Mama Bear

For some women the birthing experience is a galvanizing moment.  No longer is she just as she is.  Suddenly life bursts forth from her own body.  There's pain and swelling and all sorts of disgusting things that happen in that moment, but not a single one of them matters when you see that purple slippery person who doesn't quite look like a person laid on your heaving chest.  That moment creates a brand new entity.

My son only left me twice in the hospital.  The first time the nurse didn't bring him back in the five minutes she had promised, so I got up and put on my robe and slippers and hobbled down to the nursery.  It wasn't that I didn't trust the nurse to take care of my child, it was that she hadn't delivered my treasured and beloved son back to me when she'd said she would.  Something must be wrong.  It turns out that when she laid him on the scale, the swaddling blanket she'd put on the scale did not stop the cold metal from reaching his back and 2.0 proceeded to pee all over himself, the scale, the window, the counter, the bassinet, and the nurse herself.  This required a lot of clean up that took longer than five minutes.

After that moment, I went where he went.  I was present for his first check up in the nursery with Dr. Omar. I was holding his hand and sticking a finger dipped in sugar water in his mouth to comfort him while he was circumcised.  I've held him for every shot, every illness, every injury that he's had.  He doesn't leave my sight very often.  When he does leave with his grandparents, they are given very specific instructions and I make sure my phone is turned up so I can hear it if there's a problem.  The toddler classroom at church knows exactly what part of the church I will be in before 2.0 stays with them.

I don't helicopter parent as much anymore.  When 2.0 falls down, I ask him if he's okay and when he says "yeah" I just leave it alone.  But the moment he falls and I hear the cry that starts and then stops because he's breathing in enough air to scream, I have him scooped in my arms and he's cradled against my heart so fast that my husband can't understand how I move that fast.

You see, when my son was born I metamorphosed into Mama Bear.  I can lift a car off of him if I need to.  I move with seemingly super human speed when he starts to slip on the ice outside so he doesn't actually fall.  My extremely sensitive hearing can detect when he makes a noise that indicates distress in the middle of the night.  I will go out in the cold without a coat on to retrieve a beloved sippy cup left in the car without feeling the burn of the freezing wind.

I think Mama Bear should get an insignia and a cape.  For just as Daddy is Superman, Mommy is a superhero too.