The Journal Times Online - Racine, Wisconsin

Someone – I think Henry’s doctor – once said she knew she was a mother, when she saw her child throwing up and reached out to try to catch it. The first time I heard that story, I thought: Man, that’s not something I’ll ever be doing.

Then came the day I was holding Henry after a feeding, and he let loose with what seemed like all the milk he had just downed. I was much easier to clean than the couch, so I held him close, and then put all the dirty clothes right down the chute. I did the same thing four more times before the day was through.

My dreams of motherhood included snuggling, reading books and taking walks. I knew there would be spit-up and diaper changes included, but I had no idea just how often – or how messy – those would be.

I had changed diapers before having Henry, and I had been spit upon by babies. What I had never experienced, however, was the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week mess factory that is a newborn. As he got older, the messes didn’t go away.

They changed.

One day he smeared poop all over his crib and the wall. There was the day he splashed toilet water everywhere, then dumped the cat food into the cat water, and all of that on the floor. He spilled a bottle of bubble solution in the living room.

On Monday, when I picked Henry up from day care, they told me he hadn’t had a nap. Odd, I thought, but nothing to worry about.

When we got home, I put him in his high chair and gave him a coloring book and a few crayons so I could make dinner without worrying about little hands and hot stoves. I was almost done cooking when I heard him start to lose it in the dining room.

“Mama. Mama. Carry you!” he cried. (“Carry you” is Henry-speak for “Pick me up.”)

“You can have a hug,” I told him, “but I’ve got to finish dinner.”

I gave him the hug, and went to go back to the stove.

He wailed.

“Carry you! Carry you! Mama!”

I sighed and picked him up. As I held him close, he lurched.

He got sick on me. On my favorite T-shirt. On his duck-duck-goose onesie.

Even though I knew it was going to keep happening, I brought him closer.

We went into the bathroom. I put him in the empty tub and took off my shirt. By this time, he’d started to cry. He wasn’t upset about being sick, though.

“Dirty,” he said. “Mess.”

He kept pointing, sobbing, and telling me about the dirty mess.

My heart broke.

I kept telling him that it was OK, that I loved him, and worked quickly to make that mess disappear so that he’d feel better.

I washed him off under the tub faucet, dried him off and got him into pajamas. We had a quiet night that night.

Later, as I retold this story to family and friends, something hit my heart.

Henry, at 21 months of age, wasn’t worried about his own problem, his own sickness or discomfort. He was worried about the mess that I was going to have to clean up.

When do we lose that? When do we become more concerned about ourselves than others?

As a parent, there was no effort, no conscious decision that I ever made, to put Henry’s needs first: That’s just how love functions.

On Monday, he gave that right back to me and showed the loving nature he’s already got.