Table 3 - Yummy Mummies seeking libation (liberation, whatever)

I have two children, one is perfect and the other has personality. Lest the former statement make you think I favor one over the other, think again, perfection can be grating and personality exhausting, but nonetheless I overvalue the little darlings exceedingly, and that’s that. There ends the bio information. Since is a column about Motherhood with a capital “M” as the title indicates, what further information do you need? It’s not like it’s about me anyway, right? I gave up that little luxury about seven years ago when my blue-eyed boy, also known as he-who-must-be-catered to, came along with his younger, though more powerful acolyte, she-who-must-be-feared.
He-who-must-be-catered-to was a picture of collagen-plumped perfection when he was six months old. Blond sticky-uppy hair, pink bracelets of fat circled his wrists and ankles and glorious blue eyes I could stare into for hours. Okay not really hours, more like minutes before I needed to change his diaper, prepare a bottle, take his temperature (just in case) or wash another load of precious, tiny white T-shirts. I was one of those moms that bought into the whole Gap version of babyhood. No diaper bags for me, instead I had my funky leather backpack, no stupid bear outfits for my puddin’, instead he needed clean white-T’s that displayed rather than detracted from his baby beauty. It took me five minutes to discover that spit-up is yellow on tiny white T-shirts and baby bottles – no matter what the brand – leak all over funky leather backpacks.

Besides my misguided attempts at hipness early in motherhood, I settled into stay-at-home parenting fairly well - mostly because I was still freelancing as a journalist. I still had an outlet, as they call it. The word is backwards, it should be letout, as in ‘let me out.’ That’s what work did for me, it let me out of mommydom for a welcome few minutes. Then came She-who-must-be-feared. Unlike her older, benign brother, she did not giggle impishly or greet the world with a grin the moment she awoke. Instead she seemed to know, even at birth that fourteen months earlier her place had been usurped by a mere scrap of a boy and she would never truly get the all the attention she so richly deserved. Life as I knew it was over. I don’t think people with one child ever truly experience parenthood at its most challenging. At least I didn’t. With one child, I was still able to carry on a conversation with, if not wit, at least focus. With one child I could get my legs waxed while reading him a story and he actually sat still. With one child I could stack some blocks at my feet, plunk a sippy cup beside them and type. Type for sometimes a half-hour. I know, some of you are horrified that I could ignore my precious little sweet’ums for 30 minutes at a time, but it was delightful. Frankly, I think he needed time off from my intense mommying. Don’t worry though; my thirty blessed minutes of uninterrupted typing did not last once the princess arrived.
People with three children commented to me that it was their third child threw them over the edge. Before then they could keep a grip on their lives. I guess my edge was much closer. My second bundle of joy - a mere fourteen months after the first, was enough to confound me completely. Good-bye spare thirty minutes, good-bye typing, good-bye any thought but the ones concerning basic human needs, theirs, mine, the dogs or my husbands (yes, in that order too, sorry honey). It wasn’t here that my Extreme Motherhood started, but it was here that I can see from my vantage point now, seven years later, there was no turning back. Since then everything has become about the chillun’ – their schools, their sports, their violins, their social life (are they socializing too much? Do they need more alone time? Do they have enough friends? Do they have too many? Are they really well-adjusted? What am I doing wrong?). My once perfectly competent brain set to work to make them Bionic children, custom-designing their lives so that they will learn to be kind, intelligent, athletic (but sportsman-like), artistic, musical children whom everyone will love and admire and admit into their exclusive schools, leagues, clubs, groups and (God willing) Ivy League colleges. Sound familiar? If so, you need help, we all need help. No child should live with this level of scrutiny - and no parent should administer it. more next week.