I Heart Motherhood

A week or so ago one of Micah's fellow PCC employees asked how I was doing and if I was back at work yet. Micah informed him that I was not going back to work. "So what is she doing?" he asked, somewhat incredulously, "babysitting?" Well, I wouldn't put it that way, exactly. I prefer to think of myself as a full-time wife, mother, and homemaker. And can I just tell you that I really like my new job?

I like planning and preparing meals. I like surprising Micah with the range of my cooking abilities. I like doing the dishes and keeping the apartment clean. I like having time to do those little things that I never used to have time to do, like write Thank You cards and finish the laundry while it is still light outside (because our washer and dryer are outside). And I really, really like taking care of Simon. True, he doesn't do much and it doesn't take much to care for him. I hold him, I feed him, I change his diaper, I give him baths, I sing to him. At first it did kind of feel like maybe I could be babysitting. Babysitting for a long, long time. But then I realized (I'm a quick one, I know) that Simon knows who I am. He calms down when I sing to him because he knows my voice. He stares at my face because he recognizes it. He likes it what I hold him because I'm his mom and he knows it. And that makes a world of difference between a babysitter and being a Mom. I'm pretty sure that as a teenage babysitter I would not have taken being peed on, spit-up on, and cried on quite so well. I don't think I would have felt so bad for the poor child whose diaper overflowed all up his back. I don't think I would have spent twenty minutes in the middle of the night sucking mucus out of a baby's nose with an aspirator so he didn't sound so wheezy when he breathed. They couldn't have paid me enough. But now that I'm a Mom, just the fact that my baby knows me makes everything so worth it. So enjoyable. So sweet.
Maybe that is why the chorus of "Your Song" from Moulin Rouge keeps going through my head:

I hope you don't mind,
I hope you don't mind,
that I put down in words,
How wonderful life is
Now you're in the world.