My Wonderful Kid

I've been doing a lot of thinking about being a mom lately and (obviously) specifically being Lola's mom.

Before Lo was born, I was worried I wouldn't be comfortable with being called Mommy. (For the record, I'm still not "Mommy" but I am a bonafide "Mama.") I'm sure I'm not the first nor last first-timer to have qualms about entering the realm of title vs the more familiar name, I still think it was a valid worry because I'm not so quick to accept change.

I can't pinpoint the exact moment when Mama become comfortable but I can tell you that I took me a long while before I could refer to myself as Mama without an inner wince.

Last night I found myself at Panera, alone for once because Tee's mother had Lo. I listened to a little girl calling her "Moooooooooommmmmm" to see what kind of soda to fill their communal cup with. Now I'm not prone to fits or faints or seizures or visions, us sturdy Midwesterners are stoically ANTI that sort of nonsense but I had this weird, dizzy disorientation while watching this child.

"Is that what Lola sounds like when calling me?"

"Is that Lola in a few years?"

"How do I identify with that woman, a mother?"

"Will that be me in a few years?"

I saw myself stacked amongst the rest of the worlds' moms, like still frames in a projector reel.

This got me thinking of images of mothers everywhere, all the same, same name, same post-partum shape, same weary way of responding "what honey?" I actually had to shake my head to dispel this uncomfortable train of thought and allow my rational side to take over.

I don't have to identify with that woman just because we're both mothers. Lola and I are a mother-daughter dream team no matter the parallels we have with others. Despite the fact that I DO carry the same title as millions of other women. I DO have a saggy mom-body and I DO have the habit of absentmindedly answering Lola's many queries with "yes baby...?"

I think I was worried about a loss of self way back when Lo was in utero and I was busy terrifying myself with "what-if's". I saw the similarities of the many many Moms out there but there was one thing I didn't, nay, couldn't have known yet.

While I do share many characteristics with many others, there's one thing I don't share with them... Lola. And this is a major difference indeed. Because Lo is so original in and of herself, I can indulge in some typical mom behavior like forgetting to care about things the used to matter (shaving of legs, styling of hair, clean clothes), having a horribly messy car (mooshed crackers, spilled juice), and looking wildly around a store when I hear a child shouting "MAMA, MAMA!" even when my child is in the cart in front of me.

Lo counteracts this by singing about everyday objects like newts, Nanny-Baby Kitty, Mama, ice and the moon. By being so contemptuous of banana anything that the offending food item will get an icy stare, how dare it be banana flavored? By sleeping with her mouth open, unabashedly snoring. By being Lo.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that sometimes, a very small but key difference can save you from being just like everyone else. Mine is approximately 29 pounds and is the Lola half of the Lola and Mama dream team.

Oh, My Achin' Tear Ducts!

I've been really weepy lately. Not in a droopy, moping weeping-willow sort of a way but more like a crazy pregnant hormone kind of way. Which thankfully isn't possible. Hurray for IUD's!

I attended my Literature about the Morality of War class on Wednesday and we had two speakers who came to tell us about their experiences in the Vietnam War. Ouch. For the record, I am against war. Easy to say right? I can also say that I'm still supporting our soldiers but also, it's easy to make a statement and a whole different thing to "live it" if you will. So now is when I make a confession: for all that I say I support the soldiers, I scoff at the magnetic "support the troops" bumper stickers. I inwardly sneer at recruitment officers. When I hear how someone enlisted because "it's their duty" I roll my frickin eyes.

Passive-aggressive bad attitude? Oh no doubt. But I was raised in a family that actually would've moved to Canada if any the children were drafted and any mention of joining the military was met with a vehement discouragement. So with that back story, I listened to these two men talk about their war experience:

One had a florid face and was loud and outspoken about his service. He was traumatized from the horrors witnessed and came back to a different America from the one he left. The lack of news halfway across the world kept him in the dark about the social revolution going on at home. He went from 70 degrees in Vietnam to 12 degrees in Chicago and got spat on leaving the train station. He couldn't understand the hatred people had for him, he was called a baby-killer, he couldn't get out of that uniform fast enough.

Now even me, with my inbred suspicion of all things military think that's overboard. Yeah, enlisting was dumb, volunteering for Vietnam while stationed in Germany originally was incredibly dumb but this is one of ours. Hate the war not the soldiers.

He also spoke of his family issues after returning home. He didn't talk about the war until 10 years ago. His guilt and and shame and disappointment and silence eventually turned him to booze, he admitted to our entire class that he became a mean drunk. His wife divorced him, he thought of suicide. The one thing that really stuck with me was that "this ordeal he went through was 30 years ago, why couldn't he just get over it?" and "how could he come out and talk about it now, 30 years later and blame his problems on it when it's been so long."

He created a war veteran's outreach program, kicked the alcoholism and now speaks and speaks eloquently about his experience. I bit my cheek three times in 30 minutes trying not to cry.

The other speaker was shy and nervous and had the nicest smile I've ever seen. If he were 30 years younger... Back on track, he was a chaplain for the Marines and spoke more on moral issues. He was enrolled in a Morality PhD program at a liberal school in Chicago when he decided to go to Vietnam. When asked his reasons by his incredulous colleagues, he said "I just want to help people." My kind of man.

He spoke about commanders having to make difficult decisions on whether to evacuate displaced villagers via helicopter or abandon them to certain slaughter. (He abandoned them as they might have had enemy placements in the group.) He spoke of a time when his father went to a six grade class with him and listened to him speak. When a child asked how his service affected the family back home, he redirected the question to his dad. His father mentioned a time when the family was watching the news and heard a chaplain in his battalion was killed but no name was mentioned. He discussed the uncertainty they lived in, the fear they had and the shameful hope that it wasn't their son, but someone else's. Shit, I was crying now.

Those two men really hit home that people are out there suffering from these experiences, that even if they come back whole and alive, they come back changed. I think that I've always been preoccupied by the returning-hero fairytale where men go off, do manly, war-like deeds and come home to their fresh-out-of-high school wives and make zillions of army brats. Cliche, cliche, cliche but I think that's the pit I've been falling into. One encounter with charismatic speakers won't undo a lifetime of anti-military conditioning but it can make me think things over...and cry.

Mama...Bayyybe...

Lola is loving babies right now. Actually, she's frickin' obessesed. Everything is a Bayybe. Bayyybe ketchup bottle, bayyybe shoe, bayyybe plant etc. Sometimes she uses bayyybe as a synonym for "small" (a small plant), sometimes it's used as a way to express ownership (that shoe is the baby's shoe), and sometimes it's a title/noun (that's a genuine baby).

I can tell you that I sick and tired about hearing of babies but it's a subject that Lo holds dear and I'm trying to encourage her interests even if I don't agree. Shiiiit, I was doing my best to avoid bayybes for about 6 years through a combination of luck, everchanging contraceptives and lots and lots of prayers in my newfound religiousness when I thought there might be a bayyybe. Of course I reverted to my old ways as soon as I knew there wasn't, talk about not learning my lesson! This pattern and mindset sure makes it hard to get excited and comfortable with bayyybe talk every minute of every hour of every day, but I'm trying.

There is a point to this dear reader, which I will get to shortly. Yesterday Lola and I went to Cozy Nook Farm where we bought some pumpkins, sat on some vintage John Deere tractors, accepted candy from a stranger (jeez, am I slacking on my momness or what?) and pet some cows. First we got to pet the calf that was only a month old. It was housed in a nice little area all it's own with clean hay and a cool breeze. I was a little hesitant to let Lo pet it though because it had flies congregating on it's legs. When I shooed them away, I found healing raw patches and the poor baby had a pretty pitiful cough too. After hearing the creature wheeze, I decided it was time for Lo and I to go look for healthier animals to pet. We called a big cow over (named Cinnamon) or in Lola speak, Mama. A big cow, obviously the Mama.

Then my automatic cynicism receded a bit and I went into empathy mode. What if it is the Mama? How does she feel having her month-old, sick calf separated from her to draw pumpkin buyers to the farm? Does she even care, being a cow? I must admit, it didn't seem like she did, she was too busy sniffing/snotting on my baby's feet to look very interested in her own baby. But then again, it might not have even been her baby.

The point I'm trying to get it at is Lola is teaching me as much as I'm teaching her. Fuck off, I'm not spouting cliches for the hell of it, I'm trying to say that she leads me to think critically, open up my narrow perspective and maybe change my mind about a few things I've tradionally held one way or another. She makes me look at things with new eyes, I smile at things that I know she would like, I moo at cows when I'm all alone in my car. I skip on my way to night class and smile at people who give me disdainful looks.

I think I was well on my way to becoming a very serious, very self-absorbed person before Lola came along. I would never have skipped to class unless intoxicated. Maybe because I would've been embarrassed but most likely because it wouldn't have even occured to me. Lo has brought some serious fun into my life and rerouted my path to personhood all the better. I like being Lola's mom. I like myself more and I love her. Hear that Lo? I love you.

Do I love everything bayyybe? NO. But I love my bayyybe more than fumbling words can say.