My "Mom" Moment

Oprah talks about the "Aha" moment and I wait for my students to have "aha" moments every day. I now have my own "aha" moment which I'm claiming to be my "Mom" moments.

I can remember staring at the clock counting down the hours until the parents were due to be home. I would look forward to bed time after the hours of walking the child around to keep them from screaming crying or playing Candy Land 100 times and continuing to pretend I moved 4 spaces instead of the actual 2. Many times I would say to myself, "How on Earth will I survive with children of my own?"

Of course, all the mothers out there know that once you have your own it's not the same. Yes, there are times when you want to make bed time one hour earlier or pretend you've lost the game completely, but most nights you live for one more hour before they have to go to bed and that they will ask you to play the game one more time.

I've had several "mom" moments - the actual birth, his look into my eyes, his first giggles first rolling over, etc. But the last couple of weeks along with my the realization that going back to work as he is older and wiser than before is starting to sink in. Last night was a true testament to this. My "mom" moment tonight started with our routine. Ok, you caught me. The routine I like to think we have that I try to stick to but the routine that I normally can't really keep to 4 out of the 7 nights of the week. But tonight we got it - bath time, lotion, pajamas, brush teeth, story time and then bottle. Bath time was a blast with mom being more wet than Cooper by the end. Cooper loves getting lotion after his baths. He laughs and laughs. He laughs just as much then as he does when we are brushing his teeth. Most of the time I feel like I'm trying to win some competition to be the quickest 'teeth brusher' on the peninsula. (I can say that now that I live on a peninsula - how crazy!) He has 7 sharp little teeth that he enjoys biting on anything including my finger! We then read our books and got our bottle ready for bed. I was now at my favorite moment. We cuddled in and I gave my night time kisses, he gave his open slobbery 'kiss'. He was so exhausted he took his first few gulps like normal and not the wild 'act like mom hasn't fed me in 10 days' child. By the end of the bottle I cuddled him up and put him on shoulder to pat his back. He looked at me, laid his head down and gave me a pat on the back. A PAT ON THE BACK! Ahh...I could have melted right there. He then laid down and slept an entire 10 hours. This was one of my favorite "mom" moments. Up until now, I have loved him unconditionally since the day he was born, and I knew he knew I was his mom by the way he looked at me and looked for me as I left the room. But tonight - tonight I could feel that he knew I was his mom.

If there ever was a doubt before about "How on Earth am I going to survive with my own children?" That doubt is completely erased. I love, love, love my "mom" moments!