The Day I Became A Mom

Fourteen years ago today, I became a mother. I was more than a tad freaked out. I was about to have a crash course in Nature and find out just where babies come from and my cooter and I were terrified. I went to bed more than one night that year rubbing my pregnant belly and wishing I had paid better attention in my grade nine sex education classes instead of doodling hearts and flowers on my binder.

Eventually my daughter clawed her way to freedom and my cooter and my life have never been the same. She came out looking like an angry little man, shaking her fist at the world and howling about terrible invisible injustices. Not much has changed since then, except she no longer looks like a man.

I didn't know what to expect when I discovered I was to be a mother for the first time. I hadn't spent much time around babies and I was barely out of diapers myself, just twenty years old. When the nurse placed her in my arms for the first time I remember looking at my baby's plump pink fist and her chubby little cheeks and wondering just what in the hell was I supposed to do now?

I've spent much of the last fourteen years wondering the same thing, over and over again.

Fric is independent, rebellious, joyful and full of laughter. It's really quite annoying first thing in the morning to be honest, before I've had any morning coffee and woken up. She is just. like. me.

My mother hasn't stopped laughing at me since she was born.

My child humbles me with her grace and dignity and amazes me with her strength and compassion. This totally makes up for her unique ability to make me twitch like I'm being electrocuted.

Life with her is filled with a laughter, love and the odd impulse to want to staple her eyelids shut when she rolls her eyes at me.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Happy 14th birthday, Fric. I still don't know what to expect as you grow up, but I do know that no matter how much you love blue eyeshadow and bad boy bands, my love for you will never end.

Please don't grow up too fast kid. You're starting to make me feel old.

Love,

Mom.