Saturday, May 11, 2013

Mom Time

It has been asked many times; when does a guy actually become a father? The parenting books will say it's as soon as he holds his child for the first time. Of course, when I say books, I actually mean what Jennifer Garner said in Juno, but I will take her word for it.

But has anyone ever asked when the woman becomes a mother? In all technicality, she's a mother while she's pregnant. She takes the necessary precautions to make sure her child is born healthy. She stops (hopefully) doing anything that might harm her child; even if that includes quitting her love of belly flops on a Slip N Slide during the hot summer months. She should also be deemed a mother if she decides that taking stupid maternity photos with crap painted on her stomach is not a good idea.

Some will argue it's not until after the baby is born that a woman becomes a bona fide mother. Those people are the ones that completely ignore the 40 weeks of straight bitching that their partners endure. And unfortunately I've seen a few episodes of  TLC's "I Didn't Know I was Pregnant" and even those women displayed some sort of maternal instincts before their baby fell out of their vaginas like your laptop does when you don't zip your backpack all the way. It's that abrupt feeling of panic when you can feel your backup slowly unzipping and your MacBook inching it's way to destruction. Luckily you remembered to put on that random velcro step so your computer only dangles out haphazardly.

I knew the Wifey would be an amazing mother six years before the Baby was born. She was actually hired as my niece's swim instructor and luckily the relaxed sexual harassment laws back then allowed me to pursue her without recourse. She just had this natural ability to calm children down; that motherly ability to do...mom things. She made sure my niece could swim but in a fun way. And she also made sure she didn't drown. That's probably the ultimate mom thing to do. Don't let them drown. If she had let my niece drown, I am pretty sure I would have fired her as her swim instructor.

There have been times when her motherly intuition has better diagnosed the Baby's illnesses quicker and more accurately than our famous pediatrician. The Wifey has also done an excellent job of identifying when I've had too much alcohol and prescribed the right amount of Whataburger.

I've never been good at getting The Wifey an amazing Mother's Day gift. It's usually a, "well, I planned on getting you this..." and hoping the 'it's the thought that counts' would work. Let's hope it works again this year.