Not a Mommy.

I am not a mommy.
I have kids, I am their mother. I spend my every day making sure they are fed and clean and healthy and doing what they're supposed to be doing. Homework issues? I'm there. Middle of the night calming after a scary dream? All over it. Conflict at school? I'm your girl. Piddle in the fluffy? That's me again.
So what can I possibly mean when I say that I am not a mommy?
I mean that underneath it all, all the late night feedings and ponytail fixings, after all the riding Mongoosine to actually brush her hair and teeth, and burping Snapdragon, despite his best attempts to get out of it, I am a person. I am a human being, a woman and an individual. That's the hard part to remember when you're mommin' it up, or at least, for me it is.
Say it with me now. "I am an individual."
No, seriously. Say it. "I am an individual."
Out loud.
"I am an individual."
Once you get past just how silly it feels to be talking to yourself while sitting at your computer, possibly disturbing that creepy communicative silence we pull around ourselves while sitting perched at our laptops, desktops, or spiffy new phones... feel the way the five syllables of individual feel rolling off your tongue, the d exploding against the roof of your mouth just behind your teeth before that slightly sibilant v punctuates the words. "I am an individual."
It is so easy to forget that, amidst the scheduling of this camp and that swimming party. So easy to forget that although we have girl scouts this weekend and archery every night this week, family visiting from out of town, and guitar lessons to squeeze in there somewhere after the library's reading program... I am still an individual.
I am not a mommy because I am not solely defined by my relationship to my offspring.
Scarier thought: my children are individuals.
But I'm not ready to contemplate that one yet.
So repeat it again.
"I am an individual."
All the sudden, as I say those words out loud I remember things like the fact that I like to wear jewelry. I remember that I love the smell of vanilla and always dreamed of going on an archeological dig. I remember that I sew and write music and sing opera. I remember who I am instead of just being the woman who changes diapers and covets the latest and greatest in infant excrement handling systems.
I am an individual.