On good days, motherhood can make me feel like a rockstar.
I always know what Milo is trying to tell me about the truck driving down the street, and I can affirm him, even when no one else understands him. I know how to make Ella’s “itchies” stop burning when I have to put cream on them. I can cook dinner, be Princess Celestia from “My Little Pony,” apply neosporin and bandaids, and have a dance party in a five minute time-span. I know how to recover just about every “lost” item in this house on my first search. I can reach behind me while I drive and plunge my hand into the exact compartment of the diaper bag to fish out a sippy cup without ever taking my eyes off the road. I have memorized all of Milo’s favorite tickle-spots and know that Ella wants her back scratched in circles only– not in “up and down lines” at bedtime. My kisses supposedly have super-healing powers.
I am all they want when something hurts. And if I can’t make it instantly all better, I can usually make it at least 91% better. I get the excited jumping-up-and-down dance and hand waves in the preschool pick up line. “Look, it’s MOMMY! THERE SHE IS!” On a couple of occasions, I’ve even gotten applause when I walk in the room. (Thank you. Thank you very much).
Of course, there are days I moan and gripe about being needed so much. (After all, can’t a girl walk in the kitchen by herself to refill her coffee without being followed? Can I please go to the bathroom ALONE?) But then there are those days that I breathe it in and revel in it- the fact that they actually want me. They don’t care that I haven’t showered that day, that I have no makeup on. But let’s skip past the external and talk about all the other stuff. Like how I swear when I drive, or let out a string of profanities every time I drop something on the floor now. I have paper-thin patience and a quick temper. I’ve told lies- big and little- to get myself ahead and look better. I’ve sold myself out and chosen the easy way over the right way. I struggle with jealousy and vulnerability. I am always just a little bit anxious, sometimes a lot. I might be medicated for the rest of my life. I’m exhausted at the end of the day, and it’s only when I lay down at night that I realize, maybe it’s not actually the kids who drained me the most. Maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s because I lug around the extra weight of the guilt and shame and the fear that one day my children will grow up and see me the way I often see me. What then?
They see bits and pieces of it now and yet, they still want me. The broken me. The scared me. The selfish me. The me who doesn’t know shit about being a parent. The me who says the word “shit” in front of my kids.
I don’t talk about it much because, over the last couple of years, I’ve been on my own journey in my understanding of God- the idea of Him and the experience of Him- and what it looks like to fully embrace Love. (Also, I don’t talk about it because, after years of being a preachers kid, I have a pretty sensitive internal gag reflex when it comes to church and theology). But I think about it a lot. In fact, I’ve contemplated God more in these past four years as a parent than I ever did in all the years leading up to it. And it hasn’t escaped me, the reality that my children exude Love so easily and naturally- the unconditional kind that I feel least deserving of. It’s not lost on me the fact that they want me- all of me– even when I’m at my worst. I focus so much on my failures that I sometimes forget about the forgiveness. Turns out, there’s redemption in those long bedtime snuggles at the end of long days. And there’s complete and utter acceptance in those embraces after preschool.
Did I really think I was the one teaching my kids how to love?
As moms, I think maybe we have a hard time accepting that we’re just as precious to our children- just as beautiful to them- as they are to us. It’s surprisingly hard sometimes to let someone love us the way we’re supposed to be loved.
In this case, I’m grateful that they haven’t given up on me.
The Bug, the Bean {&the Bump} 