Perfect

"He's perfect," the pediatrician declared at Moe's first visit. He was only six or seven days old. She meant only that he had ten fingers and toes, was eating and growing, recovering from the act of being born.

I think back to that day. "Liar!" I want to yell. There was a bug in the program. A glitch. Someone put the blue wire into the red slot. He is broken. Fix him.

I gasp, ashamed. What kind of a mother thinks her son is anything other than perfect? I look at him. Perfect curls. Perfect little teeth all in a row. A perfect laugh. Possibly perfect pitch. Full of life and energy. He is everything he is meant to be.

I'm the one who is flawed. Anxious. Easily overwhelmed. Controlling. Unable to live in the moment. And perhaps a little too hard on myself.

Oh well. Nobody's perfect.