Mom is Dancing

My baby started walking today.  She's still cautious, but she sure is proud of herself.  I know everyone says this, but it's nearly been a year and it's gone so fast.  I remember bringing her home on Christmas Eve, feeling overwhelmed, happy and weirded out by my c-section incision. 

Ava continues to be jealous when I make any sort of a fuss over Brielle.  I'm beginning to wonder if this will last forever.  When I clap and hug Brielle after she walks to me Ava says, "You never clap for me when I walk."  Uh, yeah.  Cuz you've been walking for five years now.  And then I get paranoid and try to determine how often I praise Ava and wonder if I'm not doing enough to let her know I love her.

But then some days, weeks really, I feel like my whole life revolves around these two girls, if she doesn't get that I love her by now it's her own fault.  The other day after a week of feeling overwhelmed by motherhood I thought to myself, "I wish everyone would just stop needing me so much!"  Then I realized how selfish it sounded.  I should feel glad that people need me.  What if no one needed me?  How would I feel then?  I'd feel great.  Maybe then I could get some reading done.  I only thought that for a second though. 

I turned thirty this past week.  I wasn't looking forward to it.  My twenties saw me married, have a baby, question everything, separate from my husband, get back together with my husband, have another baby and find peace with the idea of marriage and what it means.  I don't have all the answers.  Some days I'm content and some days I think I need a stronger dose of Zoloft.

What I do know for sure is that I am loved.  I have two brothers and two sisters who I know will always be there for me, regardless of the differences in our lives and the miles between us.  When we're all together in one room my heart is so happy.  I have incredible parents who I still would spend every Saturday night with, watching t.v. and talking given the chance.  I have a husband who loves me, even though he knows me to my core and it still boggles my mind.  He is such a good friend, and I look forward to him walking through that door every day.  He makes me laugh and he fortifies me in the days that doubts assail me.  I have my Ava to make me laugh, to amaze me, and to show me how brave one little girl can be.  I have Brielle to snuggle with me, to grin at me and to assert her dominance with her uniquely iron will.  Being the baby she knows how to get what she wants.  And of course I have friends that I grew up with who make me laugh, cheer me up and listen to me when my heart is breaking.

Living in this neighborhood with beautiful old houses, and the people with money who own them is not always easy for me.  I tell myself that having money cannot buy happiness, but man, can it buy a whole lot of other things.  I've been thinking about what life is all about.  My days blend together.  To the world my station in life is small, insignificant.  From the outside I am overweight, with unruly hair and an uneducated mother of two.  Sometimes I let how the world sees me define how I see myself.  Sometimes it's hard to remember who I am amongst the piles of laundry, dirty diapers, and homework to be done with my kindergartener.

Ava drew me a picture for my birthday.  I glanced at it but to be honest it was one of a dozen she drew throughout the day and I must have set it aside without really taking it in.  Today while I was cleaning I came across it.  It has a stick figure with long curly hair and outstretched twig arms.  She wrote above it.  This is my mom.  She likes to dance.  And beneath it she wrote, Mom is dancing.  

I don't know what it was about seeing this picture, but I thought to myself, I am a mother and being a mother can consume your entire identity which is a fine line to walk, but if Ava can see the joy I still get from dancing in the kitchen then there are parts of my former self that have remained.

In my twenties I think I lost myself to the expectations that came along with what a mother and a wife should be.  Not that some of those expectations aren't necessary or normal, but I forgot the joy that can be had from doing something you love to do.  And for doing it for no other reason than you want to.