"You're the Mom"

In a moment where I questioned why I seemed to be the only one who could hear little O cry on a weekend morning, Little O's Dad said to me "because you're the mom". At the time it seemed like a convenient excuse to sleep in while I got her up, changed her diaper, took her downstairs and gave her breakfast, etc. But in all truthfulness, there is a certain grain of truth to his statement. The reality is that I love taking care of little O...I want to be the one she wants when she gets up in the morning, or falls and scrapes her knees, or is hungry for a snack. I love putting her in the tub before getting her ready for bed and watching her splash and play. Sometimes I even feel guilty about all the things I witness her do for the first time because I am the primary caregiver and spend the most time with her (next to her teachers at the learning center, that is). At the same time, those are the moments that I treasure and that make being a mom the best thing in the world. So, while some mornings I long to turn my bionic hearing off so that I can pretend not to hear her when she gets up, most of the time I try to remind myself that it is all part of being "the mom".