"Bad Mother"

Today I became a Facebook fan of the book Bad Mother: A Chronicle of Maternal Crimes, Minor Calamities, and Occasional Moments of Grace, by Ayelet Waldman.

Here are a few "shameful" facts about me as a mother:
1. I let my kid eat food that falls onto the kitchen floor, and I don't always observe the 5-second rule. Or the 30-second rule, for that matter.
2. After an Easter weekend of misjudgment that involved Raffi, 400+ miles of driving and my 6-disc changer, I've officially refused to listen to children's music. He gets enough of it at daycare, anyway. Blech.
3. Sometimes I giggle when my son falls down (but only if he doesn't get hurt!).
4. I used to rinse his hair carefully after shampooing him, so that water didn't get into his eyes. Now I just repeatedly dump a bucket of bath water over his head. He thinks it's kind of fun.
5. I let him drink coffee.
6. I laugh when he farts, and he's learning to laugh at it too (although, being a boy, he's actually born with that gene, I think).
7. I swear in front of him, although I am really REALLY trying not to.
8. There have been moments -- more and more as he gets bigger and more willful -- that I wish wish WISH he would watch television.
9. There have been days when I was relieved to drop him off at daycare, and worn out at the thought of picking him up.
10. I often forget to brush his teeth.

There's more -- much, much more. The little things, which don't seem so little to me when I'm stressed and feeling like I'm getting more and more behind with each passing day...For instance, the house cleaning issue: although we eat off clean plates and wear clean clothes, I can't keep the floors vacuumed and washed and shiny. My refrigerator needs to be cleaned out and organized (I'm afraid at what might be lurking in the back of it). There are piles of paperwork that need to be organized and filed, going back to before Andrew was born. There's clutter everywhere.

There are home improvement projects to complete, or even just to begin. There's a baby book to do. Old family photos to scan. Windows to wash. Gutter guys to call -- the gutters MUST be replaced this year. There are old magazines to recycle and books to donate to the library book sale. There is dirty laundry to wash and clean laundry to put away.

My house isn't spotless and tidy. Somehow, though, my son seems happy, well-adjusted, highly verbal, and very people-oriented. He much prefers being read books over watching television. He can help me count to two, and sometimes three, and he's not yet 18 months old. He's successfully (although definitely not consistently) pooped and peed in the potty. He will usually help clean up his messes when asked. He knows how to hold a book, and how to turn the pages without ripping them.

What makes a good (or bad) mother? Is it nurture, or nature, or both? And if it's both, how much of each? I've just finished listening to Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point (I know, I'm a few years behind on that), which seems to think it's 50/50.