a question and answer forum.....for the time being. All things change and become something else if there is growth even Olde Baggs.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

Stretch marks......

I have been a mother for over 40 years. Been an Oma for 14 years (that's counting before GK made her debut). Helped to deliver two other ladies babies (oh please, never again). And have life experience that has been almost 65 years long. And with all of that you would think that I am pretty jaded when it comes to a newborn but alas..........I'm smitten and I have never even met (face to face) the expectant parents. Although I love them like they were my own kids. A friend is having a summer baby and I am so thrilled. I have even started crocheting a baby blanket.


She has all the signs and symptoms of the pregnancy including a few mental reservations as to her being a parent and still being herself. Asking that question every new mother to be asks. Will I change. It has given me something to ponder as I have been working on (doesn't it seem like I am constantly gleaning and getting rid of things?????) cleaning my work cubby for the new year of creating. I have come to some interesting conclusions on my own personality because of this sweet mother to be's pause to think about motherhood......and life in general.

I am not a purposed human. I am like a metal ball in a pin ball machine. I have, in my life, bounced from one obstacle or situation to another with little if any thought about where I was going or how I would handle or live through that phase in my life. I look at others making plans and admire them for their strength of character and tenacity. I also look at them wondering how? It truly is a foreign concept for me.

I am not a thinker, I am a doer. I am terrible list maker and lousy when it comes to sticking to a plan. I do both of these things to the extreme having everything lined out to the inch but most often in the middle of whatever I am doing, I change the project and therefor the outcome. It is the journey not the result that I appreciate. I very seldom really follow a recipe, spell or anything else. I fly by the seat of my pants. I am spontaneous. I am loosey goosey and yet I have a strict set of rules that I expect others to adhere to. I know right? Ask my family. They will tell you I am a terrible task master and expect them to do things in just a certain way. Of course I also have been known in the middle of a group project to change the expectation and we all laugh and have fun doing it differently. Yes, I am confusing and a tad bit wackado. I am a freak of nature and a force to be reckoned with. I am a nutcase wrapped in tissue paper when it should be a straight jacket. Never mind that I probably should be deceased, maimed or more psychotic than I already am. I am a fortunate child.

Patterns are for those who can't see the end product? Not really, they are for people who are smart enough to read how something should go. I call them destructions while others call them instructions. I know that white shoes should not be worn after labor day but believe just because someone has given birth does not mean they can never again wear white shoes again. Do you see my dilemma?

I suppose that means that truly, Ry and I see eye to eye when it comes to logic, except that he is passing me on that score.

Back to motherhood. I don't think it changed me except I have never been the same. I didn't have enough good sense to be afraid of anything before she was born. I went to a childbirth class at 5 months along, thought I had plenty of time before I needed to worry about that and never went back. I had nary a clue when I began labor and had Shelley in the hallway of the hospital, alone. Just she and I and my ignorance.

Afterwards, I became afraid of many things. Things I could not keep her from. Things I had no control over. Things that go bump in your life. But we both have reached today alive and I would say to anyone, you can expect to be different when you become a parent. The same person but moved by the birth. I think it improves you, fine tunes your awareness (spidey senses) and makes your heart easier to break. Makes life bigger, deeper, richer and yes more full. But even after all these years, the thought of a new life, a new beginning, makes me weak in the knees hopeful.

My hope of hopes is that I will be here to see and touch and smell the head of GK or Ry's children and see when that "begin again" and familial insanity is past along in yet another generation of cuckoos.....but I can wait, there is no hurry, there are still Oma things to be shared and inflicted on my grands. Still crazy adventures planned and participants surprised when it turns out quite differently than when we first began.

Steady on my dears.
Oma Linda

8 comments:

  1. A beautifully heartfelt post. Although parenthood is a personal choice, I feel sorry for those who have never understood the benefits of placing someone else's interests above your own.

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  2. Oma, applause, total standing, best view of being a mother, it's delights and how it 'enhances' everything from caution to joy, memories to future dreams... I love this post :)

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  3. Sweet words, I will have to read them again to take in all that you say. Good thoughtful post.

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  4. This is such a touching post Oma Linda! Love you! xoxoxo

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  5. Living changes us, and few things are as much living as having children. They make us see things so differently, don't they? We agree to things that we swore we wouldn't even consider, and we are okay with it. For as they grow, so do we.

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  6. Babies didn't interest me much until I had one and then, OMG! Newborns are the most wonderful and amazing things! But to answer your question does motherhood change you...well, it did me. I mean you are still you and I think you don't see the effect so much but everyone else around you does.

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You are always welcome to comment on my thoughts and I love them all......