Well I just drastically found myself walking down the rabbit hole of memory lane… I’ve been here before. In a quiet house. Nothing but the sounds of wind blowing outside, the heater kicking on, the animals snoring, and in the midst of twinkly Christmas lights. The fire is crackling and my eyes are fuzzy from the long (but blessed) day I’ve had. I remember being here because the feelings of just wanting to write have graced me once more. Those days don’t come often…I just don’t make time for it like I used to. But before I crawl into bed beside my snoozing husband, I just want to write so that I don’t forget. Or so that when I do forget…I can come back and relive some of this life.
I launched this blog in 2015. Somehow five years have come and gone, and tonight as I sat in the silence I scrolled all the way down to my very first blog posts. In the middle I paused and read about our Humphrey and Elsa passing, and my heart hurts as I now write. One of the posts I also re-read was when our kids were two and three years old…in that post I described that season as magical and beautiful and how hard it was for me that the days were so fleeting. I was convinced that THOSE would be the best years I would experience….You may judge me just a little that right now, I kind of wonder if that I was right?
I’m not saying that I don’t love the stages that my kids are in NOW. They are seven and eight years old (HOW?!?) and oh my, you KNOW I love them each so dearly. But the last couple of years I will have these moments of aching for the days now behind us. New mamas reading this or expectant mamas…I used to want to punch people in the face when they told me to embrace the chaos that existed in those little years. How dare them tell me to EMBRACE the screaming and crying that often occurred when going out to eat or when pushing a shopping cart with each of them in it. Yet here I am…32-years old, wishing I had embraced those moments just a little bit tighter.
I did the best that I could have. You don’t know what you don’t know, especially when it comes to marriage and motherhood. You just DON’T! You excel, you succeed, you kick ass, and then often you also fail. Each day, you do the best you can with what you have, and you go to bed exhausted and you wake up wondering if you’re doing a good job. As I sit here, half way on my couch looking around our home…I miss the newborn days. I miss the toddler years. Heavens to Betsy, I actually MISS when they were each a threenager. Lately, their relationship with each other has been just plain tough. They fight. A lot. They bicker, they tattle, and I know I sound like I’m painting them into this awful corner of horrid children; that’s not my goal. And that’s not what I mean. But life lately is just different. They are so much bigger and maybe because they are only fifteen months apart, they simply struggle to merely get ALONG.
My relationship as their MOM, is different. I have noticed with Pierson especially, my sweet baby boy; he loves me now SO differently. His dad is his everything—his role model, his super hero, his biggest inspiration! And that is GREAT!! What a blessing that my kids have such a present and magnificent father! My big kid third grader sees me, his mama, a lot differently now compared to when he was tiny. Not to mention he’s more than half my height, and I can remember writing about being scared of the day when they’d each no longer fit in my arms. Well guess what? I can pick them up if I really need to, but y’all, they don’t FIT.
One of my sister in laws once told me she has loved every single stage of motherhood. I think I must have asked how she has handled them getting bigger and turning into the mini big kids that they are? And while I agree, I love every stage because I’m their MOM. I will always love them and celebrate them and I will forever cheer them on. But at the moment, I think I more so feel that this stage of motherhood kind of hurts? If I could turn back even a morsel of time, I wish we were in our old house, Jackson street near downtown Louisville—and that they would be tiny once again. Tiny enough to curl into my lap, that they needed to be rocked to sleep, that they needed ME because they didn’t yet have video games or Netflix or neighbor friends or other busy plans. Sounding selfish? Perhaps.
I want to make sure that I say this: my kids are amazing. They are beautiful and strong; they are intelligent and they love Jesus. And I KNOW they love each other…at the end of the day, they are generally asking if they can stay up late together and have sleepovers on each other’s floors. They are obedient and funny and their personalities are exploding as they figure out WHO they are. They still want ME to lie with them every single night, to tickle their backs and bellies and to sing a song or listen to one on Spotify…they hug me daily and tell me that they love me. They cheer ME on and support me on my many creative endeavors. They are GOOD kids.
Maybe it’s the twinkly lights and the silent house? Christmas is near and I often reminisce about those first few, where they were crawling or toddling around the tree. When life was crazy and chaotic, but at the same time…it felt a little simpler? It could also be the pandemic fatigue spurring on these feelings too, y’all know we can’t discount that we are TIRED people as a whole right now. I write all of this to say, no matter where your kids are in this season of life, no matter how big or small they are, no matter what YOU personally are feeling; let’s take a second (or some hours!!) and try to embrace their stages right NOW a little more. Are you up all night nursing and burping and wondering if you’ll ever sleep again? (You will.) Are you wondering how in the world your threenager is wearing you out SO damn much and anxiously awaiting for them to turn FOUR? (They will…and then they’ll turn five. And six. And seven. And eight…) See, this is a reminder for ME too…as I wonder if my seven and eight year old will ever need me again or if they’ll ever be the very best of friends. (Ashley…they will.)
Memory lane…it can be a beast to walk down can’t it? Here’s a quote I want to end on, my soul sister Jen Hatmaker said it in her book ‘Of Mess and Moxie:”
“Of course, in a hundred years, no one will remember any of us and our story will be lost in obscurity, but for us, for all these years when we were kids and then grown-ups, when you were young parents and then grandparents, this is the only story that ever mattered, and it was such a marvelous one. The best story I ever imagined.”
While I sit and remember, and as I remember the hardships and the blessings…I am incredibly thankful that this IS my story—and that I am their Mom.
