Thursday, August 26, 2010

am i a good mommy?


Earlier today, as Andre handed me the dishes from the dishwasher and I put them away, I was enjoying our time together so much. He'd grab a dish and proudly hand it to me, I'd say "gracias" and he'd say "nanana," his baby babble version of "de nada."

In truly motherly fashion, I was also thinking about what he ate today - wholegrain waffle with organic peanut butter and fruit spread, cooked edamame, eggs (made sure they are not recalled), wild salmon, papaya and melon, organic string cheese... by the end I was pretty proud of myself. It lasted for a second because I thought about what Luca ate and the list was not very impressive. 

Can what we do right with one child cancel out what we don't do so well with another? After all, while Luca's diet leaves much to be desired, he got to go to Gymboree classes and had me all to himself during my maternity leave. Andre's knowledge of Gymboree is limited to hand-me-down clothes from their brand, and I had to work through what would have been my maternity leave with him. 

I hope that once Luca and Andre leave the house for college and I stay up at night not because they are sick or want to crawl into bed with us, but because I worry that they'll get a girl pregnant or get in a car accident, I will let them go with a general feeling that I was a good mom to them and that they are now able to make sound decisions. Hopefully it will all blur into one common experience and memory and they won't even remember who just ate pizza for a whole two years, and who got to go to the park every afternoon. 

4 comments:

  1. I sometimes wonder that same question. My oldest got a lot of attention and I just can't give that to my younger children. But I guess we do our best with each child and they turn out well anyway.

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  2. I think no matter how old your kids get that thought nags at you. I have 2 sons out of the house (and 3 still at home) and I find myself wondering if I did alright, even though both of my older boys are awesome young men.

    Stopping by from SITS.

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  3. Thanks for the visit! It's good to know I have company when it comes to worrying about my boys... I guess it never ends!

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  4. Oh, I haven't started to do this yet. I guess it's coming :-)

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