Instincts

There are a lot of moments in my life that make me think, "I am soooooo not ready to be someone's mother yet." Moments like 11:00 on Saturday mornings when I'm still in bed, for example, or when I'm on the subway and a toddler is screaming its head off and my only thought is, "Ha, glad I don't have to deal with that!" Or the moments where I'm so freaked out about my pets' well-being that I can't imagine the emotional weight of dealing with an actual human baby. I have a lot of moments like that.
But then every now and then I have a moment like the one I had last night. My dog was feeling sick yesterday (I'll spare you the gross description of exactly how I knew my dog was sick) so I let him sleep in bed with me instead of on his dog bed because I was being paranoid and wanted the ability to reach over once in a while and make sure he was still breathing (see "freaked out about my pets' well-being", above). In the middle of the night I awoke to my dog making that horrible gagging noise that usually precedes a vomit explosion, and without hesitating, without even thinking, I sprang forward in bed and cupped my hands under his mouth. Thankfully he didn't actually throw up, but, people! I was completely willing to catch my dog's barf in my bare hands just because I knew that would be momentarily disgusting but would make cleaning up much, much easier. I'm pretty sure that's my instinctual Mom Brain at work right there. It's kind of reassuring to know the maternal instincts are functional, even though I'm thinking it will still be quite a few years before I need to put them to use.

Speaking of the dog, he's yelling at me so I'd better cut this short and take him outside.