Are You Cut Out to be a Mom?

Oh my goodness. Last night, I had flashbacks.

Not flashbacks in the sense of, “Whoa, I’ve done way too much acid, man.”

More like, flashbacks of when my child was an infant, and we were in the throes of dealing with reflux and colic and CONTINUOUS, angry crying.

I felt shell-shocked. Anxious. Overwhelmed. Heartbroken. At a loss. Scared. Not sure. Full of doubt. Inadequate.

I picked up my son from daycare today. He apparently has a stomach virus, causing awful diarrhea. There must be some kind of stomach cramping involved too because my son acts as though the devil has taken over his intestines.

(As a fun aside, at least my son describes things in an entertaining and truly perfect way. Puke is called “poop sneeze.” Diarrhea is called “poop puddle.”)

There was a time last night when my son was completely inconsolable. Throwing things, hitting, kicking, screaming. He was covered in his own diarrhea, and I couldn’t even get close enough, without being attacked, to do anything about it. This went on for so long (about an hour, a little longer) that I wondered if we needed to GO SOMEWHERE.

I’m thinking, “Is his appendix bursting as we stand here?!”

Eventually, we got him in the bath, with his clothes on, scared, trembling, and screaming. Once he was clean and changed, finally, all was calm. He watched a movie and ate a banana.

I stood in the kitchen, and I felt…like shit.

My nerves were on edge. I had to make dinner. I didn’t want to eat. I felt like I used to. When he was an infant.

And, there was the old fear. The fear that, I believe, every mother has sometimes.

I don’t think I am cut out for this.

And, I remembered how I used to feel that way. Low on sleep and holding an infant I couldn’t soothe. I didn’t think I was cut out for it.

I learned to tell myself, “You were meant to be Parker’s mother. You ARE cut out for it. You were cut out perfectly, for him.”

In the moments of chaos and crying and pain and doubt, you do not think you are cut out for it.

But, you are. You are cut from the same cloth, and only you can be his mother.