By Ellen Mary Carr
April 24, 2008 05:00 am Like most parents, my time here on Earth is pretty clearly divided into life before kids and life after kids. The world had endless possibilities before I had kids. My choices after kids are more limited, and in most cases are made with the kids in mind. The simplest choices, like whether to have that 4 p.m. pick-me-up cup of coffee has to take into consideration whether a nursing child will end up with a caffeine buzz at bedtime. Forget about the second glass of wine after dinner on Saturday night — Sunday morning starts way too early for that. We all make sacrifices and lifestyle adjustments for our kids. This might even be a good thing because, as we all know, some of those aforementioned "endless possibilities" may not really be the best choices. I don't get out as much as I used to. Getting together with friends for drinks was replaced with play dates. The idea of leaving the kids with a sitter and going away overnight with my husband sounds wonderful; but truthfully, the idea of a week away on vacation without the kids doesn't appeal to either one of us. In our minds they are — and should be — part of each and every day. Despite the many mundane tasks that make up an ordinary day with kids, there are some really great perks to the job of motherhood. My "good morning kiss" was established long ago. With all my boys, I know that once they pass a certain age, showing affection to mom isn't cool. So I made giving me a good morning kiss part of their morning routines. I'm rarely forgotten and I have a feeling that the ritual will last many years. I imagine getting a kiss on the top of the head in the not too distant future, when they are taller than me and stumbling down for breakfast while I'm thinking about making lunch. A really fun — if temporary — pleasure of this job is that I get to make people smile everywhere I go with my toddler. He is at that adorable age where he walks well, but with a funny, wobbly gait. He has about half the teeth the tooth fairy will be on the hook for, so his grin is quite charming. His speech is developing rapidly and he takes great delight in wandering about his world waving "hi" and "bye" to random strangers — this is the clincher if they haven't smiled earlier in the encounter. It feels like we spread sunshine in our path. At home I am all-powerful. My slightly messy 7-year-old came home last week with a stain on his new shirt. "What's on your shirt, honey?" I asked. "Oh, yeah, that's permanent marker from art class. You can get that out, right, Mom?" he answered. He said it so earnestly that I couldn't help but smile. He's a second-grader with a pretty hefty vocabulary and the meaning of the word "permanent" is part of it. But he and his brothers still think I can do anything. It's pretty heady stuff, being all-powerful. I'm not in any hurry to have them find out any differently. Mother's Day is coming, along with my 10th anniversary of motherhood. Much has changed in my world in a decade. There isn't much I wish were different — maybe that Sunday morning thing, but not much else. Even as I struggle to ensure that I remain more than just somebody's mother, it occurs to me that being their mother continually changes the woman I am and the person the rest of the world sees. I don't know how to get a permanent-marker stain out of clothing, but as long as they look up at me with those sincere eyes and believe that I can make anything right, I'll keep trying. Perhaps my possibilities still are endless. ><p>
Ellen Mary Carr writes from North Andover.
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