I’m a new mom. I don’t have a clue what I am doing. However, I already think I am an expert, and like all mothers, I think I am right all of the time. Okay, not all of the time, but you aren’t likely to catch me admitting those lapses in certainty. A few of the things I already know:

• Mothers are hard on each other. You might not admit it, but I know you are looking at that kid with messy hair and a snotty nose running around the airport like a madman thinking to yourself, “If that were my kid, ……..”
• Mothers are fiercely protective of each other (you might think this is a contradiction of the first thing I know, but this contradiction will be further explained in my next point). While watching that madman in the airport, if you are sitting with a childless friend, your response is more likely to be, “You just can’t imagine what it is like until you are a mother.” This is true even if your initial thoughts were more along the lines of “If that were my kid, …..”
• Everything about motherhood is a contradiction. I can both admire and resent someone’s parenting style in precisely the same nanosecond. I guess it is part of the whole multitasking/scatterbrain/supermom phenomenon that we claim occurs after childbirth. I loathe hippy moms with their whole “breastfeed-until-the-baby-is-old-enough-to-walk, talk, and discuss-the-Oedipus-complex-after-the-meal” theories. I also greatly respect breastfeeding fanatics who are committed to doing what they believe is best for their child after reading every book ever written on the subject, attending every class within a 50 mile radius, and sitting in at the White House to protest a woman’s right to feed her child whenever, wherever, and however she chooses. Seriously, that is the kind of commitment we could use more of.

This new club seems to be a most interesting peer group full of amazing women who are as diverse, talented, smart, and crazy as any peer group I have belonged to in the past. However, there are distinct differences between this “club” and others I have been part of, many of which I can’t quite put my finger on yet, but that’s what blogs are for right?