So just as I was about to launch my blog and begin the third chapter of my life, life got in the way. My husband’s grandmother died on Tuesday, October, 19, 2010, a day before her son would have turned 78 years old if he had not died suddenly from an aneurism on June 30, 2010. We have attended too many funerals this year.
My husband’s grandmother’s death reminds me of just how much I learned from her since I first met her when I was five months pregnant with my first child. She was riding a Schwinn banana boat bicycle down her shell-covered street. She was 75 years old and had never learned how to drive a car. Her “nerves” were bad, and she would never even sit in the front seat of any car.
We had come to New Orleans in the Spring to get ready for our planned move to the city in June. The baby was due June 15 and we had scheduled to move on June 22. You should never plan a relocation to a new city within a week of expected delivery. We had gone to buy a car and find an apartment, and to meet all of the relatives who were unable to come to our wedding six months earlier. Our baby was conceived during our honeymoon, I am sure.
So the traditional waiting period before having a baby was very, very short. I had the worst morning sickness, which, when added to the stress of being newly married and planning a move to a new city in less than a year, was a recipe for disaster. My new grandmother greeted me with a warm smile, the biggest hug and the best meal that I had ever tasted. Her house felt like mother love.
I learned so much about mother love from Mama M. She had rice drawings on her refrigerator that were at least 20 years old. Her house was all that I wanted to create in my home. And she taught me how to forgive myself for the mistakes that I made as a new mother.
My first child was so colicky that I spent some nights at Mama M’s to get a little help and some sleep. One night my baby finally fell asleep on my belly. She was lying across my stomach in bed with me and I was exhausted from hours of pacing the floor. I fell asleep, too. I awoke to my baby screaming on the floor.
She had fallen out of my bed onto the floor. I picked her up and ran screaming and crying into Mama M’s bedroom. I told her what had happened and she took the baby and hugged me and said everything was going to be all right. Her loving words and reassurance were a change from what I had been accustomed to hearing from my own grandmother when I was a child.
Mama M said that babies are soft and tough all at the same time. My baby had fallen only a foot or so from a low bed onto a rug. Mama M laughed at me for being so upset with myself and hugged me to calm me down. I am sure that my baby kept crying because I was so upset. I wondered if my baby would be brain-damaged because of my mistake, especially since my own mother told me a tale of horror about my baby cousin who died when she fell out of the bed between the bed and the wall. The baby suffocated.
The lesson I learned that night as a new mother was that when you are tired and exhausted beyond words, “DO NOT PUT THE BABY IN THE BED WITH YOU!” Always put the baby in its own bassinet or bed even if it is next to your bed. It is never a good idea to have your newborn baby fall asleep in the bed with you.
I am happy to report that after twenty-two years of my parenting, my oldest child graduated from an Ivy League college with honors and was accepted into an Ivy League Law School. She was okay even though she had fallen out of the bed. Nor did Mama M scorn, yell or belittle me for making an honest mistake. She gave me permission not to be a “Perfect Mom” and it made me try even harder to be the “Best Mom” that I could be.
So many times people create a “Super Mom” image in the media or in life that is unrealistic. June Cleaver of Leave it to Beaver died last week and it reminded me that although she portrayed a perfect mom on television, she was in real life a single mom struggling to be the best she could be but admitted many times that no one can live up to the “Perfect Mom” image that she created. Pearls, high heels and never raising her voice definitely made for a mythical image.
I am a real mom who has made real mistakes but who has always loved her children unconditionally.
Diary of a Yale Mom
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