Mom thoughts

How much does your mentality change when you become a mom? I’ve always wondered if I have an ugly baby, will I know it? Will I care? But now, I’m starting to wonder about other aspects of parenting – I read an article on The Mom Moment talking about “a working mom’s nightmare” where her child was sick at school/daycare and if she left to pick him up, it would mean that she was letting her work team down on a big project, etc., etc. In contrast, one of my co-workers feels guilty letting her husband (her son’s father) take care of the sick kid even though he has a flexible job where he can stay home more often and she has a regular office job which doesn’t allow that flexibility. I tend to think I’ll be more like the first mom – feeling torn, but ultimately trying to decide what is the best option without letting anyone down.

My BFF is anal retentive about leaving her kids to go out of the house at times. She thinks when she returns to work full time it will be worse. I cannot fathom that. While I don’t think I’ll be like my cousin who left her 4 week old w/ her mother (my aunt) overnight for a weekend of partying (I feel like 4 weeks is too young to have sleepovers, somehow), I also don’t think that I’m going to get emotional every time my kid gets handed over to a responsible, well-known baby-sitter, like my mom or one of my in-laws. I’ve actually already planned what will likely be our first night out after the baby for about 6 weeks after my due date (are you proud? I’m not referring to it as “when the baby is born” since no one knows that sort of info for sure). I’ve already arranged for my mom to babysit (it was an interesting experience realizing that I had to make those sort of arrangements) and told her that I would likely prefer for her to come over so she could put the baby to bed in it’s own space and not to count on the baby staying the night at her house. (which is just as well, since it’s a work night and both Mr. Moose and my mom will likely have to work the next day).