Confess All (motherhood style)
I write hundreds of "I love my children so much and here's the 1,000 reasons why-vomit-barf" posts. So just allow me this one. Please.
When I first became a mother, it was to a beautiful little girl with a lot of health problems.
I thought- WOW- this is all SO HARD because of all the surgeries, oxygen at home, g-tube feedings. If only I had a healthy baby, then this would all be sooooooooooooo much easier.
Then nineteen magical months later, I had a son. Healthy, robust, strong- this kid had it all going on.
It was then I realized something so simple it's a wonder it took me so long.
It's not having a child with extra health needs that's so difficult. No, the problem is motherhood.
Motherhood is hard.
You spend all day keeping them happy/entertained/fed/changed/alive.The day ends and you have significantly less hair and significantly more wrinkles.
The bathed and fed little cherubs are put in bed and within minutes of falling asleep-you miss them desperately and want to wake them up to see just one more smile.
If you spend all day away from them you feel guilty.Yet if you stay with them all day you feel guilty that you need an escape.
You spend the first months of their lives so sleep deprived that hallucinations start occurring involving you on a deserted island with nothing but a soft bed, a pillow and a down comforter.
When they're sick, you end up cleaning up vomit and diapers-the smell of which sends you scrambling to get your "I'M DONE HAVING CHILDREN" document notarized.
When they get shots, you're the one that gets bitten-kicked-screamed at while they're the one that gets the sticker.
You think- with the next phase surely this gets easier- when they can walk on their own/when they're in school/when they can make some of their own decisions/when they can make me dinner.
And yet each stage arrives with its own struggles, fears and hardships.
No matter what flavor of ice cream is in that cone you're holding, it WILL melt all over your hands and fingers in a sticky disaster.
Motherhood is hard.
It all starts with the birth. You're the one pushing a baby the size of a small turkey out of your business and yet the baby gets all the credit for the day- by simply existing.
While you get more and more ragged, the baby gets cuter and cuter until your infant son is the handsome executive that you can only hope will remember you on that one brief 24 hour period dedicated to mothers once a year.
Your schedule becomes your child's schedule and snazzy cars get traded in for mommobiles.
Once flat stomachs resemble helium balloons far past their prime. Spa dates now are days that you AREN'T covered in spit-back-in-your-face baby food (carrots, of course)
Your diaper bag becomes your purse and "stylish and trendy" are exchanged for "how many extra outfits will this hold?"
There's something about months of winter, stuck in the house with two small children- alternately sick with every cocktail sickness imaginable- that makes you pin a picture of the animals that eat their young on your Pinterest board titled "Inspiration".
You lose your identity as a person and enter your role as constant worrier- will he stop breathing in the middle of the night? Will he make any friends in school? Will he drive safely? Will he realize he shouldn't marry her and should stay with me forever?
Fancy date nights out with your husband are trumped by a quiet evening in your bubble bath and a book because a sitter was just too hard to find.
Your life is turned upside down and becomes the very picture of agony one teething incident at a time.
Good thing we have these humble things called blogs to commiserate....and chubby arms belonging to the little people in our life to wrap lovingly around our necks in a thank-you-for-taking-care-of-me hug (right before yanking and quite effectively breaking our favorite necklace stopped only seconds before getting to the hoop earrings)
This is why God made babies so cute. So that we would keep going
even when it is hard.
What do YOU think is hard about motherhood?