M*ther Support Group
It's a strange thing, being a first-time expectant mom: I feel the same in every respect, except that I have a creature inside this protruding gut that sometimes taps out morse code. I still find it odd when I try to get out of a chair and discover that I need an extra pair of hands to get the job done. And sometimes I hold up a pair of jeans and think, "These will fit," and I'm shocked when I realize that those pants were made for the memory of a thin girl that once wore my skin (I've also stretched both the jeans and the skin out for her). I get frustrated with the enormity of my breasts. When I dream, I still see myself as I was seven months ago.
I don't have too many friends who have had children. If they do, most of those kids are already in school. It's hard to relate; they've had too much practice at being a mom for their wisdom and advice to sound anything but -- well, motherly advice.
Today I went to some free parenting classes at the local hospital. Mostly it's a chance for new moms to brush up on baby basics, and to swap clothes and find out more about local resources. There were about ten moms and eight babies, all under one year of age (mine being about -2 1/4 months). It was weird. They had inside jokes about motherhood, and they used words I was unfamiliar with --
--and it struck me: this is a community of new moms, filled with its own language, rituals, and customs. I suddenly felt like an anthropologist, admitted into an exclusive order by virtue of my big belly.
I've never pictured myself as a "mom" before -- the soccer practice, the green beans, the sensible hair cut -- but then again, I still picture myself with unswollen ankles in size six jeans.
So, maybe my self-image has to change. I figure it will take another six months and a lot of baby spit for that to happen.
I don't have too many friends who have had children. If they do, most of those kids are already in school. It's hard to relate; they've had too much practice at being a mom for their wisdom and advice to sound anything but -- well, motherly advice.
Today I went to some free parenting classes at the local hospital. Mostly it's a chance for new moms to brush up on baby basics, and to swap clothes and find out more about local resources. There were about ten moms and eight babies, all under one year of age (mine being about -2 1/4 months). It was weird. They had inside jokes about motherhood, and they used words I was unfamiliar with --
--and it struck me: this is a community of new moms, filled with its own language, rituals, and customs. I suddenly felt like an anthropologist, admitted into an exclusive order by virtue of my big belly.
I've never pictured myself as a "mom" before -- the soccer practice, the green beans, the sensible hair cut -- but then again, I still picture myself with unswollen ankles in size six jeans.
So, maybe my self-image has to change. I figure it will take another six months and a lot of baby spit for that to happen.