By Veronica
I was coming home from a solo trip to the library. I had stopped at the Dunkin’ Donuts drive-thru for an iced latte on this lovely hot day. My daughters love to eat the leftover ice from fast food drinks – it is just the right size for small hands and mouths. So I was walking up the sidewalk to our house, holding my nearly empty drink, and I thought, I will open the door and announce, “I’m home! Who wants some of Mommy’s ice?”
And that’s when I realized: I thought of myself as Mommy. Not Veronica-who-is-also-a-mother, but as Mommy, a capitalized name.
There was a time this would have horrified me.
I have a few friends- good, decent folks – who feel a great resistance to being ordinary. The idea galls them. I used to be the same. The plain words that identify by a role or a relationship felt like a little death to me. Wife. Mother. Mommy. I wanted to live a life so big that these pedestrian titles could not contain me.
But I got over it. Part of growing up is learning to distinguish daydreams from goals, and I realized that I wanted a life of extraordinary grace and love more than a life of extraordinary achievement.
And that is exactly what I have.
I am not just Mommy. I am still Veronica, and I have other jobs to do and other goals to reach. But ordinary Mommy is no longer just a skin I wear. It is not something I take off when the circumstances change. It is who I am.
I have embraced the ordinary, and standing on the sidewalk with a cup full of ice, I found it wasn’t ordinary at all.
Veronica, a.k.a. Mommy, ordinarily blogs at Toddled Dredge.
Annie Shultz
No, being a Mommy isn’t ordinary. You are the only one your kids have.
I love this. I am mommy or sometimes he calls me by my first name to my son. But there is so much more ot me than that. I want him to see that his mother did not revolve life around him completly and that she had other interests and hobbies.
Oh, I love this! I too once thought about the roles of wife, mother, etc as too small and it has amazed me how fulfilling, joyful, and just plain fun it has been.
To “want a life of extraordinary grace and love more than a life of extraordinary achievement.” I hate the cliche of “this spoke to me”, but I’m not sure how to explain my reaction to your post than to say it spoke. Or maybe waved a knowing finger well within the walls of my personal space. I might need to admonish your post to use its INSIDE voice next time.
I felt myself nodding “me too” but not quite as enthusiastically as I wished I could, particularly when it comes to getting over myself and my need to be something apart from a role of Mom or Wife.
I did really enjoy and appreciate this post, even if it did speak a little too loudly for comfort.
Beautiful.
Oh, this is so sweet.
I’ve always ‘just’ wanted to be a mommy, so I became Mommy the minute I found out I was expecting my first, but I agree completely that it is a super-special title. 
Beautiful! And I know that, too, that first time I called myself Mommy (or Mama, actually) without feeling like I was being cast in a play or wildly ironic or something.
Like you, I fought the “ordinary” label my whole life. It’s why I rebelled against the idea of motherhood.
But I look back at that viewpoint as immature and incredibly self-centered. Being someone’s Mommy is common, but it’s also extraordinary.