Mom-xieties

I've always been a pretty anxious person.

For example, my sophomore year of high school we moved from Texas to South Carolina. We had only been in town a couple of weeks when I heard about alligators being found in area parking lots. Alligators? I thought those things only lived in lands where people spoke in strange, Southern dialects. You know, not regular Southern dialects.

I started freaking out about alligators being in my backyard, in my pool, in our garage and--get this--under my bed. That's right. Under my bed. Keep in mind, I was 15.

As I got older my anxieties became a little more understandable--college exams, job interviews, speaking in front of others. You know, normal things that most people freak out about except I would break out into horrible sweats and become unable to breathe.

Finding out I was pregnant was not easy for my anxiety. I've had type 1 diabetes for 26 years and had always been forewarned about the dangers of being pregnant, especially if it was unplanned. Unplanned is an understatement of what our pregnancy was. Everything went fine, but not without a lot of nights of crying, clinging to baby clothes and refusing to unpack many of our baby items until the final days of my pregnancy.

Then there was this.

Being a mom comes with a whole different set of anxieties. Mom-xieties. Worrying about a child while you're at work or running errands. Hearing thuds in the house and waiting to see if it's your child falling off the bed or the cat knocking something over in the next room. And the biggest one: how am I going to pay for this kid?!

Today we took Thomas for his 15 month check up, and we expressed concern that he's still not speaking. At all. He doesn't say "momma" or "dada" or "no" or "milk." Nothing. He'll babble his head off and imitate sounds when he hears them, but has yet to officially say his first word. With every blog, parenting magazine and birth board on the Internet declaring delayed speech as an indicator for Autism and other developmental issues, this of course has my anxiety on maximum overdrive.

Nurse Lesley, our PA who I absolutely love, isn't concerned at all. She pointed out awesome his motor skills are and how the babbling is a good sign that he wants to communicate. She asked questions about his social skills, and I told her about him walking up to strangers at the beach and laughing and babbling to them. She was even less concerned at that point and my fears began to subside. She gave me the numbers of speech therapists in the area in case I was still concerned, but I think I'm going to give it about eight more weeks before I do anything that drastic.

Mom-xieties are a part of most moms, especially first-timers. I think it's just a sign that we love our children and want to protect them as much as possible.

Just doing our jobs...

What are your mom-xieties?