Sunday, November 25, 2012

Mountain Mama


I had my first child in the city, one of the trendier family friendly neighborhoods of Atlanta. Translation: I was a mom in the capitol of competitive mothering of the south. Playgroups were all about organic, but is it homemade organic or store-bought organic? Is it locally grown organic or the shit organic from the produce aisle at Publix? Don’t get me started on plastic. As our adorable baby grew to a toddler and needed discipline, my husband and I regularly garnered looks from fellow breeders and childless hipsters that had us expecting a knock on the door from child protective services any day. One day at the YMCA toddler class I got caught up in pre-school talk with a group of parents. One dad was boasting about getting his kid into a daycare program that would automatically funnel his kid to the attached pre-school. “Do you have Oliver on any lists yet?” someone asked. He was a year and a half at the time. It turns out if your kid isn’t on the waiting list by this age you might as well send them to head start. I was informed there still might be time but I needed to act fast. I did and we moved to the mountains within the month.

Fast-forward a year later and now we have a second baby. Despite our rural relocation I still fret over mothering. Am I being too lax when I say nothing to the mothers smoking 10 feet away from the pack of kids at the playground? Should I spank my toddler? Should I spank my toddler in the parking lot of the post office in full view of my peers? Would it be worth the 40 minute drive to take my soon to be preschooler to the only Montessori school in the area? These questions alone warrant countless comments from readers scrutinizing my own style as a mother. Writing about mothering is as scary as being a mother. Not only am I putting out openly in black and white my thoughts and anxieties on this complex time to be read and reviewed by my kids one day as evidence of why they are so screwed up; but I am opening myself up to the scrutiny of a vast arena of mothers, mommy bloggers, mommy coaches, and mommy wanna be’s who all opine on how and why one should or should not feel a certain way about mothering. My dear friend from home and fellow mom sent me a great blog post yesterday on why we are not failing as mothers. http://www.pregnantchicken.com/pregnant-chicken-blog/2012/11/9/why-youre-never-failing-as-a-mother. The day before she sent me a picture of her 2 year old’s self portrait made with yarn, feathers, and buttons. I sent her a picture of my son sitting on the sofa watching “All About Helicopters” for the 50th time that day. Proof that I get lax on myself sometimes and perhaps the isolation of living in the country is really insulation against the criticism I fear. I still don’t know where I fall on the spectrum of motherhood. I have never left my child in the grocery cart or coffee shop by accident. But I regularly forget that I have 2 of them now and rush to make sure the toddler has not fallen into the creek or the baby is still in the bouncy chair in between folding laundry. Forget about Etsy or Pinterest. My creative self is in hibernation for the next 24 months.

Inspired by my friend and her artist son, I took Oliver on a nature walk yesterday where we gathered a bunch of stuff and then laid it out on his little table to identify- fern, bark, pine cone, etc. We were going to do an art project but gathering and naming seemed to be such an accomplishment I decided to quit while we were ahead and before the baby woke up. As I write he is outside sitting in the family car pretending to go visit his friends JoJo, Gavin, and Dexter. My husband found him in the driver’s seat with chewing gum in his mouth that he found in the console. Oliver said “yummy yummy” as his dad made him spit it out and left the toddler and his imaginary play inside a motor vehicle to come inside and tell me how funny our son is. The parking break is on.