I wrote this ten years ago, as a mom of 4 boys under 10. So much has changed…So much hasn’t. This is for all of us, parent or not, to embrace whatever is, because there-in is the make up of our very lives.
I notice it with each changing season...the tiring of one, the slow entrance of the other. And yet its amazing how fast it goes. I can hear it every August...the sounds of summer getting tired. One weekend I am packing the kids up to swim at Great Grandma's and eat hot dogs and cool whip desserts, and the very next weekend there is a coolness to the air, a scent in the breeze that is ushering out the old and bringing in the new, and the house is filled with the smell of pumpkin bread. Its hard to let go of what we had, and yet we can't experience the new if we hang on too tightly to what has passed.
Isn't it like that with our lives too? I often reference my college years as "the best years of my life." But that was the last season of my life before this ten year parenting era I am currently in. And it represented everything that I don't have now...complete freedom, time and energy to explore and learn and play with my friends all of the time, and a support system next door, and down the hall, and everywhere. My newly married season was so short I don't even remember it (thank you surprise pregnancy). And now I look back at having just one child with a sweet longing. Longing to go back to the simplicity of those days. But I forget how lonely I was back then. Thats the cool thing about the human brain...we tend to remember the good and forget the bad.
I have lived through enough transitional phases that I can feel them coming and going. And I have learned to try to embrace them for whatever they are because I know that whatever the season is...it will change. And most likely, I will long for that time back. One day I will be older and my kids will be on their own...I will browse Target guiltlessly for more than 3.5 minutes and I won't have to drive my shopping cart like a race car. I will go out to eat with my friends and we won't have to meet at Chuck E Cheese. My house will stay clean for more than 1.8 seconds. I won't have to cook every night for 6 people, or cut up fruit every single stinking day. I won't have to start a train of thought only to be interrupted 400 times in 2 seconds and completely forget what I was thinking about, let alone have a real conversation with anyone. My "guest bathroom"(aka the boys bathroom) won't always have a faint smell of urine to it (despite my multiple times a day effort), and sickness and fatigue won't constantly follow me and mine everywhere we go. One day. But on that day, when it comes, I am guessing I will miss, even long for, the days when my kids sat at the kitchen table and threw (I mean played) play doh. The day will come that I will sit on my neatly arranged couch and stare longingly at the floor remembering how each and every day, the couch cushions were strewn on that floor representing some action packed game the boys came up with. I doubt I will ever miss stepping on legos. But I will miss the imaginations that built ships and airplanes.
I am exhausted. I have one more week of maternity leave. I am already teaching my Cedarville class, and between that and life, I literally feel like each day is a marathon. It works until it doesn't. Then I get stressed and irritable. Then I feel like a failure. Then I think my kids hate me. Then someone posts a link on vaccines and I second guess and doubt myself and wish I had 2000 more hours to research all of the questions in my head, and I wish I could learn to grow my own food and make my own bread. Then someone else mentions how their 2 year old knows the entire alphabet and can count backwards from 100, and I wonder where I went wrong. Then someone else tells me about their hot yoga classes and the 579 mile marathon they trained for and I wonder how they squeezed that kind of time out of our allotted 24 hours in a day. And just when I am about to go crazy wondering how everyone else does "it," I realize that I do "it" too, and I start to settle back down into my normal...what works for us.
I can see it all changing...the seasons passing. Landon is inching ever so close to his tenth birthday. The conversations I have with that kid blow my mind. And demand so much emotional energy. And Noah is on his heals. I see it. I feel it. He IS a changing season. And Everett needs me to play garbage trucks and get down the play doh and take apart the vacuum for him. And then there is Silas. And I want to bottle him up. Because he is changing before my very eyes. And I get upset sometimes because I can't just sit and soak him up. I try to be purposeful about it and steal as many moments as I can...but the truth is, I want more time. And as much as I want this crazy, exhausting season of my life to ease into something a bit less demanding, I don't. Because one day I will look back with longing and wish for this very season. And it will be gone. Just like college is gone. I will never forget when Landon was 4, he pointed to a picture of himself as a baby and asked me, "Where has that baby gone?" The baby had grown into a preschooler, leaving only a trail of beautiful memories behind.
Every single choice, every day costs something. We choose one thing and let another go. I think that is why so many of us second guess so much. Doubting ourselves and comparing our normal with everyone else's does nothing but add guilt to our already over-filled plates. So the marathon mama...she chooses that at the cost of something else. And the natural mama...she chooses that at the cost of something else. And the mama who has a clean house...it comes at a price. And the mom who is involved in every single area of her kid's life...it too comes at a price. So does working outside of the home...so does being a stay at home mom. At the end of the day, the question we must ask is if we can live with the price of our choices. Many of us criticize people who choose differently because it makes us feel justified in our choices. That is insecurity. Confidence is the courage to do your thing, your way, aware of the price but ok with it. Because the season is fleeting, always fleeting. Little choices, big choices...they make up our lives by flavoring and sometimes determining our seasons. The winds of change are ever blowing. Our normal is the sum of our choices.
When I look back, I want to know that I was there for the big things, and noticed the small ones. That I tried to make happy memories (although many times to be honest the fun things have bittersweet mixed in). But at the end of the day, no matter how many times my voice raised too many octaves or my words were poorly chosen, I want my children to know in their hearts that they were loved. And wanted. And cherished. But life is a balance and while I try to make choices that will stamp love on their little hearts, I also know that I cannot be everything to everyone, including my kids. So I cut myself some slack when I just can't do it all or when I fail miserably, and even when I sit in the back bedroom and cry because I never thought having a family would be this difficult. Then I wipe those tears away and go cut up some more fruit or change the 50th blow out diaper of the day...and try again...and again...and again. But at the end of the day, as much as I want to be for my kids, I can't do it all. I am grateful I can ask for forgiveness and teach them to be humble by both giving and asking fo grace. I can teach them about honoring their own capacity and self-compassion, by admitting and advocating for my own limited capacity.
What am I getting at? The emotions you feel ...the ones we never talk about. Yep...those. You are not alone. I feel them too. But just as summer is fading to fall, this season of our lives too shall pass. Sink into your normal today. As messy as it may be. Its ok to wish some of it away. Lets just be real...we really are not going to miss the pee smells in the bathroom or the legos digging holes into the bottoms of our feet. But get grounded in the beauty that is your season right now, find something and let it be your calm in the midst of the storm. Because they will stop saying those cute words, and they won't always need us, and for heaven's sake...one day they will cut their own fruit. I want to know that I was present. Whether my season in life right now is good or bad, its my life, and I want to be present. That means real...experiencing the highs and lows and all that lies in between. And if that terrifies any of you for any of a thousand reasons, then know you are not alone. If you can be present on the mountain tops, it will carry you through the valley. And if you are present in the valley, you will find the strength to hope and to travel to the mountain top. If you refuse to be present, you will miss it all. I will miss it all. And that would be a shame to miss our very lives.