Thursday night your stockings needed mending

So I've been at this mom gig for almost a year and a half now.



The pay is for shit, but the non-salary benefits are pretty awesome. I don't know about my boss, though. The language barrier's been a big hurdle for us. He's a bit of a tyrant at times, and I'm not sure he appreciates how hard I work for him. He never gives me any kind of feedback on the quality of my work, so I'm always sort of winging it. And the overtime! I feel like I never have a day off.



But I guess I'll keep at it. You know how bad it looks on your resume if you leave a job after only eighteen months.

REASONS I FEEL ABLE TO ASSERT THAT I AM NOW, OFFICIALLY, A MOM:

1. I have cleaned out my jeans pockets while getting undressed to go to bed and found Goldfish cracker crumbs.

2. I have stepped barefoot onto a Lego in my child's darkened room and had to stifle the urge to scream in pain so as not to wake him.

3. I have had my "morning constitutional" with my child sitting on my lap because he won't leave me alone in the bathroom for even a minute.

4. I have found the lost sippy cup rolling around on the floor of the car and opened it to discover days-old milk well on its way to becoming some sort of feta-like cheese.

5. I have spit on a tissue and used it to clean my child's face.

6. I have used the five-second rule to determine whether to allow my child to eat food that's fallen on the floor.

7. I have endured the looks of old ladies in the supermarket while my child throws a screaming tantrum because I won't let him have a particular item (in this case, a balloon. Damn floral department.)

8. I have cleaned up boogers, poop, pee, puke, tears, blood and pretty much any other human effluvium you can think of except for the one that's exclusively the domain of males and we're not even gonna go there because my boy's only a toddler, for Christ's sake.

9. I have sternly told my child, "No!" and then walked into another room to release my stifled giggles because whatever it was he did was incredibly cute, but I didn't want him to see me laugh 'cause that'll just encourage him.

10. I have unapologetically told a disapproving (male) passenger on a plane that it was not within my power whether my child cried or not, but it WAS within his power whether he was a dick or not.

REASONS I AM NOT YET SURE I CAN ACTUALLY CALL MYSELF A MOM:

1. I have never yet had the opportunity to say "Because I said so."

2. I have never yet been to the emergency room. For my child, anyway.

3. I have not had to make an asparagus costume for the school play that's tomorrow.

4. I have not had to stay up until 2 a.m. waiting for my child to come home from a party.

5. I have not had to talk to my child about sex, or death, or God.

6. I have not had to teach my child to drive.

7. I have not had to watch my child walk away from me on the first day of kindergarten and resist the powerful urge to grab him up, cradle him in my arms and run shrieking into the wilderness to live like Walt Whitman and hide from the evils of society.

8. I have not had to shush my child while riding public transportation when he asks, "Why is that lady/man/person so fat/dirty/smelly?" and try to quietly explain to him while throwing apologetic smiles at the fat dirty smelly person.

9. I have not had to buy any cookies, candy, wrapping paper or magazines to support my child's sport, school club, or scout troop.

10. I have not had more than one child and have never had to endure the eternal "Mine!" and "He's touching me!" dramas.


I'm sure there's lots more, but ten seemed like a nice round number, and those were the ones I thought of.

Thanks for reading.