On Mother's Day

My mom called, and as soon as I picked up the phone, she shouted, "Happy mother's day!" It's weird to have this day apply to me. Me! Til now, it has been a day when I thought about a little gift and a card I could find for my own mom. Even this year, I thought about it more as a day for my mom than for me. But as I sit here blogging in the middle of the day (!), the little guy is taking a nap and Jeff is in the kitchen preparing a gourmet Italian meal for us. What an indulgence. Shouldn't we have mother's day more often?

In Korea, May 5th is Children's Day. When we moved to the US, I remember asking my mom with great concern, When is Children's Day in America? My mom responded, Everyday is Children's Day in America. Shouldn't that also be the case with Mother's Day??

My life now is drastically different than it was a few years ago. By 9:30 this morning, I hadn't showered, hadn't eaten breakfast, and hadn't even thought about making a cup of coffee. But I had already fed our little guy two meals, filed his nails, prepared and froze the broccoli and English peas we bought for him yesterday at the farmer's market, and played with him for two hours. A few years ago, all I could have mustered by this time was to take a shower, get dressed, drag myself onto the muni, stand in line at Starbuck's, and sit in front of the computer with my latte, thinking about the long day ahead.

To everyone who told me that being a mother of a 7 months old is completely different than being the mother of a newborn, you are so right! These days, I actually have time to read! Read -- as in books for myself, not just skimming books on how to take care of babies. And for our baby sign classes, which I host at my house, I've actually had time to bake snacks like bread pudding and pear tarts. Those little snacks were a great hit. Granted, those baking events require a little coordination. I pick out the snack about a day in advance and do all my shopping the day before. Then during the morning of the gathering, I try to squeeze in all the work while Little T naps. If I still have more to do when he awakes, I plop him into the Exersaucer or the Jumperoo (see photo above), two of the greatest inventions for parents.

I'm getting greedy and starting to plan for all the other things I want to do. I already signed up for a writing class that starts in two weeks and have been doing pilates once a week, which I would like to expand to two. We've again started to have friends over for dinner, which I had sorely missed. And I'm itching to brush the dust off of my brand new sewing machine, which I hardly had time to use before I got put on bedrest during my pregnancy. This is on top of all the things I want to do for our little guy, like regularly going to the farmer's market to pick out produce for him. Now that he's eating solid food, I am getting the greatest pleasure out of trying to figure out what to feed him and what he may like. Seeing the little dollops of peas and sweet potato go down his throat is inexplicably and completely satisfying. I also spend inordinate time these days on Amazon and Toys-R-Us websites to try to find toys that may be fun and good for his development. I realize I'm probably being overly ambitious and that I'll not get to all of these, but it feels like a little challenge to try to figure out how to squeeze more time out of the day.

My life these days is nothing like those days when I could sit on the beach and read my beloved books under the sun. When I could take a 2 hour jog in the middle of the day. When I could run out at a last minutes notice to meet with friends for drinks. Those days are long gone. But these days, I have my adorable baby boy, my wonderful Jeff, our beautiful family. It's much more than I could have hoped for five years ago.

Entering motherhood had been a tremendous privilege. It has given me an opportunity to take stock of my life, to see things from a new perspective, to learn things about myself that I had previously been blind to, to find levels of satisfaction I have never experienced before, and to feel the all consuming love for a precious little person. I feel like the luckiest person to have been allowed this chance at motherhood. Yes, it certainly is reason to celebrate.