Mother Knows Best

I've experienced a peculiar phenomenon now that I am a mom - I am becoming MY Mom. I swear, sometimes I can actually hear her voice in my head, my Mother's worries becoming mine in a symphony of soundbites like, "Don't go outside after taking a bath," "You're going to catch a cold," "Take your vitamins," "Did you put on sunscreen?" These bits of advice are exactly why I tend to overdress my child - it takes every ounce of will power to NOT put a sweater on him, or to let him go without socks and pants in this Vegas summer heat, the fear of him catching a cold or a sunburn my inheritance. This is why I sometimes miss a day or two of giving my son his bath, because by the time I get ready to, it is too close to Brooklyn's night walk outside. This is why I always have a blanket handy to drape around my son as protection against the evils of a cool breeze. This is why I've taken to at least putting socks on his otherwise bare legs during our afternoon walks in the powerful sun. I recently approached a woman during such a walk, who had a baby in one hand and a dog on a leash in the other, to point out our similar baby and dog situations and perhaps share a moment of kinship. She responded by looking at my baby and asking me, "Isn't he hot in those socks?" Taken aback, I replied, "Yes, he probably is. But I worry about the sun." So much for kinship. It is not lost on me that this young woman was holding a very fair-skinned, blond baby girl wearing a sleeveless dress with bare legs at the height of the afternoon sunshine, and still, she thought the socks were excessive. Hey, you can't be too careful, right? Especially since sunscreen isn't an option until the baby is 6 months old. Oh well. It's funny, I have such a vivid image of me as a kid, waddling to school stuffed and bundled in a snow suit at my Mother's insistence. It was June. KIDDING - it was Winter. I probably told myself that I would never subject my child to such dressing anxiety. And yet, here I am, with my poor, overdressed son, who never complains, looking up at me trustingly from under his blanket, hooded sweater, baseball cap, denim overalls and white knee-high socks, with nothing but L-O-V-E. These are the days!