…but the years are short.
That’s something I repeat to myself a lot lately.
It’s not that I don’t love being home with my son. I absolutely do love it, and I am so thankful I can be home with him.
But when you’re elbow deep in blackberry-stained clothes, a toy-littered living room and your clean laundry hasn’t been folded in weeks, things can start to look fuzzy.
I find that, for me anyway, it seems to move in cycles. One morning, I’ll wake up and think “I can’t do it anymore!! What was I thinking becoming a mom? I can’t handle this!!” and I try so hard to squeeze Ezra into this way that I think he should be, whatever it might be at the time – the perfect napper, the perfect eater, etc… until, another morning, I wake up and think “Well, he is how he is. And that’s okay.” I let it all go.
Today was one of those days where I just let it go. After weeks of struggling to get our naps back to where I thought they should be I realized something – maybe they’re already how they should be. Maybe this right now is just how he needs things to be. It could change tomorrow, or the next day, or the next. Or it may not change.
We ended up having a great day. I don’t know if it was coincidence or what. And if I’m being totally honest, we usually do have great days… but I also filter them through this expectation I have so then I end up thinking it wasn’t great. It’s like I’m afraid to admit that the way things are is just okay. It’s like I think that it means just because it didn’t add up to how everyone else says it should be, I failed.
The other night, while I was nursing Ezra before he fell asleep for the evening, I realized something else. I approach him like “I’ve been around longer than you, so I know better than you what you should be doing.” I just was watching him and it hit me – we shouldn’t be at odds. Or, rather, I shouldn’t be at odds with him. I have been looking at things all wrong the last few weeks, like I needed to fix a problem or that I needed to influence or change things to make them into something better. We should be working together. Every day is a brand new start to just do whatever we’d like to do. It really is that simple.
I don’t know where I’m going with all this, other than to just share what’s been in my head. The main point is that I’ve concluded that somewhere in the every day grind I lost track of things and started looking at this chance at motherhood as a job to excel at rather than a journey to walk through. It’s in my nature to be a perfectionist so maybe that’s what happened. Either way, I’m trying to make the conscious choice to see this place in my life for what it truly is – a blessing, a collection of tiny moments that blow up into this amazing experience, a chance to get to know a unique person who has so many things to tell and show me… I always hear how being a mother is a delicate balancing act, and it’s true. But I think more than anything, it’s a daily choice to accept this person into my life and allow him into mine.
This pic cracks me up because it looks like he’s trying to waltz with me
Loved this post! 🙂
Somewhere I read that parenthood is a process of letting go. And it really is. Letting go of standards of house neatness. Letting go of the idea that every problem can be solved if you work at it hard/long enough (this was a toughie for me – as a successful career lady I figured I could solve ANY parenting problem with enough research and effort). Letting go of the idea that things will go according to plan.
I think you just had a really powerful parenting epiphany there. So congratulations 🙂