A+ Mom

I am going to be the best mother.

The end.

(What if I ended the post right there?)

No, friends, I will not be the best mother. But I'm damn going to try! I've been with myself for almost 24 years now and I can say with confidence that I know my tendencies. I'm neurotic. I'm a perfectionist. A go-getter, a suck-up and a people-pleaser.

Great qualities for a first-time mom, right? Eesh. I'm scared for myself.

I'm reading the best parenting books and researching which detergent is best, how to make your own baby wipes, the best schedules for eating, wake time, and sleep time. I have statistics, other mothers' wisdom, !!SCIENCE!! (never would have thought I, as an English major, would ever use science...how silly). When other [less-informed] mothers [of kids not so well-behaved] comment on their techniques or struggles, I nod with focused eyes and let out the appropriate number of mhms and yeahs, but inside I'm saying, "CLEARLY she hasn't read ___ by ___," or, "that's not what I learned in my class," or, "her baby would be better if she did __, __, and __."

Afterward I think exclamation point thoughts:

You're becoming one of those mothers!
You think you know everything and you don't have any kids yet!
You're so full of yourself!
You'll get the kid who makes you wonder if demons inhabit babies!

Then the caps lock thoughts:

JUST YOU WAIT MISSY! YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET ALL OF YOUR HIGH AND LOFTY GOALS!

Here's where my perfectionism really kicks in. I think that because I'm aware of how I'm a perfectionist that somehow that awareness will help me to be less of a perfectionist. I then can strike the perfect balance of a mother who is in charge and has a beautifully adapted, respectful, well-behaved child and also deals with spit-up shirts, greasy unshowered hair, a messy car interior that smells tangy, and crud under my child's fingernails.

Basically, in attempting to not be perfect, I want to be the perfect, imperfect mother.

I don't want to make mistakes, and if I do I want them to be minor...like I taught him to read too soon and now he's going straight to first grade instead of kindergarten. I want to have all of the available knowledge on how to handle things so that I can be informed, make smart decisions, have responses to people's questions. I want my son to get the best of me. As a person who hates working, the idea of a career, the 9-5 gig, a person who quits jobs after a few months if I get bored...this is the one job I don't want to screw up.

But I know I am. In the back of my head is the voice that says let go now, Allison, and life will be so much easier. Enjoy each awkward, messed up, imperfect moment. Embrace the mismatched outfits, the spit-up on your blouse, the tangy smelling car, the toys scattered in every crack and crevice. Love your boy...feed him food and give him baths...keep your marriage as a priority and don't become a parent obsessed with her child.

Because ultimately, he isn't mine. God gave him to us and God can take him away. In fact the whole premise of parenting seems backwards: do everything you can to love him so he can leave someday. The goal is to get him out as a contributing human to society and man of God...not keep him like a little pet.

(I'm getting misty-eyed thinking of him in a cap and gown at graduation or in a tux watching his bride come down the aisle....I SO am that mother already!)

I'm going to try to be perfect because that's just me. And I have confidence that I'm going to do a lot of great things. I know, however, that I'm going to do a lot of not so great things and that's ok.

I'm going to get on my knees every morning and ask God for what I need for THAT day and pray I do alright. I'm going to ask questions, read books, search parenting forums...but in the end I'm going to make mistakes. I'm going to love him to pieces. I'm going to TRY to not let other people bully me into being this kind of parent or that kind of parent. I'm going to snap a lot of pictures and scribble a lot of notes. I'm going to look at his sweet face and look for my husband in his features so I remember who came first. I'm going to laugh about the food crusted in his hair after a nap. And I'd like to sleep more than I organize his sock drawer.

That's all I can really do as an imperfect mother trying to be perfect.