I was talking today on the phone to my friend L. about why I started blogging.

When the little angel was two months old, I started blogging.  I have never been a mother before. 

I am the kind of person who always researches everything.  I was valedictorian of my graduating class in high school.  I graduated from the University of Iowa in three and a half years.  I couldn't wait to get out there and prove to the world that I knew what I was doing.

I kept a pregnancy journal, fastidiously.  I recorded every pound I gained, every pretzel I threw up, every drink I denied myself.  I have always journaled.  I wrote down every emotion I had, every man who broke my heart, every morsel of food I didn't eat when I was anorexic from 1992 to 1994. 

I keep lists.

I have a mission statement for myself.

I have goals.

I was going to be the perfect mother.

Then came the days of darkness, the days when the little angel was just a baby and my best friend was going through a painful divorce, and another friend's husband had an affair and left her and another friend suffered painful sinus infection after sinus infection through her own first pregnancy and was too scared to take any medicine.

I had this baby, but my best friends were still jumping out of airplanes and questioning why I wouldn't join them, in the airplane, at the bar.  I felt so alone.

So I blogged.

And I read other people's words.  Other people's experiences.  And I felt better.  I realized there were other women like me, who depended on the Internet as a lifeline.

L. shared with me a painful time in her life when she used the ethernet to pump her blood for her, to keep her going.

I've seen you out there, in my stats.  I've seen you in North Carolina, in New York, in Lawrence, in Iowa City.  I've seen you in Korea.  I've seen you in Ireland and Australia.

So many nights when I've been up at three in the morning, Kansas City time, and I've pictured you all, there, comforting your babies while I comforted mine, and it made me feel stronger to know you were there.

That at three in the morning, Kansas City time, one of you is always awake.

Thank you, Internet. 

Thank  you for being my village.

Dear Little Angel,

It's my third Mother's Day.  You and your daddy let me sleep until 10:30 this morning - something I desperately needed, since you cried for me for thirty-five minutes at five a.m.  You've been having a lot of trouble sleeping, which means I have been having a lot of trouble sleeping, since I'm the only one who you will accept in the wee hours, despite our many, many, many attempts otherwise.

You probably don't realize this, but I have snuck into your room and kissed your little cheeks every night that I've been home with you since the day you were born.  I started in the hospital, and I've never stopped.  Because I love you that much - I can't sleep not knowing that you are at peace, even when I'm not.

I read a quote once - I don't remember where - saying that if children realized how much their mothers loved them, they wouldn't have the courage to leave the house.  It's probably good that you don't realize how much I love you.

And Ma, I do realize how much you love me.

Happy Mother's Day.

Sounds gross?  Is gross. To. Wake. Up. To. A. Leaky. Diaper.  A leaky diaper currently being worn by the child sleeping on your torso.  IS GROSS! 

I know so many people who say things like, "I just became oblivious to body fluids after I became a mother."  Well, it IS true that my gag reflex is maybe in its second year of medical school, but that doesn't mean that my day doesn't start off a little worse than it otherwise would to realize that I have been peed on.  Again! 

I love my daughter, I do.  But despite spectacular progress in March and April, the little angel has not slept through the night since May 3.  And I? Am tired.  The last time I got a full night's sleep was  Saturday night, and that was only because we were visiting my parents and I whined and complained so they offered to get up with her during the night.

I was talking to my friend L. yesterday (she has three-year-old twins, so again with the guilt I have over even complaining about this stuff) about the sleeping issues.  I hate to talk about it, but sometimes at work I feel the need to explain why I've lost half my vocabulary since Monday and trip over nonexistent folds in the carpet when trying to walk faster than my usual slog.  She always makes me feel so much better, and she reminded me that there's a big difference between two and three and things will continue to get better, and if all else fails, eventually you can just tell the child to sit on the couch, then, while Mommy sleeps anyway. 

I tend to forget that there will come a time when I don't have to physically protect the little angel from doing things like sticking keys in light sockets and braining herself with the furniture and stealing the cat's food while Sybil is trying to eat.  There will come a time when I don't have to protect her from hair in her mouth and broken flower stems and the need for the Baby Slugrrr to have his diaper changed RIGHT NOW. 

After this conversation with L., I hauled my sleep-deprived self over to the soda machine and found myself trying to picture the little angel with a driver's license, perhaps lying one masseuse table over from me as we discuss where we're going to have dinner after we finish shopping.  This visual gives me the strength to deal.  Is that so wrong?

Today when I picked the little angel up from Toddler High (whee!  Her teacher was back today!  With a new haircut!  A week after her husband died!  We love you, Ms. L.) I noticed that her friends S. and J. were sporting shiny new bite marks on their wrists.  A matched set.  Their mommies were studying their wrists, trying to determine if they had, in fact, just bitten each other.

I was a tad worried.  Remember, the little angel was once a perp.  I marched right into Toddler High and bribed the young afternoon girl to tell me if the little angel had bitten anyone. 

Young Afternoon Girl:  "Oh, no, she's never bitten anyone in this room."

Me:  "Well, she bit Baby M. in Waddler B.  A couple of times."

Young Afternoon Girl: (shocked) "Really?  I can't imagine it."

Me:  "Well, it was personal." (under breath) "The little bastard totally had it coming."

We stopped and picked up my beloved to head to Lowe's to pick up paint, because I, dear readers, am finally going to paint our heinous home office a lovely fog color with shiny white trim.  Then we will put up our fancy new wall sconce.  And then, we will have Zen in Home Office.  Except for the carpet, which Sybil has puked on so many times that I've stopped doing much besides wiping it up with a Kleenex and praying that the money tree will rejuvenate fast enough to pay down our credit card debt so we can re-carpet the damn place before someone has the house condemned.

In the car, I told my beloved about all the biting.  I wondered who had done it.  Then I thought Hey!  She's verbal now!  MAYBE SHE WILL SPILL IT.  The power - it was giddying.

Me:  "So, do you know who did the biting?"

Little Angel:  "I want a cwackwer."

Me:  "Who bit S?"

Little Angel:  "Goldfishie!  I want a goldfishie cwackwer."

Me:  "Did you see anyone bite S. and J.?"

Little Angel:  "Mommy."

Me:  "Huh?"

Little Angel:  (brandishing crumbled Goldfish)  "Mommy did it."

This weekend we went to Iowa to visit Mother Who Is Now Convinced I'm Not Wiccan and Father Who Wouldn't Have Noticed Had I Not Pointed It Out.  We had a great time, but when we returned, we smelled something.  A little, no a LOT of something.  Maybe even something rotten.

The last time I smelled this particular smell, I was pregnant with the little angel and deeply in throes of morning (which, sistah, is not constrained to "morning") sickness. Thank goodness that was not the case this time, because I might have just DIED.  We caught our big, fat mousie.  And, unfortunately, I think we caught our mousie on like Friday at four p.m., even though we didn't get home until Sunday at three.

While I retired outdoors making immature gagging noises, my beloved removed big, fat mousie and put him in the trash, commenting loudly on what a good, fat mousie and obviously well-fed mousie he was.  And how he probably had lots of brothers and sisters. GAH. I made evil eyes at Sybil, who is so nice as a companion but so utterly useless as a cat that I can hardly believe she still fits the physical description.  She didn't seem put off in the least that she'd been oblivious to a small metal-and-wood device and a mini Three Muskateers totally doing her job for her.

While we were outside, the little angel noticed a miniscule ant climbing along the pavement.  We were doing more sidewalk chalk, which is this month's favorite game. 

Little angel:  "OH!  What's this??" (She pointed at the ant with one still-chubby finger.  Her fingers do not seem to realize that they should fall in line with her skinny hips that make every pair of 24-month jeans look all K-Fed, resulting in me following her around the mall play place yelling "Pull your pants up!" like SUCH A MOM.)

Me:  "That's an ant."

Little angel:  "Where's he going?"

Me:  "He's going to find his friends."

Little angel:  "Oh, NO!  No friends?"

Me:  "He has some friends."  (I start pointing them out. My, but we have a lot of ants.)

The little angel reached down to pet the ant and promptly squashed him.  He didn't completely die, though, just lay there waggling his legs in what was probably excruciating pain. I wasn't sure if I should reprimand her or what.  I mean, we were outside to avoid having to explain big, fat mousie's recent demise.  I don't know after last week how many more death conversations I have in me right now.

Me:  "I think he's tired now.  Maybe we should play with chalk again."

When she turned back around, I put the poor ant out of his misery.  And actually, I sort of felt bad.

After the chalk, we walked around to the front of the house to check on Mommy's flower, Daddy's flower and the little angel's flower.  Mine and my beloved's are Gerber daisies.  I pulled off one of the stems that had lost its bloom and threw it to the side.  The little angel saw me.

Little angel:  "OH, NO!!!  Mommy!  It's BROKEN!!!"

Then the little ant-smasher proceeded to pick up the broken-off stem and replant it in the pot.  I didn't stop her.  I just can't get too deeply into the reality of the big, cruel world yet.  She's only two.

Today as I was driving to Large Corporate Tax Prep's end-of-season off-site "celebration," I was talking to my friend Cagey about my sudden awareness of motherhood's altered perspective.

I found myself in another conversation at Dave & Buster's (yes, this is where the "team building" was held) with a guy I've never met before but who works for my company.  This second conversation was similar to the first, though a bit more alcohol-induced. 

Cagey and I were talking about how motherhood changes the way you look at things. I pointed out on her blog yesterday or the day before that I see the issue of immigration as a family issue.  One of my students told me in class last night that one of her nuclear family members (and she's in her late forties and has been in this country most of her life) is still undocumented.  I mention this because I think most people see immigrants as single people who can just be sent back, but I see them as members of a family - some of the family members have probably been born here and are thus Americans - and some of the family are not.  You send back part of a family, and what happens to the rest?  Besides ripping a family apart, you've also introduced a whole new other host of problems for the American taxpayers. 

I guess I see almost every issue as a family issue, now that I have one.  The little angel's head teacher at Toddler High unexpectedly lost her husband on Monday.  My good friend L's close friends lost their toddler unexpectedly tonight.  I can't even bring myself to call her yet, because I can't bear to think about a toddler suddenly dying.  I can't think about it, because I will throw up. Because I can't let myself think anything horrible could ever, ever happen to the little angel. 

It's as if having her in my life flipped the lens through which I view the world from choice "A" to choice "B," just like during an eye exam:  You can see through both lenses just fine, but there's a sharper edge to one.  One just seems more clear, though it's hard to put your finger on exactly why.

I'm in the same romantic relationship than I was before her, but now it's got a new definition.  I have the same friends, but I see some of them differently than I did before.  I now understand the mothers better than I did before I became one.  I've become less judgmental of everyone.  I'm softer around the edges mentally and emotionally than I was.  My new glasses mean that I can't watch a Lifetime movie without crying, but at the same time, I'm suddenly able to make heart-wrenching career and personal decisions without flinching or faltering.  There is no discussion for me when it comes to her.  She's changed my worldview.

And just as she's changed it now, as a toddler, I know I'll see the world through lens "C" when she enters grade school and probably "D" when she starts driving and "E" when she goes off to college.  I'll probably go blind by the time she gets married and be wearing bifocals when she calls to tell me she's finally given birth, MY GOD MOTHER WHY DID THE EPIDURAL TAKE SO LONG?

This conversation I had at the team-building thing was with a childless man.  He was asking me to guess his age (one of my least favorite games, especially with people I have to see again), so I pegged him at between 29 and 35, though he could've been anything. I had no idea.  He first told me he owns a plane, then he told me he's 35.  I have no idea if either is true.  He said that he feels 28, and I said, hell, who doesn't?  I feel 25 even though I often have to realize that I'm the adult in the room, and if I don't pay attention to where the sharp objects are located, someone's going to get hurt.

So despite my extreme trepidation, I'm going to call L. and see if she's okay or wants to talk about the toddler.  And I took a peace lily over to the daycare for the little angel's teacher, who is having an understandably hard time getting past the fact that her husband was dead on the couch when she got home from work.  All this heaviness would've made me sad three years ago, but it weighs on my heart like lead now.  Like lead.

The snake is why I'm not in Eden anymore, and I don't need it walking around my neighborhood.

This weekend there was this guy walking around with two huge constrictors wrapped around his arms.  He was also holding a beer. 

Me:  "Hey, what kind of snakes are those?"

Snake Man:  "A boa constrictor and a python."

Me:  "Don't you have to restrain them in some fashion?"  (Here I looked pointedly down at my delicious little angel.)

Snake Man:  (shrugging shoulders and taking a gulp of beer):  "I don't think so."

So I thought about it all weekend.  Today, I shared this story with my co-workers at lunch.

M:  "Well what're you going to do, put it on a leash?"

Me:  "Well, I think a snake should be restrained in some fashion."

M: "Do you also think the snake should have to wear little sweaters in the winter?"

We argued about it all through lunch until finally we made a bet.  I bet that it was illegal just to carry snakes around, and he bet that the Animal Control department would laugh at me if I asked.  So I called them.

It turns out that you can have some pretty strange pets in Kansas City, Missouri, though nothing omnivorous or carnivorous that also happens to be a mammal. Oh, and no venomous snakes.  Constrictors, however, are A-OK with the City of Fountains. I did have a lengthy conversation with the animal-control guy, who said that when constrictors were more popular in the nineties, people used to take them to bars.  One guy came home from the bar, wasted, and fell asleep.  The snake apparently constricted around his neck and nearly killed him.  Apparently, there's also another woman who lives at 47th and Euclid who has crocodiles.  As in plural - more than one crocodile.  The only comment the animal-control guy had on that was "I bet she doesn't get robbed much."

As I continued arguing that maybe carrying a large python was more dangerous than carrying a beer (he argued I should call the police to come get him for open-container "which is against the law," though apparently "handling a four-inch thick reptile who wants to squeeze the lifeblood out of Little Bunny Foo Foo" is JUST FINE), he said I should call the police the next time I saw him drinking in public.  As I was about to hang up in disgust, he gave me the number of a local herpetologist, for whom I left a voice mail.  Hopefully he'll call me back.  I will have revenge on the Snake Guy.

The little angel has already mastered "Please, Mommy," with an angelic tone whenever she wants pudding (which we have convinced her is "ice cream").

Tonight, after her bath, I gave her baby spa, which is her nightly rubdown of lavender-and-chamomile-infused lotion.  She immediately wanted to wear her silky pajama bottoms, which are like Mommy's.

As she clamored over me, stepping (it seemed) purposefully RIGHT ON my bladder, she muttered in an off-hand, New York City sort of way, "'Scuse me."

Watch out, world.  She's already avoiding eye contact.

My mother's Easter/angel birthday celebration was everything I could've hoped for and more.  She had overflowing bowls of jelly beans.  She had bunny-shaped rolls made "from scratch."  She had lemon and chocolate cake for the little angel's birthday. She had Easter baskets for the kids complete with bubble guns that took BATTERIES.  And she had batteries. 

At one point, my aunt (and this is funny - the aunt that made my mother jealous when we were growing up because she made everything "from scratch") looked and me and said,"You know, I could never do Easter after your mother.  She's too hard an act to follow."  I found this incredibly ironic, since for some reason my mother seemed to think she was the one who didn't measure up in the culinary category to my aunts during my childhood.  I'm sure she is overcompensating now, but in some ways, she's having the last laugh.

It made me think about perception, though, and how we think people see us versus how they really do. 

After the party and the two-and-a-half hour drive home, we went to the grocery store, where my beloved hounded me for purchasing the little "meal" of beans and wienies for the little angel instead of the cans.  Why? It's cheaper.  As we were checking out, however, I noticed he'd thrown two pounds of Jelly Bellies into the cart.

Two pounds.

Twelve dollars.

Hypocrite.

I blame my mother, who can make anyone a jellybean addict with her overflowing and too accessible droplets of gooey, sugar goodness.

By the time we got home, the little angel had had enough. Enough ice cream. Enough bubbles.  Enough wardrobe changes.  Enough driving.  She had to poopy, and it wasn't working out.  Finally, in a fit of screaming, she got it accomplished, but it must've hurt.  Afterward, she sat up on the changing table with crocodile tears balanced on her rosy cheeks and looked at me.

"I'm a wanting-a ICE PACK," she said.

That's a new one.