The Book of Mom

As I think I may have mentioned, patience was not a virtue handed to me at birth, unlike these good looks and charm (HA!). So it may be a recurring theme present on this blog. I'm not a good waiter (or apparently waitress either, since I was asked to wash dishes more than serve pizza at my first job - but that's beside the point). I don't wait well. Better?

In the meantime, while I'm waiting (UH!) for the RRC to call me to set up an appointment since we've got all the appropriate paperwork in, I may have to bore everyone with musings of a different sort, if nothing more than to take my own mind off of the lapsing time.

Here's a good topic: The Book of Motherhood

Now, I know all of my fellow moms out there are nodding, thinking of the day they were handed their very own copy of this instruction manual. They're nostalgically pondering the soft music playing when they were given this volume of priceless knowledge and how-to, complete with diagrams, pictures, and pop-ups. The birds were chirping, the breeze caught each page just at the right moment to turn as we soaked in everything we needed to know about mothering. Bliss. Pure bliss.

Those of you non-moms out there thinking, "of course!," get real! There is no such book. We have no idea what we're doing 95% of the time. It is why our oldest children are so screwed up (or will be) and in therapy (or will be). We listen to the advice of "experts," our mothers, sisters, friends, and strangers in the grocery store who give us that look when we give in and buy the candy just to shut that brat up!

When all else fails, we try desperately to listen to our intuition. Unfortunately, that fickle b!tch doesn't always give us the best advice. In fact, I'm pretty sure my intuition is out to lunch with her friends whenever I have a real crisis on my hands and I'm screaming at my teenager to do his homework for "the last time!" or using foul language in front of them - constantly.

I'm happy to give others advice on mothering, as long as they understand that most of my advice is not proven by experience, but is likely the opposite of what I did (and what failed for me). I have several friends with young children (someone should have told me when I was 23 that the rest of my friends were going to wait until my biological clock was going crazy to start having babies - would have saved me some money and parental blunders along the way). Some bring to me stories of their children doing "weird" things and ask me if it's "normal" - as if I should know. I'm confident that my own children are fairly abnormal, so what others' kids are doing, if different than what mine did, is "yes, absolutely" normal.

My own mothering is (hopefully) going to start a new chapter in the next year with the addition of another little rugrat climbing the furniture and walls, and my oldest will be starting high school. I think I may get it right this time. Maybe. Who knows? I suppose my children's therapists can tell me in 10-20 years.