Skylar’s Mom

Having a baby can rob you of many things.  Your once-perky breasts.  Your will to stay awake past eight o’clock.   Your — cue the ominous music here — IDENTITY.

Turns out, I am no longer Candy Kirby, smart-ass extraordinaire and lover of all things chocolate.  My resume of accomplishments…?  Moot.  Because the very moment I stepped into my daughter’s daycare, I became SKYLAR’S MOM.

(This is where Mr. Candy would start singing, “Skylar’s mom has got it going on…” and I would mock-slap his ass, thrilled by the flattery, but I’ll spare you our disgusting cutesiness.  Oops!  Too late.  Good luck getting THAT visual out of that head.)

“Hi, I’m Skylar’s mom,” I immediately introduced myself to the daycare crew.

“Oh, you’re Skylar’s mom!  Nice to meet you.”

Teacher Nicole handed me a folder of paperwork addressed to — you guessed it — “Skylar’s Mom.”  But it didn’t truly dawn on me that my name, my identity I’ve been building for more than three decades, had been usurped by my six-month-old slobber puss of a child until I bumped into one of the other mommies:

“Are you Skylar’s mom?”

“Yes!”

“Hi, I’m Leni’s mom.”

The next eighteen years flashed before my eyes:  going to PTA meetings; attending orchestra concerts; creepily peering in the window at her first school dance.  All as SKYLAR’S MOM.  We have become them.  “Them” being the old ladies who used to pick us up from school and let us have slumber parties at their houses.  (You know, Sarah’s Mom and Julie’s Mom.)  Only MUCH cooler, of course.  *Ahem*

Truth be told, the novelty of being called “Skylar’s Mom” is kind of fun.  That is, when it doesn’t make me turn my head and say, “Huh?  Who are you talking to?” before I realize:  “Oh right!  Yes.  I’M the mom!  The responsible one.”  As I simultaneously inhale the spitball I was about to launch.

Yeah.  The slumber parties at Skylar’s Mom’s house are going to be FUN.