Mother's day

This day has always been a complicated one for me, being the "other mother" in (what was) a two-mom family. In the wake of the "gayby boom", much has been written about the experience of being the non-biological mother --the ambiguity, the difficulty and awkwardness of that identity, or lack of identity really.
I remember my first mother's day, just a few months after our first daughter was born. We rented a house with a small group of friends for a long weekend up in Mendocino. I didn't think of myself as a mother yet, despite the late night feedings and everything else, but I was bothered that our friends--who certainly should've "known better"--wished my ex a happy mother's day but not me. Did they think of me as the "father"? No, but clearly I was not the mother either. Who was I in all this anyway?
The problem was that even I didn't know that answer to that, having never imagined myself in the role of parent and barely understanding the notion of family. No room in any blog to explain all that, or rather no reader with patience enough to get through it--suffice to say I missed out somehow on a lot social programming.
One of the first things I learned as the other mother is you get really good at being comfortable with little lies. I can't tell you how many times moms in the playground would comment about how much my daughter looked like me or would ask me about when and where I gave birth. Now you may be thinking, well, that's not so different from women who adopt, they go through that same thing don't they? True enough, but they are not partners with or married to someone who did give birth to their child. There is a legitimacy associated with being a biological mother that by default makes the other mother an imposter. And then of course there's the assumption of heterosexuality in most of these interactions as well. Small lies or the silences that are their shadows become the necessary grease in these interactions with strangers--people with whom it is just too much trouble to explain everything. You'd think it's be easy after a while but that shit wore me down.
Anyway, it's nine mother's days later and I've learned since that first one that mothers of all kinds--single, married, straight, lesbian, whatever--are confounded in their own ways by the identity of mother. And though I'm a little wiser for the years, I still struggle with what it means to me, especially now because when I am with my daughters I am a single parent, the only mom. But through it all, I am constantly surprised at how much I like that and more so that I'm actually quite good at it.
Sometimes, I think back to how I was before--only really feeling responsible for myself, how easy that was, so much so that I didn't even realize it. What would my life be like now if I didn't have these wonderful girls? I can't even imagine myself without them, they have become such a part of who I am. I wonder sometimes, how did that happen? I know but I don't know. Another happy mystery.