Saturday, August 05, 2006

Definitions of Freedom

  1. When your child can go to the bathroom by himself.
  2. Deciding by the amount of sun coming through the trees if it's time to get up yet.
  3. Napping at 2pm.
  4. Eating whatever you want.
  5. Reading in bed for hours before bedtime with no worries about how tired you'll be in the morning.

And all these will end when I have this baby.

Instead of playing the "when is this thing coming out of me?!?" game, I'm trying to relish my last few moments of freedom with my son. In short order, he will no longer be my only child and in a way, I mourn that.

So many things in my life I've done for him. The reason I'm a writer was because I needed to make money to get us out of debt and back on our feet. I am definitely not the perfect mother. I have many flaws that (if you'll excuse me) I won't catalogue here. I feel like my son has been a little guinea pig of parenting. I've learned what I'm good at and what I'm bad at as a parent with him.

And child #2 will reap the most benefit.

There's a quote taped to my computer monitor:

There are many ways to measure success; not the lest of which is the way your child describes you when talking to a friend.

I don't know who wrote it, but it helps me to remember to be the mother my child deserves.

1 comment:

thordora said...

I'm so close to that list now, and in some ways, I'm not as excited as I once was about it. In other ways, it's great to listen to the birds instead of bolting out of bed before the cry becomes the screech.

I guess each has it's rewards.

That's a great quote btw.