In honor of Mother's Day, I humbly share this essay for all the young moms out there who are trying to be "perfect." Don't bother! I wrote this eight years ago when my daughter was four.
It’s 12:30 A.M. My shirt is splattered in neon blue syrup, having dripped in a steady, sticky stream off my hair and face. I stand frozen, spoon in one hand, medicine bottle in the other, contemplating my next move. My assailant is sitting on the kitchen counter, defiantly staring back. Her four-year old hands are clamped over her mouth, her cheeks feverishly red. It was on my third attempt to coax medicine into my daughter’s mouth that she pulled the Bruce Lee move that sent it flying. She removes her hands long enough to scream, “I’m not taking any more medicine ever again!” And then it occurs to me: I should take a picture.
I had spent that afternoon working on Gabby’s scrapbook. Out of rolls of film, only a handful of pictures made the cut. She had to be smiling, clean, dressed in matching clothes, hair brushed. My husband even purchased a digital camera so we could immediately edit bad shots. Pictures of Gabby and me show us laughingly engaged in a way that will be flattering to me years from now. I am put-together, attentive, and never too tired to play. But standing there with Blueberry Blast Bubblegum cough syrup coagulating in my hair, I decide to end the charade. If I’m going to document her childhood, then I’m going to tell the truth.
As soon as my friends and family learned that I was pregnant, I received advice on the importance of keeping a scrapbook: “Start right away! Kids grow so fast, you think you’ll remember everything, but you won’t.” I looked at my own childhood albums, and I don’t recall most of the people or events. I do remember the time when I was five and refused to eat my dinner. I had to sit alone at the table for hours staring at a plateful of three-bean salad. No picture of that. No temper tantrums, fighting with my brother, or spitting up food. Instead, I’m twirling in tutus and blowing out candles. My mom is dressed in high heels, starched apron over her knit dress, presenting my homemade cake. Naturally, I modeled Gabby’s scrapbook after my own: never a bad day.
A lot of my friends belong to scrapbooking clubs. They have consultants who school them on the virtues of non-acidic paper, themes, stickers, and organization. I wonder if they have any decorative cutouts I can add to Gabby’s book that say, “Yucky face you made when I asked you to clean your room"?
Recently, a friend and I got together for coffee. She brought along some pictures of a party that I had attended. “Oh my gosh!” I said, “What a horrible picture!” There I was, eyelids half closed, mouth wide open, my lower jaw resting on a stack of chins. “You’ve got to get rid of this – it doesn’t look anything like me!” Was it my vanity speaking, or insecurity?
She leaned over to look, and laughed. “Actually, in that split second, that’s exactly how you looked.” I wonder what pictures are in her daughter’s scrapbook?
I think of all the ones I should have taken. In Gabby’s first Santa picture, she appears as jolly as he is. But it took an hour and half of hysterical screaming, three trips through the line, and me sitting on Santa’s lap with her before we got that shot. We have a framed picture of Gabby gazing up at me while hiking on a Technicolor fall day. She’s holding my hand, and in her other hand is a lollipop. It was either that, or haul the camera equipment back to the car when she had a fit over not being able to play near a cliff. No more! If we can have reality television, we can have reality scrapbooks. I’d like to think that someday, when Gabby is raising her own children, she’d thank me for my honesty. Wishful thinking, I’m sure. But maybe it’s not too much to hope that she understands, there are times when we are vulnerable.
I feel a ping on my left cheek. Gabby has flung the thermometer at me. I reach down to pick it up. And then I grab my camera.
