She glanced at Lincoln in the rearview mirror. He had a cardboard book about monkeys propped open in his lap and was examining the pages with such focus, she almost believed he could read the words. Like Ethan, he was an overachiever, already learning his ABCs and counting to twenty. He was cranky if he missed a nap, and certainly a handful at times, but what toddler wasn’t? He also gave smiles, giggles, and generous hugs.
And sure, maybe he was a budding graffiti artist (he’d really gone wild with that lipstick) and the root cause of her perpetual exhaustion, but he was also the reason she climbed out of bed each morning. She loved him beyond the power of words.
Was she happy? Grateful? Fulfilled?
Of course.
She was beyond lucky. She had everything a person could ever want.
She nabbed the last spot in the town’s municipal parking lot. Okay, she had everything except time. Still, she stole a few more seconds to wipe the sleep crusties from the corners of her eyes and apply a quick coat of Burt’s Bees lip gloss. No need to tell the world that her last bath was with a handful of baby wipes.
Where was that woman who used to strut into client meetings wearing four-inch, cherry-red heels and deliver design pitches like it was what she’d been born to do?
Stay-at-home motherhood hadn’t just knocked her down a peg; it had dumped her off the stool and doused her in finger paint.
As long as she could remember, she’d dreamed of being a mom. She’d fantasized about cute names, nursery decor, and tiny outfits. She’d dreamed about how the baby’s hair would smell after a bath or how they would cling to her pinkie finger while napping on her chest.
Turned out that she’d fallen in love with a Pottery Barn version of parenthood.
The reality was that her pelvic floor had been destroyed by a thirty-six-hour labor of a nine-pound-ten-ounce baby, postpartum depression had hit her like a Mack truck, and she still tinkled when she sneezed. She’d been puked on, pooped on, and every night when her head hit the pillow she’d wonder how the heck she’d crossed only a few to-do items off her list.
Parenting wasn’t just work—that she could handle—it was how it was a mirror reflecting all her shortcomings: impatience, selfishness, vanity, and anxiety.
But she’d turn this ship around. She had to. Failure wasn’t an option. So she straightened her slouch and pasted on a determined smile, ignoring the part of her that screamed, “I don’t know what the hell I’m doing and the idea of screwing up terrifies me.”
“Okay, lady, get it together.”
Who’d gotten accepted into the New York School of Design? Who’d been a successful professional? This was just wrangling one kid—not rocket science, for Pete’s sake. Mothers have mothered for millennia. She’d done her fair share of babysitting as a teen. Time to quit worrying and get it together.