lessons in parenting

I had a glimpse of this whole thing called motherhood during my job last week. And it really made me think.

I love kids, but I do not love cleaning up after them. I wear gloves when I change diapers...and not just the poopy ones. I plug my ears when I hear people puke. If I must wipe a child's nose, I layer at least 3 kleenex's together and then bathe in hand sanitizer. You can only imagine where this story is going.

I took a sweet 6 year old boy out for lunch and then to get a new pair of shoes. We got to the shoe store and sat down on the bench, while the nice lady came over to measure his feet. She politely asked him to stand up and he refused. Ever the enforcer of good behavior and manners, I scolded him and told him to stand up. As he did, I looked at him carefully and asked him if he felt okay. The look on his face said it all...and I knew it wasn't going to be pretty. I frantically glanced around for something acceptable for this child to throw up in...garbage can, empty shoebox, anything. But in those few seconds of finding nothing, I simply lifted up my hands and made my own "bowl", if you will. While this poor child threw up all over his hands, my hands, his shirt, my jacket...I just sat there and waited for the nice shoe lady to bring us a garbage can and paper towels. A mom in the store gave me a very sympathetic look and said, "Don't worry, we've all been there". And as I sat there with my hands filled with chicken nugget/frenchfry/chocolate ice-cream puke, I smiled to myself. I smiled and thought "I think I can do this whole mom-thing". I would like to update my adoption profile to include "She can handle puking in public places". 


I was telling Nate this story a few hours later, while I was cutting up vegetables for supper. He gave me a very grossed out look when he glanced down at my (now clean!) hands, all over his food. Okay, so we might have a little ways to go on the parenthood thing. We'll get there. We're enjoying life's little lessons as we wait for our baby! We're looking forward to it...puke and all!



Heather