Before I had my baby, I thought I was prepared; I had read the books and gotten the nursery ready. What I wasn't ready for was the radical transformation to Motherhood. I quickly went from being a successful business woman to a sleep-deprived mommy whose big excitement was a mid-afternoon nap.

In the first few days of my daughter's life, it seemed that all my time was spent feeding and cleaning her. The adorable outfits that I received at my baby shower were quickly covered with spit-up and diaper accidents. On one particularly messy day, I considered just wrapping her in towels. It wouldn't have been cute but it certainly would have been practical. (Now I know why she likes to change her outfits so often. It comes from those first few weeks of life when I changed her 10-15 times in one day.)

I looked and felt like a shipwreck survivor. I groggily fed my daughter every two to three hours. Personal grooming seemed unnecessary. It didn't seem to matter much because no one looked at me anyway. They all focused on the cute baby. That was good considering that I had decided that putting on makeup was too much work. I barely had enough energy to brush my hair and get shoes that matched. At least most of the days they matched. There was one day after my maternity leave was finished, when I wore one black and one blue shoe to the office. It wasn't too bad though, because I think it distracted most people from the baby drool on my shoulder that I tried to cover up with a cleverly tied scarf.

One thing that I didn't expect after the baby was born was fat feet. When I was pregnant I gained a lot of weight, that I managed to convince myself was due to water weight gain, not the boxes of Girl Scout cookies that I inhaled. My feet got so big that I had to buy all new shoes. While it was a great excuse to go shopping, I never thought that my new shoe size would be permanent. Somehow I expected that my feet would shrink when my chest did. Why couldn't it have been the other way around? I wouldn't mind tiny feet.

I wistfully remember the time before I had a baby. Those were days when cute guys used to ask for my phone number. The last guy that asked me for my phone number was a dad that wanted to set up a play date with our daughters.

I remember when I could go to the bathroom without a little voice asking, "Mommy, what are you doing in there? Are you busy?"

Do I miss those days? Sure. But not often. All I have to do is look at my daughter and realize how lucky I am.

As a mother, I get to experience childhood all over again but from a different perspective. When I was growing up, I promised myself that when I had a daughter I would never make her do horrible things like clean her room and do her homework. I would let her play all day and give her money to buy all the toys she wanted.

As a mother, I wish someone would let me play all day and give me the money to buy all the toys that I want. Since that's not going to happen, I might as well enjoy it and realize that things have changed but I wouldn't want it any other way.

Happy Mother's Day.

Laura Browne
©2006

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