This is coming a day late, and probably a dollar short, but here it is regardless. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a mommy - and specifically, your mommy. S, with your advent, I became mom for the first time, and buckatoo (name forthcoming with your arrival) - you have doubled our joy and we can't wait to meet you. Motherhood is a gift that I neither anticipated nor understood fully before these past 16 months, but for which and by which I am joyful and forever changed.
Yesterday, Mother's Day, was a hallmark of motherhood... S, you woke up, bright and early, ready to go at 5am - sleeping in apparently only happens at Grandma's house. Your daddy generously got up with you - and prepared to make mommy a gloriously extravagant breakfast in bed, complete with Neighborhood Restaurant style cream of wheat and Eggs Benedict, coffee and fresh fruit - and a beautiful necklace from our favorite children's story.
Meanwhile, you, delighted with exploration, learned how to open your bubble bath bottle, and with it, turned the kitchen floor into a slip-n-slide - leading to Daddy, slippin' and slidin' with the bacon pan, ending up with first degree burns on his thighs, from bacon fat poured generously all over himself (breakfast, however, was still delicious - and merely added to by mildly-too-soon-but-it's-still-funny giggles over the combination of best-laid plans and toddlerhood).
Followed by grins, and snuggles and cuddles, and enthusiastic running through Urgent Care and church squealing "AH-VAHVAHVAH" in delight - closest interpretation we can translate that to is "I love you," but we're still not sure. Pulling out broccoli and lima beans everywhere, as you gleefully chortled your way through the hallways, running away from your very pregnancy heavy mommy and your crispy-fried daddy, giving grins to sick toddlers and headaches to hungover teenagers.
Followed by enthusiastic play in the sunshine and the joy of water splashing and spilling everywhere - with soaked toddlers (and parents) and happy grins and blood lips from too many teeth and too much toddler enthusiasm amidst parental tiredness and disappointment in moments that didn't go according to plans, but even so, honored the joy that is parenthood.
Because son, this is parenthood - well-laid plans and unexpected chaos. Joy, and tiredness. Frustration, pain, and inexplicable delight. Messes. Self-sacrifice. Gratitude in the moment, and delayed gratitude. Messy joy. Choosing to laugh rather than cry because really, there is no other way. And joy so inexplicable that only tears can measure it fully.
I love the idea of mother's day - of flowers and breakfasts in bed and sweet notes of thanksgiving - and I will happily receive any and all of those with delight! And, should there be a day without chaos, I will also happily receive that as well. Just tell me when and where.
But the reality is - if all my eggs are in a basket for just this one perfect day - where I feel appreciated, loved, chaos-free and honored - then I will inevitably feel disappointed, both in myself and my ability to be the perfect mom, worthy of the facebook accolades of praise given on this one day, and in my experience of motherhood as well as Mother's Days. Far better, however, I am learning that the joy in motherhood is found in the chaos, not in its absence.
Last night, S, you woke up a few hours after bedtime, I'm guessing from a nightmare - screaming, yet exhausted. When I went in to pick you up, you, my very active, never-stopping toddler, cuddled into my embrace and wrapped your little chubby arms around mine, holding on for dear life, as you gradually hiccuped yourself into quiet. And we rocked and we sang like we used to when you were little... and you, with your soft baby breath, held on to mommy and let me be your rock in the midst of your storm, even as you reminded me of what it really looks like to find joy in the midst of chaos.
This, little one, is the joy in motherhood.
I will never be a perfect mom to either one of you boys. I will fail you, and yet my strength will come through in my willingness to say I'm sorry and ask for your forgiveness, not in my ability to "do it better." And my strength will be in vulnerability and courage - in a love that is fierce, yet tender, and always longs for the best for you even when you are at your worst. That knows that I am honored and worthy daily, with or without flowers and chocolates and breakfasts in bed, even when I'm at my worst - and that demonstrates to you daily, through our love, our silliness, and our discipline, the worth and value you have, given not by your Daddy or by me, although we hope to demonstrate it, but ultimately by your Maker that does not depend on your perfection and comes regardless of your performance.
You will never be perfect sons - nor in any way, will you be able to "make me complete." I am assured and certain that by motherhood, I will come more undone. With each graham cracker crusted fistful of joy and long night awake.
There will be chaos. There will be failure. There will be mess.
But the joy is found in the midst of all of that - the giggles, the sun-soaked glee, the AH-VAHVAHVAH lima-bean enthusiasm, and the snuggles in the middle of the night.
And that is not a consolation prize - that is the prize. Motherhood is a gift that I will never - would never - exchange or return. I am a better woman for it. And I am so deeply deeply honored to be able to be your mommy. Thank you, for giving me the opportunity, each and every day, to trust Jesus more fully, to need Him more, and to learn to find love and beauty and gratitude in every moment.
With love,
Mommy
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