Raising #Peanut

I tried to deny it. 
I tried to avoid it. 
I tried to laugh it off. 
I even cried about it a couple of times-okay I'm lying-maybe a dozen.
I even tried to do it from a distance. 

It has taken me a minute to realize it....but no matter how I have masked it, how I have hid it, how I have avoided it.  Yesterday I had to face it.  

I am a mom. A umi. A ma, mama, matriarch, matron, mommy, mum, mumsy.  A parent.  A guardian. A single mom.  A sole provider for someone else. And not just anyone else. A baby. Someone who can not speak for themselves, can’t walk, can’t do any of things-yet-that we adults voluntarily do. 

I think the reason I was clearly in denial or in the clouds, playing Aunt T T, for the past year, is because I didn’t physically give birth to her.  You see #peanut is my niece.   She is my sisters child.  I didn’t have unprotected sex or purposely baby making sex to give birth to this bundle of joy.  I hadn't met Mr Right or Mr. He'll Do.  In fact she by way of her mother was literally dropped in my lap.   Like a bomb.  One day my sister says she is pregnan and with all her mental and emotional challenges decides on HER own she doesn’t want abortion and doesn’t want to put the baby up for adoption.  That SHE in fact is going to take care of this child, when in fact SHE can not take care of herself. 

So 10 months later, I parented from afar, but as many of my friends know and have seen, I really wasn’t that far.  In fact if it wasn’t for them I probably wouldn’t have been able to make it this far as a single mom.  Ha! Imagine telling a nice gentleman that you have a baby.  Not a kid.  A whole baby.  Immediately with eyes of judgment and a tone only Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas could appreciate, comes the “you said she is 1 years old?”  Immediately I begin to feel like  a harlet, a jezebel… I mean who has a 1 year old and already is on the dating scene…car seat and all?!?!?!? ME. Phillysugamamma.  The nerve of me, right?  I then begin to explain the situation.  “You see, my sister…” Then HIS tone changes, the eyebrows even out, he wants to go on a date…okay. Solid.

*SIGH*

How much longer?   Forever.  What made me realize this, you ask?   Well I can tell you when it didnt happen.  It didnt happen when she was waking the entire house up in the middle of the night for a bottle. It didnt happen at her first birthday party.  It didnt happen when I was shopping in Target in stilettos for diapers. It didnt happen the day, I signed the custody papers. Sometimes God speaks to us in the strangest of ways. 

Yesterday was a normal day.  I woke up, got dressed, got #Peanut dressed and ready for daycare.  We got in the car.  I talked to her.  Told her to be good.  Told her to play nicely.  Told her that I would see her later on. I got out of the car, and carried her to the door.   The staff greeted us with their normal cheer and #Peanut began to wale.  She cried and wouldn’t let me go.  I told her she had to go to daycare and that I would see her later.  She cried some more.  The staff person took her inside.  I sat in my car. Sad.  I couldn’t figure out what had just transpired and why I , Aunt T T was sad.  why?

After work, I did my normal weekly routine.  I hopped in the car and speed to the hairdresser for glam and girl talk.  Found a fabulous parking spot and was on time.  I walked inside, chatted with the girls, got a “spot” and then went to get my hair washed.   As I sat at the wash bowl in the hairdresser preparing to be “molded”, my phone began to ring.  The number that flashed was from the day care .  I immediately panicked.  What had happened?  My OTHER sister who was supposed to pick her up from day care didn’t.  No one had picked her up. #Peanut was there.  All alone. Waiting for someone to arrive.

I ran out of the salon with a plastic cap and everything! I could hear my salon buddies and my stylist screaming “slow down”, “be careful” and asking “what the hell happened?”.  I had to go. I had to go immediately, plastic cap and all.  Mr. Right wasnt gonna be out there today anyway and if he was, I pray he likes plastic!  (all kinds of plastic- I digress)  #Peanut needed me.  She was depending on ME to pick her up.  Nobody else had.  I couldn’t let her down.

And that’s when it hit me.  I was I am a mom.  I mean what kind of people, go speeding down Haverford Avenue with a plastic cap on their heads in West Philly? What kind of people ignore the Mary Kay lady trying to give them catalogs on the corner?  What kind of people turn  right on red lights when the sign says not to? What kind of people bang on the day care door with plastic caps on, ferociously and apologetically saying “I can’t believe shit”.  What kind of people are at ease and began smiling when they see a smiling #Peanut in the arms of the daycare worker waiting to be whisked away to safety.

Moms.  Those kind of people.  They make the world go round.  Their world revolves around #Peanuts

I am a mom.