Motherhood is the biggest gamble in the world

Motherhood is the biggest gamble in the world. It's huge and scary — an act of infinite optimism. —Gilda Radner

Last week, Phil showed us a picture of his co-worker's baby, all round-bellied and chubby-fisted with a pacifier in his mouth. "Awwwww," I cooed to Eli, "you used to have a pacifier like that. You loooooved your pacifier."

It was bedtime, and the next thing I knew Eli was shouting instructions: "Don't come in my room, Mom! OK, come in my room!"

There was Eli in his lofted bed with his hair still wet from his shower, exactly in the spot where his crib used to be, and he was all snuggled up in blankets pretending to be asleep with a pacifier in his mouth (because, yes, there is still a pacifier in our house because I couldn't bear to get rid of it, and his accomplice Phil washed it before they carried out this scheme).

I wanted to laugh, but suddenly I couldn't see him anymore because my eyes were so blurry with tears. He kept on laying there (he really does a marvelous job pretending to be asleep), and I literally saw time unspool backwards, saw his features get softer and rounder and his hair wispier, saw his Target pajamas replaced by a zip-up feetie onesie, saw the IKEA bed swapped for a crib emptied of all its blankets, stuffed animals, books and various toy detritus in accordance with AAP safe sleeping standards.

When Eli finally cracked open an eye, I was standing there weeping.

"Are you crying because I'm so cute?" he asked a tad smugly as I hastily wiped tears from my cheeks.

"I'm not just crying because you're so cute," I said. "I'm crying because it seems like it's gone so fast; you used to be a little baby in this same spot with your pacifier and now you're such a big kid. And I'm crying because I'm thinking about how when you were a baby, you and I didn't really know each other that well, and now I know you and you're so great and I'm so proud of you."

I've spoken before about how so many people take the love between a parent and child for granted, how I've always been envious of parents who were able to post proudly on Facebook that they loved their babies the instant they laid eyes on them in the delivery room. But I will say honestly that I didn't love Eli until I knew Eli, and that took me some time.

He chewed contemplatively on the pacifier. "You know what's funny?" he said, thoughtfully patting my face. "If I wasn't your kid, I wouldn't love you, because I wouldn't know your face, and your tone of voice, and other stuff...like, I don't love Jocelyn's mom the way I love you, because I don't know her quite as well."

It was like he was realizing how we come to know the people that we love and how we come to love them. It was like he was realizing what makes a family.

He reached up and nuzzled his head against me and murmured, "You're the best mom in the world," and I sniffled and said thank you and "You're the best kid in the world," and we smiled at each other in the dark.

(Then probably we had some kind of altercation about how he should stop chewing on the pacifier and not pick his nose while I was reading "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe" but honestly I've blocked that part out because the preceding moments were so much sweeter.)

Whenever Mother's Day comes around I think a lot about what it means to be a mother: how fraught it is with all kinds of guilt and responsibility and burden, how if it's Phil who gets to be the super fun parent than what I am stuck being; how my own mother (thanks, Mom) picked me up from school every day at 3 p.m. and how I do that for Eli exactly once a year, on Halloween. I think about mothers who homeschool their children and mothers who bake cakes and crafty mothers and mothers with chore charts and mothers who volunteer more with the PA. I think about how if motherhood were like "The Good Place," it would be virtually impossible to earn any points.

Then I take a deep breath and remind myself that I'm not here to earn points, I'm just out here being The Best Mom in the World. At least until tomorrow or teenagerhood when I may be The Worst Mom in the World. But for now, being the best mom in the world is enough.

Happy Mother's Day to all the other best moms in the world out there.