A Mother's life...

The life of a mom is never considered a glamorous one. It is something that most girls begin fantasizing about at a very young age. They run around with their dolls in their miniature strollers with itsy-bitsyb ottles pretending their babies are crying. The part they seem to neglect to portray is the unwashed hair, the bags under the eyes, and the piles of laundry that have become a barrier between themselves and the outside world. No, these young little girls play the role of mom dressed in their princess costumes with lip gloss and heels on. They do seem to have down one realistic portion of this character, the cell phone. Only they never pretend to be getting calls from Dr.s with bad news, insurance companies denying claims, or getting calls from friends offering a shoulder to cry on. When you are this young you imagine only the fairytale. When you are my age you realize the fairytale is a farce and come to realize the reality of motherhood.

As Natalie's surgery approaches I am being consumed with emotions. Well one emotion really, stress. I could have never imagined as a 4 year-old that there would one day be things that could happen to my tiny little doll baby that I could not fix. Hell we could drop those babies on their heads, throw them from a balcony, or leave them in the car for days and mend it all with a simple kiss on the head. 21 years later you realize life is more fragile than your Cabbage Patch doll. Some ailments require trips across two states and highly specialized surgeons to mend. Realizing how delicate a mother's job truly is only makes me take it more seriously and value it that much more.

Even with all the stress, anxiety and exhaustion in my life I would not trade it for anything. My time of pretending to be a mom is buried away deep in the past and my reality has arrived. My reality is that I have a 4 year-old daughter with a spinal cord cyst that will be undergoing surgery in one week. My role is no longer a princess mother pushing a stroller around a basement playroom, but rather to be a personal bodyguard, caretaker, comforter, and a Mother. Now at the age of 25 I have learned what is really means to be a mother, sweat pants and all!