The More You Mom was inspired by two very different trains of thought during my first semi-lucid weeks of being a mother:
#1
I was on the couch one day, holding my baby son and studying his face while he slept peacefully in my arms. It occurred to me that I’d had about three hours of sleep in three days. I immediately saw a quick flash of the faces of all the people who, when I was pregnant, had issued hilarious warnings about how I’d never sleep again once my son was born. Not usually a violent person, I wanted to punch them all.
Then my brain took a turn. I started thinking about all the bits of advice people issue (mostly without prompting) to pregnant women. I started mentally searching for the gems of wisdom that were spot on. Some of them made me laugh out loud. In a matter of moments, I was picturing my friends — the already moms group — superimposed into one of those “The More You Know” TV spots I remember vividly from my 90s childhood in America. Instead of a television actor sitting on a stool in front of a black background, I saw my lifelong best friend. And instead of a brief message about how mentoring young people matters or knowledge equals power, she simply blinked at the camera, stoic and straight-faced, and said:
You know they won’t let you leave the hospital until you poop, right?
or
Babies are total weirdos. No one knows what they’re doing.
or
Those first months are brutal. Seriously. There’s a reason they make em’ cute.
Then, I heard the music swell, saw the rainbow appear, and instead of the phrase “The More You Know,” “The More You Mom” filled the screen instead.
#2
I was on the couch one day, holding my baby son and studying his face while he slept peacefully in my arms. It occurred to me that I’d had about four hours of continuous sleep — all at once, without interruption! — for the first time since dinosaurs roamed the earth (one month).
I had a moment of near-hysteric panic as I looked at the size of his hand grasping my shirt. I thought about how mind-bendingly-berzerk-bonkers it was that my wife and I were not only allowed but encouraged to take him home from the hospital without any instructions (aside from one nurse’s FALSE! demonstration that gently swinging the pumpkin seat back and forth always stops crying.)
I thought about how, in some tiny, tiny ways, after only a month, I was feeling like I already knew what I was doing and that this whole “mom thing” is something that can only be learned in action. In other words:
The more you mom, the more you know.
I also thought about the flip side of that — that no matter how long you mom, there’s plenty you’ll never know.
Then came this gorgeous, glorious, entirely fleeting sense of calm. As though the universe or mother nature or a superbly dressed Octavia Spencer (my idea of what God looks like) turned to me for a brief second in this life and simply said:
Yep. That’s it, girl. You’re gonna know and you’re gonna not know. Such is the way and the light and the caffeinated confusion.
Welcome to motherhood.
The More You Mom 