Dear Gummy Bear…

Dear Gummy Bear,

First of all, I would like to apologize in advance for the multitude of ways that I am going to embarrass you in the future. Starting with the decision to nickname you gummy bear and continuing straight on to my blogging habits, it’s only downhill from here. If you want to blame someone, please try to take it out on your grandmother. She’s the one who likes to sing in public and who snorts when she laughs hard enough. Not only is this truly embarrassing, it’s apparently extremely hereditary.

What I’m trying to say is, at some point your mother and grandmother are going to make you want to crawl into a hole when they break out into two part harmony in front of a large group of complete strangers. And you will probably inherit the snort-laugh gene. There’s nothing you can do about this. Better go ahead and see if you can develop a sense of humor while you’re busy gestating. Trust me, you’ll thank me later.

I am so ridiculously excited to meet you in August/September. I’m still getting used to the fact that I’m going to be a mother, but there are oh-so-very many things that I’m looking forward to doing with you. When I stopped to think about it, I realized that all of the aspects of motherhood that I am the most excited about figure prominently in my own happiest childhood memories. Bedtime stories, baking cookies on snow days, family movie nights, apple picking, singing songs together in the car… your grandparents gave me a pretty awesome childhood. I hope that I can do the same for you.

I can’t promise that I’ll be Mother of the Year ten years running (I’ve heard that the nomination process is extremely political), but I can promise to do my level best. We’re going to eat pretty healthily, but we’ll still go out for ice cream and I’ll bake cakes on your birthdays. And sometimes we’ll have breakfast for dinner, just because. I promise to keep the tofu out of your school lunches unless you end up at one of those hippie schools where it’s weird to eat fruit snacks. No second grader wants to be the tofu kid.

I’ll try my best to play with you instead of turning on the TV. But at some point I’m going to get sick and then I’m going to let you watch a DVD of your choosing while I nap on the couch.

I’ll try my best to be patient and kind, but sometimes I’m going to lose my cool and yell at you. I promise to count to ten before saying anything that might wind up as fodder for your future therapist.

I’ll try my best to help you to grow up to be a good person. Someday, you are probably going to do something that greatly disappoints me… probably at about age 16 or so. I promise that, no matter what you do, I will always love you. I would really appreciate it if you would confine your acting out to something relatively minor. But if it ends up being something bigger, I promise to forgive you. I’ve already had pink hair, purple hair, green hair, blue hair, an eyebrow ring, several obnoxious boyfriends and more than one tattoo. So please don’t try to out-do me in the rebellion department. I promise to give you purple highlights at home if you promise to stay out of jail.

Here are a few more promises:

• I promise not to put pictures of any of your bodily fluids on Facebook.
• At the same time, I promise to show naked baby pictures to your prom date.
• In a few years, after a big snowstorm, I promise to get the dog to pull you on a sled around the backyard.
• Unfortunately, I can’t promise that global warming won’t do away with big snowstorms.
• And, most of all, when you’re 14 and telling me how much you hate me because I won’t buy you the latest implantable smartphone, I promise to consider rereading this post and getting all weird and sentimental on you. You’ll probably hate me even more for hugging you when you’re so effing pissed at me, but I promise not to care.

I haven’t even met you, but I already love you,
Mama.

(Holy crap! I’m gonna be a Mom!)