This Mother's Day Moment NOT Brought To You By Hallmark

I've been reading some books, lately, by parents who came to parenthood awkwardly, who donned parenthood like an ill-fitting suit that they belatedly managed to grow into, a suit that they only got comfortable in after many washings and maybe a bit of alteration here and there (letting out where it's snug; taking in where it sags and billows.) They all say the same thing: that it felt strange and awkward and uncomfortably new. Unfamiliar. They didn't know what they were doing. They weren't sure that they were cut out to be parents.

But they were. Of course they were. They're cut out to be parents because, simply, parents are what they are, regardless of how comfortable or uncomfortable that experience of being is. They simply are parents. A parent is what I am. A mother.

And the only criterion for motherhood - for parenthood - is this: LOVE.

My love for this incredible little being is what makes me a mother. Not the tear in my nether regions, not my saggy tits, not my ability to change a diaper on a moving baby in the middle of a playground, not the the fact that I've read every single freaking parenting book ever published. My love is what makes me a mother.

That's all.

And that's all I need. It's all she needs.

This Mother's Day moment is part of the Parent Bloggers Network blog blast, supported by LightIris, which launches on Mother's Day.