The perfect frickin mother

So as Mark and I get ready for parenthood, I am trying to hold on to the values I went into the pregnancy with - that kids don't need a tonne of material things to be happy and have a life of abundance, that kids don't need perfect parents to grow up strong and healthy and that really, somehow you are going to inevitably mess up your kids so you can't put the pressure on yourself to be perfect at all times. But of course as the pregnancy progresses, I feel guilty about all the ways that I am not the perfect parent. And I see lots of pretty, slim, glowing pregnant women on the street and in stores who seem serene and fashionable and probably do not require large doses of psychiatric medications to get through their days and I start to feel insecure. Don't get me wrong, I know enough to know that in actuality these women have their problems too but from the outside, they look like they have their shit together.

Anyway, a couple of days ago, I had an experience that just seemed to be the perfect expression of this whole dilemma. I was coming home from work, having worked a long day and feeling tired and cranky. I was starving, too hungry to make the walk from the subway station to my apartment without eating so I bought a snack at the kiosk in the subway station. I picked the second healthiest snack, a bag of Smartfood popcorn (the healthiest was probably the pretzels) and headed home, achy, snarly, sweaty, disheveled and eating cheddar cheese popcorn. As I was plodding down the sidewalk, I saw a lovely pregnant woman, maybe seven months along or so in a pretty maternity outfit and glowing suntanned skin and pretty flowing hair. As I watched, she stopped suddenly in her tracks. About three inches away from her toe was a little earth toned butterfly. She tripped prettily around the butterfly and then it fluttered prettily away. And I just thought "good god, that is the perfect mother." I mean seriously, she might as well be feeding a baby dear while woodland creatures gather at her feet and birds sit on her shoulder.

It also made me think of a story Mark told me the other day about how he squished a dragonfly with his bike wheel. It had been buzzing all around him while he was setting up a trials line and just didn't get out of the way fast enough. Draw from this comparison what you will...