the sparkling Mother

what is it that makes a Mother?

it's waking up earlier than you want to wake up. every. single. morning. sometimes you get a cuddle in bed, but it never looks like the commercials -- all smiles and shiny hair and white duvets and eye-gazing talk (think about it... kids get morning breath, too). it's more likely a knee-to-bladder, elbow-to-eye-socket, boogers-on-twisted-sheets knot that ends with mom exploding out of bed, gasping for air and a bathroom.

it's finding poop before breakfast, egg-yolk hair during breakfast, and stuck-on breakfast after breakfast.

it's spending one hour in the grocery store finding ingredients for baked goods, one hour baking, one hour cleaning up from baking, ten minutes adding baked goods to lunch sacks in the morning, one minute removing uneaten baked goods from lunch sacks in the evening, and one hour in the gym working off the calories from those baked goods no one else would eat.

it's learning about anatomy in the most startling, unflattering ways. beginning with your own (you are spared details about the "P" word here -- ask your sister-in-law about her Pregnancy, if you must), right on down to the Circumcision question. high school biology had nothing on motherhood.

it's wrecking your back securing boots and mitts, wrecking your back skidding across icy driveways chasing airborne boots and mitts, and wrecking your back re-securing boots and mitts. and that's only winter. the rest of the year, there are umbrellas and yard toys to trip over, and mud slicks to -- you know, slick through.

it's after Bath Time, Laundry Time, Dishes Time -- finding there's no hot water left at Me Time.

it's waving good-bye to half of your social life as friends realize it's no fun having you and your kids to their place, and almost wishing you could wave good-bye to the other half, which entails keeping your kids from wrecking the places of friends who still have you over.

finally, it's receiving carnations every Mother's Day. i don't know why this happens. carnations require nurturing. we dig out the old vase, prepare a sugar solution, snip off the stem ends and arrange our carnations. we place them on the table and protect them from table-knocks and petal-pluckers. we do this until the carnations wilt, knowing that somewhere, another mother is more adept at keeping cut flowers fresh and has a newer, funkier vase that doesn't tip over to table-knocks. maybe a gift that doesn't require nurturing would be more appropriate for a mother. like aromatherapy socks. or a new vase.

for all this, and more, you will be rewarded with the sparkling title, "Mother". you will never know, until you own it, how much pressure it takes to create this kind of diamond.

but oh, it shines.


offering this roughly-hewn gem to Imperfect Prose for a chuckle and a nod.