I'm babysitting while I write this.
His name is Asher. He is four. He is petite, waif-like, with a puppy smile that melts his whole face into warm lines, and with a straight, blond bowl-cut, and with the vocabulary of an exceptionally-intelligent 35-year-old man who rounds his "r" sounds just slightly enough to betray the fact that he is, in many ways, closer to "baby" than "boy."
Asher and I, we're buddies. We sing stupid songs in the car and pretend to see rhinos lumbering along the interstate. He spits and says poopy and booger, but I try to discourage fart and outright draw the line at stupid. He's not much into physical activity; he's an intellectual, somewhat arrogant, a masterful manipulator, and I often feel like he's matching wits with me in every conversation, so much so that I'm always surprised at his propensity to worm his way into my arms or lap for a brief thumbsucking.
I like this kid. A lot. Currently, I'm letting him rot his brain in front of the TV.
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I've never had a real hankering for motherhood. It's all contingent on meeting up with someone with whom I can trust the experience of shared parenthood. Since that hasn't happened, I'm happy to be single and childless, because, as they say: Love is like a fart; if you have to force it, it's probably shit.
I've fielded my share of shit. And I know, to my toes, that to lack is better than to be hip-deep in shit.
There are many ways in which I'd be a fantastic mother. I love to actually know the little people in my care; I love for them to know that they're known. I love the particulars of physical care - knowing that you're bathed and fed and well-slept, and combed, and secure in what you need. Part of me is surprisingly nurturing, and I never know when that part of me will wake up and take over. (Not surprisingly, that part never wakes up before 10 am.). I am a firm-but-loving-boundary person, and even though I joke about letting kids run all over me, they do not, ever, and they probably won't, ever (after 10 am).
But there are ways in which I know I'll be the kind of mother who will stride fast and stare at the floor while walking you to your daycare classroom, hoping that I'm at least out of the room before you, Future Child Of Mine, start innocently confessing my sins to the adults around you.
1. I am a clean person, life-wise, but I do not care how clean my car is. I do not care. I care even less that you'll be in the car and will have to put up with my mess. I know this will probably set you up for a life of slovenly car care, and I know I'm handing you ammo for middle-childhood fights over the importance of cleaning your room or, more importantly, not trashing my kitchen because it will make me crazy (oh, really, Mom? I'll clean my room when you clean your car! This statement lurks in my maternal future.)
2. I will drag your little self to the beach more than you'll want to go; I will grease you up with parabens and set you loose in the sand and then yell at you when you get too far away and refuse to come back, and i'll probably only remember to grab crappy snacks, like stale Wheat Thins and maybe that ageless half-bottle of water from the backseat.
3. Healthy eating is one thing. But you'll be stuck with a mama who is 1) a chef, and 2) highly project-oriented. I will make ridiculous foods, and I will make you eat them. This might be smooth sailing until you hit the age of two-ish and realize that you have a will, a mouth that will close, and a firm grasp of the word NO and all its cousins (Tantrum, Breath-Holding, Kicking/Screaming/Punching, and the like).
And when you'll want to eat nothing but powdered orange quote-unquote cheese and mysterious, unidentifiable breaded items, I will drown myself in mommy guilt for not having worked harder to develop your palate and you'll totally pick up on it because you're smart and I'll probably influence you to develop an eating disorder. *throws self on floor in despair*
(By the way: You'll eat what I cook. I'm a chef, not a restaurant.)
4. I will be afraid of hurting you. Of saying stupid things that will inform your world in fifteen years. Of holding you too close, and hovering, and making you feel unsafe and insecure in a world full of good people. I'm afraid I'll make you think you can't function without me. I know how vulnerable and open you are, and I know the ways in which you can be hurt. I can't know what it must be like to have to let go, little by little, so you can learn to trust that the world is good, and so you can learn that, for the most part, the good in the world will help me protect you from the bad.
5. I will be worthless before 10 am. And eventually, you'll learn that Mama likes her morning coffee 1) with whole milk, and 2) flat on her back.
6. I will probably let you wear the same socks for multiple days.
7. My introvert days are definitely introvert days. And there will be times when you'll want to play with your friends and I will say nope, simply because you're too little to truck yourself over there alone, and I can't deal with the parental small-talk right now.
8. I will interrupt your soliloquy on batteries they have one part of space, no, two parts of spaces so you can put two batteries in, and there's the space inside and that's where the power is so when it's dead, the rest of it isn't, doesn't have the spaces anymore, it's like they get closed up by abruptly getting up, walking to the bathroom, and closing the door for no reason. But it's okay, because you're still talking about batteries. Right now. Still talking.
9. If today's babysitting is any indication of your future, Not-Yet-My-Child, I'll be writing blogs while you're lounging on a recliner with your hand inside your pants, munching on fried potato sticks at 9 am and soaking in the brain-killing LCD glow of talking cars, sheep who wear skirts, fat French dragons, and little girls with pigtails that stick straight out from their heads who have full conversations with their super-nurturing, fully-dressed fathers who are cooking breakfast while smiling. And I'll take comfort in the fact that your experience will be sooooo removed from that, you won't even know to compare and find me lacking. [See? TV isn't all bad.]
But here's the thing.
I will love you.
And love you, and love you, and love you. And love you.
I (and your dad, presumably) will draw the lines, yes, and I will set the boundaries, and yes, you'll throw things at me every now and then and screech about how awful and mean I am.
But I will know you. And I will love you how you need.
There will be the yelling, and the quiet, and the spankings (rarely), and the quiet, sweaty, restless collapses together on a couch, wherein both of us would really rather be doing other things, but right now, we just need to do this.
And then, never fear, little one:
I'll shove you out of my lap and say gah, go take a shower; you smell like a butt.
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