I consider myself a mama. I am usually referred to as “mom” when Grace is too lazy to walk to wherever I am and yells instead. I am “mommy” when she wants something. And I am “mama” when she is in cuddly mode, usually first thing in the morning or late at night. The only time I am “mother” is when my mom tells Grace to “tell (her) mother” something. The term “mother,” in my opinion, doesn’t really fit me. I don’t know why, but I find that term to be a bit more rigid than what I am. Granted, any woman with children is a mother in the literal sense, but I’m not talking literally. I’m talking about the whole vibe of the mother person. And I consider myself a mama. Let’s take, for instance, the differences between myself and the other mothers of children in Grace’s dance class. Dig this: “Oh, I know,” she said with a sigh in her voice. “Just this morning my husband and I were having a debate as to whether I should take the Pathfinder or the Volkswagen because of the gas prices. I don’t like to drive the Volkswagen because it’s not as big as the Pathfinder. And I hate the thought of vacation this year because he will insist on the Volkswagen because it gets better gas mileage….” I looked at mom and smirked. And I wasn’t smirking because I begrudged her the option of choosing between the Pathfinder or the Volkswagen. I was smirking because there she stood in her designer made-to-look-like-common-folk’s (but failing) capris and t-shirt, devastated because she was going to have to take a Volkswagen on vacation instead of her Pathfinder, while I, dressed in looking-like-common-folk’s-because-they-are-common-folk’s capris and t-shirt, wondering what it would be like to have to face such a dilemma. Yesterday morning I stood leaning against the doorway watching Grace and the girls, listening to her tales of her five year old daughter. This daughter has been in full year/full day pre-school since the age of three. She is currently playing soccer and softball and attending dance class at a school which requires an one hundred dollar purchase twice a year of an outfit for recitals. I at first thought, “Wow. I wonder how she works and gets all that running around done.” And then she said that she was a stay-at-home mom. She also said that her daughters were exactly thirty months and thirteen days apart in age, leaving me to wonder why this woman was paying hefty pre-school prices when she could be working with her daughter at home. She went on and on about pre-school and how active and busy her five year old was. And then interjects the second mother: I am a stay-at-home mom too. Daughter only attended pre-school five days a week for three hours. This threw Mother #1 off; she didn’t quite know how to respond to that kind of comment. But she quickly recovered with, “Well, we had just moved here from another state and lived in Ohio. I wasn’t aware of the options.” Mmm Hmm. Then the tables were quickly turned because the oldest daughter of Mother #2 began speaking of the new pigs their daddy had just bought. I couldn’t resist the chance to check the expression on the mother’s face when her daughter cut loose with that bit of info. I mean, after all, how was Mother #1 going to treat her after she learned that she lived on a farm? The whole thing still makes me laugh, the two of them verbally volleying little tidbits of their picture perfect mothering lives. I had nothing to contribute to the conversation because I wasn’t one of them. After all, I chose to send Grace to a free, and often full of welfare recipients, pre-school so she would simply learn how to be a kid, not because I was a stay-at-home mom simply not wanting to be a mom all day. She had been taught by me her shapes, numbers, and letters well before it was time for pre-school. But I digress. This morning started a bit differently. A grandmother, whom I thought was the mother yesterday, actually had the nerve to go into the class and participate with her granddaughter! She stretched and danced and tapped right along with the kids because her granddaughter was refusing to do any of it yesterday. And she was the talk of the town. “I can’t believe she is doing that!” “How does she do that?” “I could never do that.” I smiled and gave her a thumbs up while she was crawling around on the floor in her best dinosaur style in an attempt to put her granddaughter at ease. I was smiling while I watched her because something told me that chicka, grandmother or not, would have taken the time yesterday to dance in the rain with that little girl without fear of looking silly. After getting over the awe of a grown woman actually participating in a child’s dance class was gone, the mothers quickly began talking about their hard decisions about their vehicles again. But this time it was Mother #2’s turn: We have a very long driveway and I couldn’t drive up it this winter in the snow, so I told my husband we were going to have to buy an SUV. I wanted a minivan, but my sister was appalled by the idea of me owning a minivan, so instead we chose the new Jeep. (I think it’s a Commander or something like that, I’m not sure) Now I’m not worried about image, I’m really not,“ she said while nervously fingering the large gold medallion that was about her neck, but I thought that everyone was making such a big fuss about me and a minivan so we chose the Jeep. And it only had 2000 miles on it when we bought it, which I thought was okay. Mother #1 butted in with: My MIL has a minivan for her grandchildren and she loves it; it fits her, but I prefer the Pathfinder. It’s not like we’re driving station wagons these days, now is it? And besides, we are always trading our vehicles to get a better one. And on and on they went while their children were running the halls and making lots of noise. The one highlight of the whole conversation was when Mother #2’s husband walked in, dressed in Wranglers and a cotton tee. His daughter started her farm conversation with Mother #1 again, except this time it was about the chickens that were sold at the auction last night by her aunt. “Yeah,” said the farmer, “they’re probably dead by now.” To this *my* mom added, “Yep, and floating in someone’s soup pot.” I thought Mother #1 was going to shit all over herself when mom said that. And I almost felt sorry for Mother #2 because it wasn’t exactly the conversation she wanted to have there and then. But I found it quite funny. When the class was over, I headed to the door to meet Grace. The mothers were fussing at their daughters to hurry up because they all had somewhere else to go. I slapped Grace a high five and told her how awesome it was to watch her put her feet to the back of her head like that (because it was awesome; you should have been there). The dancing grandmother came over to praise Grace. And the mom who had turned me onto the fact that Wally World sold leotards also complimented Grace. And the mothers hustled and bustled their daughters onto the next activity at the next place while the moms, all three of us, took our time and talked to our kids about what they had just done. Mom made the comment that Mother #1 seemed to be pretty well off and I agreed. And then I laughed and said that Mother #2 may not be as well off but really wanted to be. She made it well known, at one point, to everyone within hearing distance knew that she didn’t take care of the animals because that was her husband and daughters’ jobs. *roll eyes* And again, I don’t write this to sound envious or petty; I am glad that people made wiser decisions in ways of marrying men with good jobs and good credit *snort*. But in some ways we’re not much different. I mean, while she is choosing between the Pathfinder and the VW, I am choosing which vehicle I will drive too. Of course, my decision is made and final after turning the key in an 1997 Dodge Caravan and a 1998 Durango to see which one has the most gas to get through until the next paycheck arrives. And I get caught up in the hustle and bustle of getting my girl from place A to place B as quickly as possible. Except I do it while she’s hanging under one of my arms and being tickled by the other. And I’m a stay-at-home mom whose oldest child was enrolled in pre-school at the age of three. But she only goes four days a week for four hours a day because I enjoy being with her as much as I possibly can be with her. And it’s a free pre-school as opposed to a privately run Catholic one. And you know what? Though I would rather be in the position to allow my daughters the finer things in life, we’re okay. None of us are starving to death, and they have a lot more than other children. And I enjoy my girls; they’re (not yet anyway) a chore or simply another responsibility. I don’t have to send them to full year/full day pre-school while I do the stay-at-home mom gig; I raise my babies. After all, that’s my job; I’m their mom.