by Katie Grant
I must confess I have yet to see the film that is breaking box office records everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge video-game and comic nerd. But I am a little busy right now. Feeding, teaching, cleaning, caring, watching, helping, worrying (so much worry!), and loving. My 9 month old Sara is my little Wonder Woman. She looks around the world without fear, and you can almost hear her thinking, “I got this, I can totally eat that!” She sits and watches everything so carefully; studies every detail. She makes me worry whenever a milestone “should” be reached and she hasn’t. Then one day she just shows me that she mastered it overnight. She refused to roll. Hated tummy time with a vengeance. Then one day she just starts rolling and won’t stop. Next up was sitting. One day she couldn’t do it, then the next thing I know she has mastered sitting simply because it was the next step to pulling herself up (on any and everything, including the cat and dog.) Now it’s crawling. 2 days ago she would collapse onto her tummy whenever we tried to get her to crawl. She didn’t want to crawl. Now she can crawl across the nursery and down the hall. (We better get on those baby gates!) She has no fear, and sets no limits for herself. And it is my job to keep her thinking like that. (Although a healthy fear of spiders won’t hurt her either.)
But she is not the only Wonder Woman in this house. Despite caring for hundreds of children over the past decade for my work, this whole having one of your own is a completely different beast. It is so much scarier, and filled with worry. But luckily there is so much more love than fear. Motherhood means someone else ALWAYS comes first. Her needs get met before mine, be they sleeping (yeah, that’s completely gone), eating, showering (sorry), hair-brushing, you name it. Motherhood is truly sacrificing yourself for another (not to mention my pants will never fit the same again.)
So, while I may not fit into a leather bustier and wield the lasso of truth to save mankind, I am still Wonder Woman. As are all the mothers out there. We give our whole hearts to our children, putting them above ourselves, just like her. We make choices based off what they need, and how we can protect and help them. We left behind what we knew (sleeping in, date nights whenever, getting out the door in under 20 minutes, sleeping in,) and journeyed into the world of motherhood. And we have fought those battles and conquered. And while we worry and stress about if we are doing it right, we still show up and love and care and do our best for our babies, be they young or old. Because that is how you raise a Wonder Woman; by letting her see that you are one yourself.
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So cute!!