My friend and neighbor, Amber,is soon to be a new mother, due on August 18th. She is a whole decade younger than me, and is of course going through the last minute heebie-jeebie/"Out..NOW!"stage that probably all mothers new/experienced go through when the due date is so close by. We were sitting out on my front porch taking in a few moments of peace ( I had just put Senor Cutie Pie to sleep) and the realtivley cool summer eve when she poked a little fun at Cash's ( the soon to be newborn son, named after the late great Johnny Cash ) father, Matt.
" I can't wait to get him out." she gave me a brief smirk. " And I really can't wait to see Matt get nervous about holding him, he'll think he's going to break him.." a little giggle followed but she knew that I would not let her get away with such Girl Power Bravado at the moment.Plus, you know, I'm old and wisened to them ( heh ) and I have to add a little sarcasm in every now and then or they would be dissapointed.
"Now wait a minute girlie!" I said Amber had
already predicted her neighbor/partime sage's next adage concerning motherhood. (I've given her a few I admit, but you get to show off SOMETIME don't you??)
" I know, I know.....I'm going to be scared senceless too!" her eyes bulged out almost as far as her belly, my porch suddenly her laboring room, the furture babe already in mama and papa's arms.
"Exactly." It's like ..." You break, you buy!" Except for that fact that you've already bought and walked out of the store!",
I know these kids ( did I just say that.."kids"? ) will be just fine they already have a lot of love in their hearts and more courage than most 20 somethings or thirty somethings for that matter.
But it brings me to the thought: I was acting such a miva ( my own creation of mother and diva ) at the moment, but my heart stops on average about 55.7 times a day when I see Spencer crawling, climbing, and cruising around our house. ( which even after child proofing the child proofers,still seems to me as safe as a Imana fridge, say circa 1964,rusty, with the door left on, sitting atop the Seattle Space Needle during a hail storm.) I never thought I would be one of those mothers who did a lot of :
" Oh no we don't do that!"
" That's not for climbing!"
"That's not for standing!"
"That's not for sitting!"
"That's not for eating!"
in and out of the house, ignoring whatever curious glances that I recieved from other mothers enjoying the bliss of their silent beaming angels while Spencer wriggles around on the floor like Satan's favorite "Lil Devil".

"Is there an excorsist in the house?"

Part of me has to admit that I would just like to adhere magnets to our sons little feet and lay the carpet with the most stylish print of steel that we could afford.
Oh he's so INDEPENDENT!
I knew that it would happen...or did I?
Did I take other miva's words of caution and experience just as Amber and Matt did tonight? With agreeance, but with the obligatory rolling of the eyes when I was out of range coupled with a nice long naive,
"Geeeeeessssshhhhhh!"
Yeah, I probably did.
And on other advice that I will be lucky enough to recieve
I probably will again, for
so is the urge for a mother to mother other mothers about mothering.
And so for the mothers hearing this mothering the urge to retreat back to adolecence and push that little tidbit back in the "I'll use that later" data base of the brain that only reacts to the aforementioned eye rolling/sighing heavily.

But pretty soon you learn, as I have.
Yeah...right.
But I will no doubt doctor my remedies for such possible meltdowns and send them on to Amber.
And of course any other new mother with a child respectivley younger than our main man, Spencer Louis Kautt-Smith.
I'll be a card carrying miva till the day I die. Watch out Maddonna.