What makes me a mom

Ever since Parent Bloggers and Light Iris posed the question "What makes you a mother?" I've been thinking about how I'd answer. I knew right away it had very little to do with carrying and birthing my babies. Though I love to trade pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding war stories as much as the next mom, I believe that adoptive, foster, and stepmothers, along with other mother figures (like the grandmother and three childless aunts who helped raise my husband alongside his "birth" mom) are every bit as motherly as I am.

What really makes me a mom, I thought, are two things: sacrifice and bodily fluids. I'm a mother because I've given up hours--weeks--of sleep to my children. I've slowed my career, changed my name and my financial priorities, moved to Mayberry. My body has been permanently scarred and temporarily bruised. Every meal I eat is interrupted, and eligible for sharing whether I want to give it away or not. There's no one else I'd do all that for.

And I know you know what I mean about the fluids. Sure I picked up dog poop before I had kids. I changed diapers often when I babysat. But before I had kids I never had the pleasure of hearing a poop blowout happen from the front seat of the car, then extricating a craptastic little baby out of a car seat, carrying her inside face down and at arms' length, peeling off her clothes without befouling her hair, and spending a half-hour bleaching everything in sight. I never knew how it felt to stuff my bra with nursing pads (and still wake up with soaked pajamas every morning). I never leaped across the back seat of a speeding car to catch another person's vomit.

Yeah. Motherhood. It's pretty gross. But these two make me a mother, and I wouldn't trade them for anything.

Now you go: Put up a post about what makes you a mom and you could win a $100 GC to Spafinders.com. You could use it for a glute massage! Get all the details at Parent Bloggers Network.