What Manner of Mother am I?

I ponder this question often, especially when I have the opportunity to spend time with another mother with young children. I always compare our mothering methods, our temperaments towards our children, our patience, our adorance of our children, our knowledge of the world vs the innate knowledge of being a mother, how the gospel is approached and taught in their home. I know, wow, I sound like an obsessively insecure person. But I can't help it, I learn so much about myself in this process. I learn so much about how many mothers there are, how we are all different, but how we all have unique amazing qualities that make us the perfect mother for our child.

More often than not I'm hard on myself and desire to have better, other, more experienced, mothering qualities. Mostly I struggle with patience, grumpiness, and my natural mother knowledge (which is nonexistent). But this always provides the opportunity to reflect on my own two years of motherhood and see how much I have changed in this short time.

Maybe I am just resistant to change, or don't naturally have the mothering gene, but I found the transition from independent woman to whole giver of self kinda hard. Maybe I'm just more selfish than other mothers, but it is not easy for me to drop what I'm working on and run over to my baby and jiggle a toy above their head to please them. It has taken practice and patience as I work to forget my desires and focus on my child's needs. I value this quality in other mothers. How did they get it!?

In my transition to motherhood I did get one surprise mothering ability! From the first night I  could easily wake up and hop out of bed to calm, feed, rock my lonely little infant. I never had a problem initially leaving my sleep behind for my little guy. I greatly missed my sleep, but I could get over that uggg time to get out of bed feelig. I admit now it is sometimes a little harder to jump out of bed at the littlest sound. But I can still do it, and I always feel a warm surge of gooey love when I hold my cranky toddler and he cuddles into my arms.

Anyways, after all the frustration that I'm not like that other "perfect" mother, I remind myself that after all, I've only been a mother for 2 years. Heavenly Father sent Bradley to me, my family, because he knew we would all grow in love and experience together. And, absolutely no one else has ever mothered Bradley Saponas. SO I can stop worrying about being that ideal mother for him, he already thinks I am.