Laughing at motherhood

New parents tend to take their responsibilities rather seriously. And why not? You're charged with keeping a tiny, helpless human alive. But when you watch your mate get sprayed in the face during a diaper change or you hear ear-splitting snores over the baby monitor, you discover a fabulous, hidden side to parenthood: Kids are natural-born comedians.

Sitting in the hushed stillness of her ob-gyn's waiting room, Lupe Ramirez and her mother watched baby Araceli drift off to sleep after her bottle. Suddenly, the 6-week-old belched. "It wasn't a sweet, ladylike burp  -- it was a loud beer drinker's burp," says the Chicago mom. "Everyone looked up from their magazines. My mom asked if that was me! I had to say it was the sleeping baby. We still laugh about it today."

Handling the impossible

So much of motherhood is a vast unknown. It always will be, but at first you're so filled with apprehension, like you're going uphill on a roller coaster, that you can't relax. Eventually, though, insecurity crystallizes into confidence. Like a girl hero in a novel, it dawns on you that you can manage whatever this baby throws at you.

Or poops on you. Kelly McElwain was at Disney World watching a Lion King show when 7-week-old Kate had a diaper blowout that made a mess of McElwain and her 2-year-old daughter, Taylor. "I never knew I could hold a newborn and change a wiggly, screaming toddler at the same time," says the mom from Davidsville, Pennsylvania. "The rest of the week was a breeze. And I learned to pack an extra T-shirt for myself, instead of just outfits for the kids, wherever we go."

Believing you're a good mom

It takes the happy combination of confidence and common sense to reach the best milestone of all: the knowledge that you are swell at mothering, just by being you.

Like many new moms, Richelle Morgan of Portland, Oregon, assumed being a "good mom" meant doing it all: working, pumping, making baby food from scratch, and being on hyperalert "to avoid making a horrible mistake," she says. She plowed on until her daughter, Eliza, was 8 months old and Morgan was sick with cold after cold. "I came to understand that everything I was doing was great, but it wasn't what made me a good mother," Morgan says. "I put away the pump, sent formula to daycare, and bought some jarred food. It was liberating to realize that I'm a good mom because I love my daughter  -- not because I only give her breast milk or puree organic peas."

My version of this epiphany came as I shared a teary goodbye with my own mother after a month of her helping me with Henry. What would I do without her?

Her parting words were, "You'll be fine. You're a good mom!" She wasn't one to give out rootless praise, so I clung to those words' echo as I headed back into the house. "It's just you and me till Daddy comes home," I said to my little guy. He stared back. We went about our day of feedings, diaperings, a stroller walk, a run to the store, and colicky screams. I was fine. By the time my husband came home, I felt, for the first time, like I could handle motherhood. My mom had called it  -- and now I knew it was true. I was a good mom, or good enough, anyway, which should be good enough for anybody.

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