliness. I used to vacuum every other day, dust twice a week, clean the bathroom fastidiously – you get the point.

I’m particular about where things go. I hate clutter. One of my biggest pet peeves is when Heidi’s dishes make it to the counter but not into the dishwasher right beneath it.

Predictably, all these things have pretty much gone out the window now that there’s a toddler in the house. It’s not that I don’t care anymore – sometimes, I do – it’s just that usually I don’t have the time, energy, or desire to do anything about it.

It was a little easier when Anna was a baby and slept 20 hours per day, and wasn’t mobile or eating real food.  Now it’s not so easy to keep up with her!  Not that I don’t try, of course, but I find that once something is clean, it takes less than 24 hours for it to get dirty or messy again. And there simply isn’t time to do it all.  Whitney Houston may have been “every woman,” but it’s just not in me, at least, not all the time.

It’s the nature of being a mom that your priorities change, your schedule changes, your sense of your own importance changes ….. even your self-concept changes. Letting go of my inner neat freak is but one of the many ways parenthood has changed my life, turning me into someone that, at times, seems almost unrecognizable.  But I like her better than the old me.

For one thing, I’ve gotten over my squeamishness when it comes to illness.  I’ve accepted that, when she’s sick, I’m the one Anna wants.  Our clothes and bedding are washable and so are we.  Somehow, my own illness reflex has diminished and I’m able to take care of her like she needs me to, even if we spend the whole night sleeping squished up on the bathroom floor (which we just did, the weekend before last, when she had a stomach bug).

More importantly, I actually have something fun and meaningful to do with my non-work time, and an awesome family to share it with.  Let’s face it – when you’ve worked all day, the last thing you feel like doing is working more, even if it’s around the house.  I also don’t want to spend entire weekends doing chores when we could be playing at the beach, where I can watch Anna scream with glee – since we’re not in a restaurant and there don’t seem to be any Evil Beach People – as I dip her legs down into the cold ocean and lift her up again.

Don’t get me wrong, Anna doesn’t live in a pigsty and I still try to clean once a week.  However, my standards have changed. It used to be that, while sitting on the couch, I'd be looking around the living room, scoping out all the things I needed to get done.  That’s one reason I cleaned so religiously – I wanted to be able to relax without seeing potential work everywhere I turned.

But now, when I look around at all the things I could be doing, I then turn and look at my constant little companion, who wants nothing more than to snuggle with me and watch a movie. And I think, what would I rather be doing? 

That’s a no-brainer.