This morning I opened my computer and had every intent of writing a post on being quiet... on listening as a coping mechanism to handling crazy kids who need need need and want want want. And then I read my friend Melanie's post, and she hit the nail on the head. In ways I didn't even know that needed to get hit on the head...
Last night another friend posted this post on facebook, and again, another nail hit on the head.
I've been thinking about this mothering thing. The good and the bad. We've had plenty of both recently. It's easy for me {and every other mother I know} to get hard on myself about wishing certain moments would pass. Like when the toilet overflows because someone stuffed a roll of toilet paper down it, and the water drips down into the spice cabinet on the floor below, and the timer is going off for birthday brownies for the husband, and if one person asks for one more thing...
Yeah. Those moments.
So right now I'm telling myself, and you, to own up to the fact that there are moments that I will not miss twenty years from now.
Yes I will miss my kids being little. But, for example, I miss them being babies but I DO NOT miss the explosive diapers.
Yes, I will miss the closeness of them when they get older and are close in different ways, but I will not miss the days where I cannot get an inch of space {or the three days in a row... which might be where I'm at right now... seriously... 24/7... you all know how it is sometimes}. Or getting peed on. I will never miss getting peed on in the middle of the night. Ever. I might miss them sleeping next to me, but not the getting peed on.
The women I most admire, that I look up to, who have years of mothering experience on me, have affirmed my beliefs. I am so very aware of them at each age, in each day, I am not rushing them out of each stage. I am taking it in. But there are parts that I know I will not miss when they are onto a new stage and phase... maybe partly because as they get older they hold in them every day of their lives that they've ever been {and maybe partly because I would not put Paige in her most awful tantrum on my worst enemy, or Fynn in his most ridiculousness food battle on anyone else...}.
In every moment of their lives I can look at each one of them and know that I love them in this moment. And I have loved them in each previous moment of their being. And I will love them tomorrow. And the next day. And the day after that.
And with that, I will go back to listening for a bit... because when I listen, I gain perspective and the grace that comes with allowing myself to just be in whatever state I am in... not wishing it away, but at times not missing the frustrated moments as I move out of them and into a new moment.
Yes. There is so much I mourn, that's over, but there are many things I am happy to have said goodbye to. And much new that I have welcomed, also. Thanks for the reminder of both. xox
ReplyDeleteExhaling on that post! I do not miss the getting peed on one bit. Or the crying jags that grated my nerves while I was trying so hard to write papers in college. I don't miss the times when my daughter had to leave to go to her dad's, and then came home and had to adjust to being with me again. I don't miss her teen age battling-ram attitude and tearful, explosive rage.
ReplyDeleteWell said, lady. Well said. I will NOT miss G's resistance to eating anything I put in front of him lately! BUT I will miss this age, because I love him in it.
ReplyDeleteIt is surprising to me how many of the times when I was at my wit's end my big kids can still remember. They didn't happen too often (thank God) and now they have become the stuff of family legend told with just a little more zeal than is absolutely necessary if you ask me!
ReplyDeletelove the openness here, open to possibility, ready to embrace it :)
ReplyDeleteLove this, Corinne, your honesty that I know many of us can relate to. Your post made me think about how, on the hard days, I dwell on all the bad stuff happening. And then when they're in bed, I only think about the good stuff. I think I could do with a more balanced approach - living the bad and the good all at once.
ReplyDeleteI cracked up about the pee, mainly because I had TWO incidents last night with TWO different kids. No, not missing the fact that I missed much sleep, that's for sure!
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