Any Self-Respecting Mama Has Limits

As mothers, we routinely find ourselves doing things that would have shocked our pre-child selves. Things that sacrifice our personal health, hygiene, dignity, or fashion sense. Things like:

* staying up all night with a preschool case of stomach flu, mastering almost instantly the single motion required to wipe a mouth clean and change the towel on the pillow.
* sitting on a public beach, sucking on the only binkie that came on vacation, in order to clean off the sand before giving said binkie back to the baby.
* defining a "matching" outfit based on its baby-urp content: a top and a bottom each with no baby-urp = a matching outfit.
* eating the scraps off the kids' plates while doing dishes, following up with a clementine, and calling that dinner.
* categorizing new shoes as "fabulous" not on the basis of their sexy kitten heels or stunning fabric but because they are comfortable, you can run after your three-year-old in them, and yet they are not made of canvas or rubber.
* using the toilet with a fractious infant on our laps because the poor child doesn't want to be put down.
* narrating the process of using a toilet with a fractious infant on our laps, in public, because the toddler is potty-training and curious.

Until last night, there was pretty much only one line in the sand for me. I won't eat the things my toddler chews for a while, thoughtfully considers, and then rejects and deposits into my hand. Even though when she hands them to me she invariably says "mama turn. bite."

Then last night at a party...just imagine this: We are visiting with good friends. We have had pizza, and brownies, and football. We are satiated and laughing. Daughter is sitting next to me on the floor, and I am nursing a nice cold refill of Diet Dr. Pepper and chatting. Apropos of absolutely nothing, she calmly removes her sock from her left foot, stretches out her chubby arm, and before I can even register what is happening, purposefully drops her sock square into my drink. She gets to her knees, peers deep into the cup for a long moment, looks at me and says with a smile, "Mama, coffee." And this mama, the one who has sucked sand from her binkies and nibbled the dregs of her cold macaroni and cheese, this mama refused to drink that soda. A mother should have standards. No dirty-sock drinks for me. I feel incredibly dignified as a result.

And yes, I have so much class that I came home from the party and re-created the offending image just so I could have a picture to put up here.