The bittersweet irony of motherhood

A few weeks ago as I came out of my walk-in closet, I stopped to look at a framed collage of my boys.  In it is several pictures capturing some of the best 'every day ordinary' moments of their lives as children.  There's a picture of a 4 year old Kyle kicked back on my dad's riding lawn mower....hands behind his head and feet on the steering wheel.  There's one of a three year old Zach sitting on the river bank with his Fisher price fishing pole waiting on the catch of the day.  There's one of a baby Aaron laying on his belly wearing a denim ball cap and looking absolutely adorable.  Then are several of all three boys together...one where they're simply playing...another posed shot in their Peyton Manning #18 Colts jerseys...and yet another with the big brothers in their Royal Ranger t-shirts, each touching one of their cheeks to their baby brother's cheeks.  

As I looked at the pictures, I touched them, almost hoping to touch those precious little boys again and thinking to myself how badly I want them back...how much I miss them. It's  bittersweet to think back so far...to look into the past and realize just how quickly it's all gone by.  That's the cruel irony of motherhood...that we don't realize just how much we should have savored each moment until the moments are long gone.  

Oh what I wouldn't do to sit up all night and rock my babies.  What I wouldn't give to cuddle up to them and kiss them all over and lavish them with mommy's love.  What I wouldn't trade to get back the one thing I never really knew I would never have enough of...time.

How I wish I had never been too busy...too tired...too stressed out...too determined to stick to a schedule or maintain a routine.  At the time, I just wanted to keep everything moving smoothly...bedtimes, mealtimes, sport practices, homework.  Oh, and there were doctor's appointments to keep, hair that needed cut, teeth that had to brushed, baths that must be taken. There were toys to pick up and rooms to be cleaned. There was so much to do and so little time do it all, it seemed.

Little did I know how short the time truly was.   I blinked my eyes, and they were grown.  Blinked again, and they were gone.  Oh if I had only know how quickly it all was going to go by.  I would have left a lot of things undone back then.  I wouldn't have bothered so much with all those things that didn't really matter in the long run. 

How different I would do things if I could do them all over again.  I'd get dirty more often.  I'd dig trenches with teaspoons and play swords with twigs in the backyard.  I'd build more forts out of blankets and learn to play video games.  I'd play less PIG and opt for HORSE instead.  I'd move a lot slower. Watch a lot closer.  Laugh a lot louder.

But alas, there's no turning back the heartless hands of time.  I can't undo what's been done.  I can't get back what is lost.  And sadly, although I can ask those behind me to heed my warning, they likely won't.  It's just the reality of motherhood...that none of us truly understand the value of time with our little children until more of it is behind us than ahead.  The bigger truth is, no matter how much time we invest in our children, when they are grown, it never feels like it was quite enough.  

So if your little ones are still little, I'll do my best to tell you to enjoy every moment...every sleepless, poopy-diaper-filled, bickering in the backseat moment.  But my words of middle age motherly advice will probably fall on very tired ears.  The busyness of life will get in the way of truly celebrating the moments as they come.  It's just the way it is.  But for you mothers who have been there done that or are there right now, I'll just say hang in there...cause if you're lucky, grandchildren will be in your future.

And that is the beautiful consolation in all this... that when our children go on to have their own children, well, by then, we do understand how time flies.  Being a grandparent allows us to redeem just a little bit of the time we lost out on with our own young ones.  Grandparents feel no guilt about rocking a baby incessantly.  We feel no urgency to do dishes or laundry when grandbabies are about.  The mess they make doesn't bother us and the time they take is of no concern.  We know all too well how precious that time really is.

There's no way around the bittersweet irony of motherhood.  None of us...no matter how deliberately we might try...fully appreciate what we have until it's gone.

One thing (although not the only thing) we should never do as mothers

Motherhood is a balance beam of sorts.  We tiptoe from one end of the beam holding a newborn and turn cartwheels and front flips through the next 18 to 20-some years while trying to navigate the precarious terrain raising children often presents. We teeter and totter, shimmy and tremble, falter and even sometimes fall. As we move along, we tenaciously pursue perfection on the mommy beam until the time comes to send our little bundles of joy off into the world.  And like any Olympic champion, we only hope and pray to stick the dismount.  

Motherhood isn't easy, that's for sure.  We're always walking one fine line or another. Should we let them drink pop?  Are they ready for sleep-away camp?  Is their bedtime too late...or too early?  Are they ready to date?  Drive?  Go away to college?  Are we doing it right?  Is there even a way to do it right all the time?  My guess is, probably not.

Today at work, (I'm a school cook), this 1st grade boy who comes through the line every day, makes his own choices about what to eat, moves his full tray with all the accompaniments...silverware, napkin, straw...from one end of the serving line to the other, enters his own lunch number which he knows by heart and manages to get from the line to his seat in the cafeteria all by himself was utterly stifled by his mother who wanted to 'help' him with everything from picking a carton of milk to carrying his plate for him.  He looked at her with confusion in his eyes.  He did, after all, do this every day...all by himself..with competency and confidence.  And yet, he took his hands off his tray and allowed her to carry it for him.  He let her do for him something he was perfectly able to do for himself.  

In that moment, I'm sure she thought nothing of it.  She was, I'm certain, only intending to make her son's life a little bit easier...to do for him something that seemed like such a big job for such a small boy.  But, in reality, she robbed him his autonomy.  She took away a moment when she could have praised him for his ability and instead, rescued him from something from which he need not be saved.

And so what is the one thing I think we as mothers must be careful not do for our children?  Very simply...everything.  

I think as mothers, our instinct is to be that superhero who shadows our children hoping to thwart all danger that may come their way.  Like Wonder Woman with her special bulletproof bracelets, we want to stand between our children and anything or anyone who might present them with challenges or trials.  We want to fix all their problems and fight all their battles.  We want to avenge all their wrongs and lift them above all the difficulties and dilemmas this life might bring.   

The thing is, all those challenges and trials, all those difficulties and dilemmas, well, that's where the best character building often takes place.  Kids don't learn a work ethic by having everything given to them.  They don't learn kindness and compassion by having their eyes shielded from every unpleasant reality.   They don't learn humility and modesty by having their egos continually fed and stroked.  

We sometimes forget that we aren't raising children to just be bigger children.  We're supposed to be raising them to become adults...mature, responsible, productive, respectable adults.  We're supposed to be instilling qualities in them that will serve them...and society...well.  We want them to be able to live without us some day...to be able to take care of themselves and their own families...to be able to make good choices for themselves...to be able to think for themselves. 

There simply is no easy way to get them from one end of that narrow, treacherous beam to the other.  We cannot carry them the entire way and thus avoid all the perils and pitfalls growing up is certain to present.  The only way to start moving our kids in that direction is to begin to allow them to do some things for themselves by themselves.

We have to resist that urge to always swoop in and 'save' our kids.  Sometimes, of course, when the situation is severe enough, we must.  But sometimes, it's okay to the let them fail.  It's okay to let them take an F they earned.  They need to learn how to lose graciously and deal with the reality that they're aren't always going to the best at everything...the most beautiful...the smartest...or the most deserving.  And they also need to learn how to win just as graciously.  They need to fight some of their own battles...for sure not ones that could kill them (literally or figuratively) or maybe not even ones that could leave serious war wounds...but the occasional scrape gained through standing up for oneself can be quite the confidence builder.  

We need to get over the idea that our children need us for everything.  They don't...or least they shouldn't. To do everything for them is to cripple them really.  And I'm sure none of use want to do that to our children.



   

A mother's work is never done

Today started out as 'one of those days'.  At 5:47 A.M., my sixteen year old son jarred me from a sound sleep with, "Mom, I overslept."  A quick glance at my cell phone screen confirmed it.  He had exactly 13 minutes to get ready and arrive at his pick up point for his detassling gig...some ten plus miles away.   Oh yeah, that wasn't happening.  His first instinct was to chuck the whole day and head back to bed.  But the responsible mother in me didn't find that plan to be prudent.  A job is something to be taken seriously after all...something to be committed to...something not to be missed when a full 13 minutes are at your disposal.

So after 'encouraging' said son as he half-heartedly made a couple calls to find out his destination for the day...which I could have done much more quickly and efficiently than he, but which I felt was best if he did himself..you know, to learn to handle his own business (oh the day when this dream comes to fruition!!)... I hurriedly made him a lunch while he got himself dressed and ready to go.  Of course, had I simply got him out the door and made my way back to the comfort of my own bed, there would be no tale to tell.

Flashback to yesterday when our oldest son called and asked to borrow a vehicle since his is temporarily out of commission.  Now follow me here...Since my husband in currently donning a plaster cast on his driving foot, we have, theoretically, an 'extra' car and are always willing to help out our kids when we can.  But my husband had offered his car...the nice cool car...to our 16 year old to use for the next couple weeks, so  we had to offer our oldest son his younger brother's vehicle to drive with the condition that he return it last night.

Normally, it wouldn't have mattered so much that the car be returned immediately.  But, because my husband had a doctor's appointment today to which I had to drive him in my car...AND... because my husband's friend was going to pick up the nice cool car and meet us after the doctor's appointment to drive them to a sprint car race tonight, our 16 year old would need HIS car this morning to make that 6am pickup for work that he was now late for.  But guess what?  The oldest son DIDN'T return the car last night.

So the mother in me did what I like to think the mother in most women would do.  I griped about how irresponsible said children were...how if the youngest went to bed earlier, he wouldn't have overslept...how if the oldest had brought the car back, I'd be sleeping again already...and how all this annoyed and inconvenienced me greatly (I paraphrase, as you other mother's out there probably knew already).  And then, I threw on a pair of sandals, smoothed my hair down and grabbed my car keys.

I actually managed to deliver my youngest son to the field where he was working ahead of the bus's arrival. Score one for mom.  Then, I hastily sent a few motherly text messages to my oldest son...his very own unpleasant wake up call.  Minus one for mom.  He apologized...so did I.  All was well.  Except, now I had a 16 year old in the fields with no means of transportation to get back home and a husband with a doctor's appointment at roughly the same time said 16 year old would need picked up.  Wonderful. (Denote deep sarcasm.)

And so began a barrage a calls and text messages to try and get my proverbial ducks in a row.  I won't go through the whole litany, but let's just say, it was no small feat to get everyone's transportation needs met today.  And by the time I managed to get a fully functional plan in place, I was teetering on the edge of making my husband late for his 10:30am haircut...just another thing to work into my crazy morning.

So a quick shower, a head of halfway dried hair and make-up-less face later, my husband, knee scooter and all, and I were finally out the door ourselves.  But again, the mom in me just had to make sure the plan was being correctly implemented.  So I asked my husband so send one single text to our daughter-in-law to make sure we were all on the same page.  To which, my husband acted utterly annoyed and said something to the effect that he would be glad when we had this all this taken care of.

 Are you kidding me?  I thought.  "Are you kidding me?"  I said even more emphatically than I had thought it.  "WE"...I don't remember "WE" doing anything all morning long.  I remember "ME" doing it all.  So now he has to type and send one single solitary text and it's a "WE"?  "Just send the text."  I reiterated.  "The mom in me will feel better."  A sigh, a roll of the eyes and a few pecks on the keyboard later, and finally, the mom in me did feel better.

I just wonder why the mom in we women never seems to be able to go completely off duty.  Even when our kids are grown and have kids of their own, we still feel compelled to mother them, to bend over backwards to accommodate them, to put ourselves out so they don't have to.  I guess it's true...a mother's work is never done.  And quite frankly, I'm glad it's true....because even if I have to make a hundred 6am dashes to corn fields or make a million phone calls to get one little duck back safely to the nest, it's all worth it.  Being a mom is the best job ever.

25 years and counting

My husband and I are about to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.  As my sixteen year old son pointed out, "Not many things last twenty five years these days."  

He's so right.  Over the past twenty-five years, we've really managed to hold on to very few things.  We've collectively had over a dozen different vehicles...4 dogs...3 kids...owned two homes...and yet somehow, with God's grace, just one marriage.

It isn't easy to make a marriage work in this convenience-driven, everything's disposal kind of world we live in.  Let's face it, sharing your life with someone isn't always convenient.  It isn't always fun.  It certainly isn't always rainbows and unicorns.  

There's no secret to marital success.  Although having no secrets does help.  Marriage is work.  It takes effort to love someone when they aren't always lovable...to put up with their quirks and annoying habits day after day and year after year.  Learning to overlook an offense, to forgive the unforgivable and not keep the score, well, none of that is easy to do either.

Marriage means not always getting your own way.  It means sometimes giving up your right to be right.  It means sometimes putting yourself on the back burner so someone else's flame can burn bright.  And all that's some seriously hard stuff to do too.

So why bother with it at all?  Why get married when it demands so much?  Why?  I'll tell you why...

Because no matter what I've invested in this marriage of ours, the dividends have always been greater.  The time, energy and effort I've put in has returned to me the richest of rewards.  

While I was loving him through difficult times...times when, I promise you, it would have been easier to just walk away, he was loving me that same way.  When I was forgiving him for hurts he caused me...hurts I wasn't sure would ever heal...he was forgiving me for the same kinds of hurts I had caused him.  When I was working like a mad woman to build a bridge to him...an often wobbly, sometimes hastily constructed bridge...he was working just as hard to build a bridge to me. 

And so now, these nearly twenty-five years later, that bridge is basically complete.  We don't have to build so much now as we just have to maintain.  We don't have the same kinds of challenges we did when we first started.  We don't make the same kinds of mistakes.  Oh, we still have challenges; we still make mistakes.  But they aren't the kind that cause us to question our commitment to one another or doubt our ability to stand strong together.  They aren't things that would cause the bridge to fall.  Now don't get me wrong, if we fail to do the routine maintenance, that bridge will be in trouble.

But as we stand together on that bridge now, we have proven ourselves to each other enough times to know we can depend wholly on each other.  We know there's nothing we can't accomplish together.  We know we can stand the test of time, because, well, we already have. We trust each other to keep our bridge in good repair.

So as we go into the next twenty five years where the empty nest and the effects of aging will begin to press in on us, we know we are each other's greatest ally. We know we can count on each other to be there through thick and thin.  And whatever we may or not have, we know we have each other.  And that's worth something for sure.  It's definitely worth all the things we've gone through to get here.  

As I look back over the years, think about the ups and downs, remember the good times and the bad, reflect on this life we've lived, I know for sure I'd do it all again...with him...only him...always him. Because while most things don't last, thankfully some things do.  

Home is where the heart is

When my husband and I first got married, we made nearly weekly trips home to visit our families.  We'd pack our bags...and our dirty laundry...and make the hour long trek from Lafayette to Windfall.  Even after we had kids...and our own washer and dryer...we still made the drive home more weekends than not.  

There was...and is...just something about being home.  It is a place where I can put my feet up and let my hair down.   It is the place where I sleep the soundest...act the silliest...dream the biggest.  It is the place where I am able to laugh the hardest...cry the most earnestly...speak my mind the most freely...and be myself completely, knowing that even if I rub someone wrong, they will love me just the same.  And for quite some time after I was married, that place...home...was still my parents' house.

But somewhere along the way, home became a completely different place.  It was no longer where I grew up, where I learned right from wrong or where I relished the safety and security my mom and dad always provided.  I'm not sure when it happened exactly, perhaps because it happened so gradually that I barely noticed at the time, but happen it did.  

At some point, home became our house...our home.  I don't think there was a magical moment, no grand aha, that caused this transformation.  But there definitely was a time when my preference became being in my own house with my own husband and my own children.  There came a time when the family I was born into...my mom and dad, sisters and brother...moved to the periphery of my life while the family I was creating moved to the forefront.  

And when we moved from our first home to the next, I realized something else.  My home was less a physical place built with bricks and mortar and more a place built with heart and soul.  It was...and is...a place more inside me than me inside it.  

As the years march on, I now find myself on the outside edge of my adult children's lives.  My house is no longer theirs.  And slowly but surely, my home isn't theirs anymore either.  They, like my husband and I so many years ago, are making their own homes with their own  families.  And while this is bittersweet for me, it's utter sweetness for them.  And what parent wouldn't want that for their children?  

So while I miss seeing their faces...miss hearing their voices...miss being a part of the ordinary day to day of their lives, I am thankful to have been part of their first family...their first home...the first place their heart was.  And I hope that one day, when they reach the place in their lives where I am now, that they too will look back with as much fondness at the home they were given as children as the one they built themselves as adults.