I am Super Mom!

So, my mom has been gone for about 3 days.  She came to stay with us when the boy was born about a month ago.  Having her with us made life so much easier.  We took turns at getting up with the boy in the night or getting up with the girl in the morning.  Getting out of the house was easier with one of us to dress each kid.  Honestly, I thought I would never leave the house again after she went home.  I was terrified of her leaving.  I would suddenly be outnumbered and I wasn’t sure I could deal with that.  I know, I know, I should have thought about that before I got pregnant with kid number 2, but I didn’t exactly consider the logistics of it.  Anyway, I was so stressed about the prospect of being on my own that, the night before Mom left I burst into tears over a burnt pizza, thinking “If I can’t even cook a pizza properly, how the hell am I going to take care of two kids?!”

Today I proved to myself I can handle it with an interesting trip to the park.  I put the kids in the double stroller and headed down the hill with a friend.  All went well as Friend, two kids and I dropped off some mail and got a coffee, even after leaving Friend at her front door and making our way the rest of the way to the park.  That’s when things started to go awry.  The girl wanted to go on the baby swing… no problem.  As soon as I got her into the swing though, the boy started to fuss, and cry, then scream.  I had to take him out of the stroller, but duh, had forgotten the snugli at the house.  So, there I am, holding a screaming 5 week old in one arm and pushing a swing with the other.  Really, not so tough, in the scheme of things.

But wait, there’s more...

The boy continued to cry and scream and, even though I had fed him shortly before leaving the house, suddenly started rooting… desperately rooting.  I thought it might just be gas, but after a few minutes of back patting and swing pushing I decided I’d better pull out the bottle I’d brought with me for just such an occasion.  So then, there I am, baby in one arm, tucked into my hoodie (great on the fly snugli replacement, by the way) bottle in the crook of my neck, pushing a swing with the other hand.  I noticed strange looks from other moms as they passed by (all of them with only one child each, by the way).  The sweet old gentleman who was pushing his granddaughter on the swing next to ours must have thought I was crazy, and said as much when he laughingly remarked “Boy, you’ve really got your hands full there!”.  Yeah, thanks for offering to push my kid for a second, buddy!  No, really, he was nice enough to take the girl out of the swing a few minutes later.  And he was, like 90 years old so that was more than enough.  And if he had taken the pressure off for me, I wouldn’t have figured out that I am Super Mom.  I can do this, even in the awkward, unplanned, crazy moments.  I’m not saying I don’t need a little help once in a while (okay, as often as I can get it) but when it’s not there, I’m enough.  Like I once said, in all of my Oprah-like wisdom, to a cousin who was expecting twins, “You just do what you do.  There is no question of whether or not you’re capable when you’re a mom.”  Apparently, I may have known what I was talking about for once.  I just do what I do because I’m a mom.  Today, I felt like a Super Mom.  And when you’re outnumbered, you take what you can get.