Baby steps will get you where you need to go

When you make the transition from regular human to mother, one of the first things you miss is your mobility. You can't get anywhere without hauling the baby and her parapherenalia with you. This includes to the bathroom, to the kitchen and, when you're brave enough, out of the house. By the time you make your big excursion away from home, you will likely have figured out how to accomplish numerous tasks with one hand: eating, dressing, answering the phone while nursing. But shopping poses new challenges. You figure out how to park as close as possible to where the shopping carts are collected in the parking lot. You skip buying the bulky and heavy items when you're shopping with baby. But invariably, you'll find yourself in a situation where you're saying to yourself, “How did I get myself into this?” For me it was waddling out of The Home Depot clutching in one arm my daughter, who had decided she would only stop screaming if I carried her. In my other hand I held three heavy plastic bags. I had figured it was better to leave the shopping cart behind, but a few yards into the parking lot, I realized I was mistaken. The minivan seemed miles away. The handles of the plastic bags were cutting into my fingers. The muscles of the arm I had wrapped around my daughter felt like they were being pierced by tiny knives. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, upper body strength is essential to motherhood.) As the other shoppers sped by me I wondered if I'd ever make it to the car. And then it occurred to me, yes. Of course I would. I would just take baby steps. Baby steps will get me there. We may have to take breaks along the way, but eventually we will make it to the car. Since then, I discovered baby steps get me through most of the challenges motherhood presents. Most things don't get resolved by a deadline as they once did in my newspaper job. Instead, life with kids is like a long and meandering story line that resolves its conflicts in bits and pieces: potty training, recurrent ear infections, biting, shoe tying. You grow as a mother in much the same way as your baby grows. You get where you're going with baby steps.