Chicken Soup for the Expectant Mother's Soul

by Jack Canfield

  I heard him pad off to the kitchen, listened as he pushed chairs and stools around trying to reach the raisin shelf, felt the floor vibrate when he jumped off the counter, and heard him run back to the TV room.

  “Hi, Susie! Can you tell me what color the grass is?” Barney asked from the other room.

  Knock, knock, knock. “Mom? Mom? Are you in there, Mom?”

  Sigh. “Yes, I’m still in here. What do you need now?”

  Pause. “Um . . . I need to take a bath, too.”

  Right.

  “Honey, can’t you wait until I’m done?”

  The door opened just a crack. “No, I really need to take one now. I’m dirty.”

  “You’re always dirty! Since when do you care?”

  The door opened all the way. “I really need to take a bath, Mom.”

  “No, you don’t. Go away.”

  He stood in the middle of the bathroom and started taking off his pajamas.

  “I’ll just get in with you and take a bath, too.”

  “No! You will not get in with me and take a bath! I want to take my own bath! I want you to go away and leave me alone!” I began to sound like the three-year-old with whom I was arguing. He climbed onto the edge of the tub, balancing carefully, and said, “I’ll just get in with you okay, Mom?”

  I started to shriek, “No! That is not okay! I want my own bath, all by myself! I don’t want to share! I want to be alone!”

  He thought for a moment and said, “Okay. I’ll just sit here and you can read me a book. I won’t get in, Mom, until you’re done.” He flashed me a knockdown charming smile.

  So I spent my morning-alone time reading One Fish, Two Fish to a naked three-year-old who sat on the edge of the tub with his chin resting on his knees, arms wrapped around his bent legs, slight smile on his face. Why fight it? It won’t be long before I have all the alone time I want. And then I’ll probably feel bad about not having any more together time.

  Crystal Kirgiss

  Let Me

  God, please do not let me miss those moments that I could have spent with my child. Let me carry him more often and feel his tiny body gently wrapped in my loving arms. For someday I will not have the strength to pick him up anymore.

  Let me hold him close to smell his freshly washed hair and breathe in that wonderful baby scent that covers his delicate skin, for surely he will not smell this deliciously sweet for very long.

  Let me enjoy changing his diapers for this gives me the chance to play with his miniature toes, tickle his tummy and make him feel comfortable. Someday he will ask me to leave and shut the door behind me claiming he can manage by himself.

  Let me take more walks with him in his stroller while I can look down at his little face that is staring in wonder at this new world all around him. Let me do this often, for soon he will be able to walk on his own and leave the safety of his carriage.

  Let me stand beside his crib at night for longer than a moment to watch him surrender to his peaceful slumber. These nights spent in a crib will be replaced soon enough by a much less cozy place for dreams.

  Let me make him laugh every day. For I am sure the precious sounds of his first giggles are apt to change with time.

  Let me delight in each and every milestone he reaches. Before I know it walking, drinking from a cup and other small miracles he has learned will seem ordinary.

  Let me tell him how much I love him. Since there are bound to be times when he will not want to sit still to hear this.

  Let me continue to listen attentively to him even after he has mastered the art of talking. Since people tend to listen less closely to a child once language becomes fluent.

  Let me make time for peek-a-boo and pat-a-cake and other baby games. There will come a day when he will no longer want to participate in such childish antics.

  Let me learn to enjoy the sound of him calling me “Mommy” even if it is yelled through the dripping of tears. For one day I will no longer be “Mommy” to him, but rather just “Mom.”

  Let me be the world to him right now because as every mother sadly comes to realize, their babies soon discover the world outside of their mother’s arms.

  Let me do these things and so much more, despite being busy, tired or overwhelmed because I would hate to look back and harbor regrets of times gone by that were lost to less important things than my son.

  Yes, dear Lord, I want my son to grow up to be a strong, loving and intelligent man, but please Lord do not let this happen overnight because someday memories will be all I have.

  Michelle Mariotti

  Happy Birthing Day to Me

  The birthday card is easy to find, but I see no anniversary card that’s just right. I walk the rows in the card shop, fingering a card that waxes poetic on ten years of marriage, reading another that lauds twenty-five years of employment, and another that congratulates the founding of a business. Among the rows of sympathies, empathies, best wishes, get wells, birthdays and special occasions, I can not find a card honoring my imminent anniversary. Though my milestone is not acknowledged by retail symbols or spiritual rites, for me, the day marks a moment when I began my coming of age and my understanding of true unconditional love. This day, the birthday of my oldest daughter, is my anniversary of becoming a mother.

  I was the first of my friends to get married and the first to get pregnant. The term “expanding horizons” took on new meaning: I watched with awe and alarm as my stomach ballooned. I felt a mixture of fascination and discomfort as my baby jostled and wrestled inside me. I watched other people’s infants for clues: I swooned over babies peacefully teething in strollers, babies blissfully sleeping on their mom’s shoulders, babies crowing over their food in restaurants. I imagined my child would have a peaches-and-cream complexion and a personality as beautiful and compelling as a postcard of paradise. The sight of my own feet became a distant dream and the image of my newborn child and my own parenting prowess became a constant vision.

  Three days after my due date, I had a serious talk with my unborn child. “We are ready for a closer relationship,” I said, in what I hoped was a coaxing tone. “It’s time to come out.”

  I stretched the headphones over my stomach and played a Sousa marching song instead of the usual Mozart. I did an elephantine version of “thumping” jacks and then trudged up and down the stairs enough times to scale the Eiffel Tower. When I finally fell into bed, I felt like a ship that could not find the right dock. I wiggled and squirmed. I stole my sleeping husband’s pillows so I could cushion my belly. Just as I was getting drowsy, I felt moisture spreading everywhere.

  “Oh my, I’m leaking!” I shouted. The damp and the noise rousted my husband. “Your waters have broken,” he said, quietly proud of his pre-parenting proficiency.

  Suddenly, I was scared. What would it be like? Who was this person I’d been growing for nine months?

  Then a vice gripped my stomach and I stopped thinking. All to the way to the hospital and through the admission procedure, I tried to breathe between the pains. I tried to imagine this child and our life together. But mainly I bit my lip and tried not to make the paint peel off the walls with my screaming.

  The moment I saw my child, I forgot all pain. I was seized with a wild, deep, fierce love. Every cell in me reached out to this small splotched creature.

  “Is that how she’s supposed to look?” my husband asked, as he cradled her. Her eyelids were streaked with red, her skin yellowed, her hair dark and sparse.

  “Yes,” I said. “That is exactly how she’s supposed to look.”

  In my vision of myself as a mom, I simply incorporate my child into my full and interesting life. The baby fits into my schedule as neatly as a long-lost puzzle piece.

  This vision lasted for about three hours. I got her home from the hospital, fed her, struggled with getting the diaper to stay on, and held her until she fell asleep. Then I gingerly put her into her crib.

  That’s when it happened: “Did you see that?” I ask
ed my husband. “She stretched!” I stood eagerly by, watching to see what else this miracle of a child could do. And in one way or the other, I have been standing by ever since.

  Every year, I give my daughter a lovely birthday party. After one such glorious gathering, I sat in an exhausted heap among the puddles of ice cream and crumbs of cake. I sighed at the mounds of wrapping and ribbons. As I scooped a frosting flower off the cake plate, I suddenly realized that this day was not just my daughter’s birthday: it was my anniversary of becoming a mother!

  The anniversary of becoming a mother is one of the few life-changing moments that is rarely heralded. And whether our child is born to us or adopted, motherhood is a choice that permanently alters the way we view ourselves and our universe. It is the moment when we make a commitment to truly care for another human being. This vow goes beyond words or ceremony: this vow is etched in our cells and knitted into our hearts. I began looking for ways to acknowledge and celebrate this event and found none of the usual trappings: no designated card, no anniversary-of-a-mom flower bouquet or candy assortment. (Although, I imagine the card would have to be crayon smeared and hand-folded; the bouquet might be a motley array of daisies and dandelions, picked from other people’s yards and the candy would feature pinched and half eaten chocolates, hastily shoved back into the box.)

  Since there seemed few options for public ceremony (at the mere mention, my daughter looked at me with concern: I wasn’t going to let this anniversary thing get in the way of her birthday, was I?), I began celebrating privately. I told my friends. I talked to my husband. I called my mom and recounted the story of my daughter’s birth. The anniversary became a time of reflection and gratitude; a time to notice the richness of my role as a mother.

  This year, I wake up with a sense of awe. “Happy anniversary,” I say to myself as I look in the bathroom mirror. I imagine an auditorium filled with people. I hear the thunder of applause as I take the stage. The announcer’s voice rings out, extolling, “Another year of service, another year of rigorous training, another year of trying hard, another year of flexibility (at this moment the announcer checks her notes.). “Actually,” she says, “only five months of being really flexible.” The crowd cheers and I see my daughter, waving and whistling from the audience. She is a course of study from which I never want to graduate; she is my deepest lesson in the art of love. I look into her eyes as I tell the crowd, “And here’s to many, many more years.”

  Deborah Shouse

  Seems Like Yesterday

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  The pains started.

  I grabbed my bulging belly

  And danced with your Papa

  Shouting “It’s time! It’s time!”

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You made your debut

  Red-faced and screeching.

  Your cries changed to coos as I held you.

  My tears changed to oohs as you held me

  Spellbound with your magical, wiggly humanness.

  Yesterday we were one.

  Today we were two.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  Your middle-of-the-night colicky cries.

  We went on our familiar walk

  Down the stairs,

  Through the living room,

  The dining room,

  The kitchen,

  Into the pantry,

  With made-up songs

  Of soups and stews, pots and pans,

  And back again.

  Over and over.

  Ten, twenty, a hundred times,

  Until your cries were silenced.

  Your breathing calmed.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  Your first splashy sink bath.

  Your first mushy meal.

  Your first wobbly walk.

  Your first wide-eyed word—

  “Mama.”

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  Your first birthday

  Dressed in a diaper and frosting.

  I helped you tear off wrapping paper,

  Made your new teddy dance.

  You threw down teddy

  And had a party with the paper.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You were a bumblebee

  At the dance recital.

  The other bees buzzed

  And floated and flitted onstage.

  You stood frozen

  Staring at the audience

  Not moving a muscle

  ‘Til the bow.

  Then how you bowed and bowed and bowed.

  And I clapped and clapped and clapped

  ‘Til a man three rows back asked me to stop.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  Your first day of school.

  We played jumprope in the driveway

  ’Til the school bus came

  And swallowed you up.

  I wore the jumprope as a necklace

  All morning long,

  Through my chores,

  Through my tears,

  ’Til you returned with kisses,

  Smiles, and stories

  Of what a grand place

  Kindergarten was.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You wiggled out your first tooth.

  Got your first hit in T-ball.

  Slept overnight at a friend’s

  For the very first time.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You won the spelling bee.

  The school’s.

  The county’s.

  The state’s.

  We flew to Washington, D.C.

  So giddy and giggly we didn’t need a plane.

  We filled four days with memorials, monuments,

  Memories for a lifetime.

  It didn’t matter that you misspelled “merganser”

  In the first round.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You had your first date

  And your first pimple

  All on the same day.

  I sat on the floor

  Outside the locked bathroom door

  ’Til your tears stopped

  And you let me make everything okay

  Like Mamas are supposed to.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You got your driver’s license.

  Had your first fender-bender.

  Went to your first prom.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  When my own Mama died.

  Everyone was kind,

  Tried to say the right things.

  Only you knew what to do.

  You grabbed an armful

  Of your Grammy’s clothes—her nightgown, bathrobe, a dress.

  We wrapped ourselves in her scent

  And pored over old photos

  Crying and laughing ’til dawn.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  We drove you to college

  Two states away.

  The next day you called—collect,

  And said you’d cried

  For three hours after we’d left.

  I understood. I cried for six.

  Seems like yesterday . . .

  You were my baby.

  Now you’re having your own baby.

  Still, you will always be my baby.

  Always.

  Even when your baby’s baby has a baby.

  You will always be my baby,

  And it will always seem like yesterday.

  Lynn Plourde

  A Perfect Gift for a

  Not So Perfect Mother

  Don’t expect the best gifts to come wrapped in pretty paper.

  H. Jackson Brown

  Mother’s Day, 5:00 A.M. From the fog of my dreams I hear the annoying buzz of the alarm clock. I feel a flash of sympathy for my husband at having to get up at such an early hour. But slowly the fog clears, and I realize that the alarm is for me. I edge one leg toward the side of the bed but the chilly morning air sends me back to the warm softness of my cov
ers. The snooze alarm is working overtime, and my husband gives me a subtle push. Finally I’m in motion.

  While most other mothers are still asleep, dreaming of breakfast in bed and flowers, I’m racing the clock to get ready for work. This Sunday is like any other Sunday at the hospital where I work the day shift; no time off for good behavior. No special recognition for all the nights I’ve gotten up with sick children, the hours I spent helping with homework (and I thought I was done with homework when I graduated from college), and all the meals I fixed that were greeted with “We have to eat this?” In the kitchen I gulp my coffee and contemplate my motherhood report card. For raising my lively thirteen-year-old, I’ve definitely earned a B+. She is thoughtful, kind and still has a sense of humor despite entering the rocky waters of adolescence. As for my younger daughter, I surely deserve an A for effort. But for results, I probably needed to repeat the course. This was my child who regularly offered to send her food to the hungry kids in China because my cooking was “too gross” for her to eat. When I picked her up after school, she frequently greeted me with a look that clearly said, “Oh, you’re still my mother. I thought surely someone would realize that a mistake had been made and replace you.” Oh, but I was good for something. Whenever I wore a piece of clothing or jewelry that she liked, she would declare, “I’ll have that.”

  My thoughts were interrupted by footsteps on the stairs. Not the heavy tread of my husband, or the two-steps-at-a-time pace of my thirteen-year-old. This was the half-awake shuffle of my youngest, unaccusto med to being up at such an early hour. She moved down the steps, wearing a T-shirt that said “I Don’t Do Mornings.” How fitting.

  She crawled into my lap, her long, lean legs hanging awkwardly over the edge of the chair. I tucked her silky head under my chin. The girls were getting so big and it seemed like so long since I’d held them. I had forgotten how good they smelled when they first woke up. After a few minutes she announced the reason for her earl ymorning visit. “I’ve come to tell you Happy Mother’s Day and I love you. I didn’t have any money to buy you a present.”

  Flowers would only wilt, and breakfast in bed just led to the lingering smell of burnt toast in the house and crumbs in the sheets. But her early morning visit was a gift I would always treasure, and it reaffirmed my faith in my abilities as a mother. Perhaps I had passed the motherhood test after all!