motherhood

I see my mother exactly as she is _ sad and strong, tense and trying.

I know less than you thought, but more than you realize.

These girls probably use double negatives and watch "A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila" with their babies instead of reading Eric Carle.

Most of us love a non-self, or something extrinsic and apart from our inner life; but a mother's love during the time she is a flesh-and-blood ciborium is not for a non-self but for one that is her very self, a perfect example of charity and love which hardly perceives a separation. Motherhood then becomes a kind of priesthood. She brings God to man by preparing the flesh in which the soul will be implanted; she brings man to God in offering the child back again to the Creator.

- It is clear that we have to come down a bit from the high horse of reason on which we enjoy sitting. We have to be simple and take time to think how to make things understandable to the little ones. We have to become children again, and some find that too hard.

Excuse my dress. I was half an hour late this morning. When you lose half an hour in this house, you never can pick it up again, try how you may. -Reverend Finch's wife

As Ramses did the same for his mother, he saw that her eyes were fixed on him. She had been unusually silent. She had not needed his father's tactless comment to understand the full implications of Farouk's death. As he met her unblinking gaze he was reminded of one of Nefret's more vivid descriptions. 'When she's angry, her eyes look like polished steel balls.' That's done it, he thought. She's made up her mind to get David and me out of this if she has to take on every German and Turkish agent in the Middle East.

You don't get your prebaby body back, ever, because you cannot go back to being a person who hasn't had a baby. Because you had a baby.

If they would all sleep all the time she wouldn't mind being their mother.

Then she rushes to pick up Asha from school, where she is known only as "Asha's mom" by the other mothers, who seem to all spend a lot of time together. Somer has no time for the PTA and bake sales. She has no time for herself. Her profession no longer defines her, but neither does being a mother. Both are pieces of her, and yet they don't seem to add up to a whole.

The message is clear: a good mother breast feeds. Significantly, this good mother shares a sociocultural profile with women in other developed countries: she is over thirty, is a high earning professional, does not smoke, takes prenatal classes, and benefits from a long maternity leave.

Mothers with high ideals for child-rearing must pay the price for those ideals.

She has changed in this way that motherhood changes you, so that you forget you ever had time for small things like despising the color pink.

This is a story about a mother who loves her daughter. Imperfectly. Because we all love imperfectly. But if you find yourself protecting anyone as you write this piece, remember this: You're not doing it right.

I was in charge. Of it all. All the time. For ever.

Here's what I hadn't realized: the mother you haven't seen for almost thirty-six years isn't your mother, she's a stranger. Sharing DNA doesn't make you fast friends. This wasn't a joyous reunion. It was just awkward.

It's true what they say, that a baby gives you a reason to live. But also, a baby is a reason that it is not permissible to die. There are days when this does not feel good.

Heaven is the feeling of hand warmers on sore nipples.