Yellow-Bellied Motherhood

 “Break my bloody leg!  For God’s sake, just break the f$#king thing!”    This was the desperate plea of one of my twelve companions on our journey to the top of the Franz Josef glacier in New Zealand. I was climbing virtually straight up a glacier, wearing non-insulated cramp-on boots, and carrying an enormous 4-pronged pickaxe.  It hit me that everyone directly above me was carrying these identical lethal weapons and had no more experience than I did. Someone was most likely about to fall, plant a giant steal prong straight through my brain, and knock us all down the glacier like dominos.   I may not have voiced my preferences, but I was certainly game.  Hell yeah.  Break her leg.  Jus trip it off!  Break all of our legs!  Let’s do this thing!  We had a choice of paying $285 each to fly in a chopper to the top of the glacier and explore the caves or $65 to rent these fancy shoes and steal spears and chop out footholds to climb our way to the top. Apparently once the decision was made, it was final. 

 

If ever there was a time I should have released my iron-fisted grip on some green...

So when, at halfway up, our British friend finally freaked out about climbing 80 degrees up sheer ice covered in an inch of flowing water with 200 foot crevasses on either side, her behest for the helicopter to come to the rescue fell on deaf ears.  ”That helicopter is only flying to the middle of the climb if someone’s leg is broken.”  Well, Kiwis are crazy.  I’ve only spent a month in their country, and I mean it in the best way possible, but they’re total whack jobs.  Anyway, knowing that, I figured our guide might just agree to her request and give her a quick kick to the knee-cap.  No such luck.  We somehow managed to hobble our way down, which was actually much more frightening than climbing our way up (perhaps due to the continual screams of terror and begs for major physical damage).  By the time we reached the ground, seven of my toes were black, but no one lost a limb, so I figure we faired well.   From that point on in life, I never took dangerous risks.  I learned my lesson.  I always wore my helmet, never crossed at a red light,, and always put paper down before I sat on any public toilet seat.

Well, I guess there was that one time…

Okay, so there were many times.  For example, when my girlfriends and I got chased to our car after a night out in Uptown Chicago, only to find it had been busted into and robbed.  I decided it was a much better idea to ride the el there in the future.  So the next time, I rode the el there and got mugged while I waited on the platform to catch a ride back at the end of the night.  Well, then I realized what really made the most sense was to ride the el there and then roller blade back home at the end of the night.  So that was my routine moving forward.  I mean, a girl’s got to go to the Green Mill, right?

A few other terrifying examples come to mind, but my mother might read this and getting grounded in your late 30’s is nothing short of humiliating, so I’ll just leave it at that.

Anyway, this all came flooding back yesterday as I was swimming in a near-dry river with my 3 year-old and LOST MY MIND because he was head first approaching a 4-inch waterfall into an 18-inch pool.  “Turn him around so he’s on his bottom!  He’s only used to making that drop feet first!”   Of course he was wearing a life jacket, water shoes, goggles, a hat, and an entire bottle of pediatrician-approved sun block, all of which he had adorned after finishing an organic, locally grown lunch over 30 minutes prior to swimming.

That’s when it hit me.  Motherhood has made me a wussy.  Oh no!  Am I going to raise wussies too?  Will they be those weirdos who spend their lives only making right turns when they drive?  Are they going to invite me as their date to prom?  I feel a panic attack coming on.   What if it’s already too late?  Does anyone know of any sky-diving or crocodile-wrestling summer camps for toddlers?