Feeling Mom-ish

You know, from the moment Abby was born (and before) I had a few people ask how it felt to be a mom, or isn't it wild that you're somebody's mom.

For most of the time, it didn't feel odd at all. From the moment she was born, my brain just imprinted her as "MINE." I didn't feel like "a" mom, I felt like Abby was mine (not my mom, just mine as in belongs to me).

The first year of her life and possibly the second, she was still such an extension of myself, that I still didn't really feel like mom unless I was in a room with people that had no children and I felt a little like the freak of the group that may have been seen by others as "a mom". But internally, I was still just me who just happened to have this wonderful little munchkin following me around and cuddling with me.

But, with pre-school and just her normal social development, Abby's independence is finally the thing that has pushed me over the edge of feeling like 'a mom'.

That's not necessarily bad, but as I was looking through older pictures it's the first time I looked back just a year or two ago and said, "Wow, I looked young." Which implies that I feel or look not so young now.

It's just interesting. It's something about Abby's challenge of everything, something about her own spin and opinion that sets her apart as her own little self that makes me somehow feel old. I know it may sound like I feel obsolete, but that's not it. I think I'm just starting a new transition time. That's always fun.

It's freeing, a little stressful, but I just have to define this next stage of life as what I want it to be, then I'll go about doing it right.