Being a new mom is weird.
I worry about things like public school vs. home school vs. alternative school, cloth vs. recycled paper/chlorine free vs. name brand diapers, child care. I worry about people calling social services, about my kid getting taken away from me, about not being a good (enough) mom.
I think about things like getting settled somewhere, getting a puppy, a house, whatever, and still retaining my rebellious self. I think about what rebellion even means for me, now. I think about gender and class and race in a new way; I think about Disney characters more than I have since I first stopped shaving my armpits and started shaving my head.
Then there's the stuff that's happened to my body. My skin actually feels different, I've got tendonitis in my right wrist and my thumb randomly dislocates, my bits are forever changed. My hair's brown.
I do things that I said I'd never do, like coo and babytalk and dress him in blue and use a pacifier and carry him in his carseat and use disposable diapers. Sometimes it's all too much, and I'm exhausted and I'm sick of his neediness and I want someone my own age to touch my boobs for once but I'm too tired to even flirt and he's crying, again, and I can't take it anymore and then this happens:
He falls asleep in my arms and snores so lightly and I can smell his soft, milky breath and I think about how I grew him in my body, how my insides somehow built him, and I remember when I first saw him as a little flashing bean on the ultrasound at six weeks. And if it doesn't make it all worth it, it at least makes it one of the coolest things I've ever done.
