Sure, the title seemed to make sense more than three years ago when I first had the twins. I felt like an unlikely mother. But even then I really wasn't. What makes an unlikely mother? I don't know. But I do know I don't have it. I'm a completely ordinary mother. And that's a good thing. At least it is for me.
To exemplify why I took this title, here are some thanksgivings of past:
2005: I was thankful to celebrate the holiday with a core group of people I considered my "urban family" if you will. The night crew from the television studio at which I was working at the time. I thought we'd all be best friends forever. I don't know where they stand as a group, but I grew apart from them soon after.
2007: I was thankful for having a few friends in San Diego where I'd moved to take an overnight television production job. They took me in for the holiday, fed me, and it was very nice overall. Of course, I was tired, achy and cranky. Pretty much how I felt for the entirety of my stint in San Diego.
2008: I was thankful for the television station in Boston that had such a lenient maternity leave. I got three months off at half-pay. I was just about going back to work as Thanksgiving rolled around, having been allowed to care for my tiny infants until then.
2009: I was thankful for my PR job at the Catholic Church. It was closer to home. Closer to my kids.
2011: I'm finally biting the bullet and making our first family Thanksgiving dinner. I'm a stay at home mom who cleans and freelances and plays with her kids every day. You do not get more ordinary than that. I'm cooking turkey, potatoes, beans, stuffing and cranberry sauce. I've made fudge and baked an apple pie. Some of this is boxed. Some is from scratch. You don't get any more ordinary. A typical mother making a typical meal for a typical loving husband and father and her typical three-year-old twins.
It's never felt so good to be ordinary.
Happy Thanksgiving.
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