We, the unwilling, led by the unknowing, are doing the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, we are now qualified to do anything with nothing.
~ Mother Teresa
About a week or so ago a friend posted a variation of this quote on his Facebook wall. This was not the first time I had ever seen it and initially it gave me a chuckle. When you think about who said it, you see it from an entirely different perspective. The context, in which I am using it today, is yet another. This is sort of a Mothers Creed if you ask me.
Tonight my Facebook friend Marsha M. was crying out to her friends the frustration she was feeling as a young mother and wife. I truly remember those days. Marsha, it will not always be this way….well not every day. So while you are spinning around on that merry-go-round of seemingly endless duties don’t lose heart. Somedays it will feel like a rollercoaster instead!
I have decided that God knew what he was doing when he had our children arrive as infants. Sweet little bundles with slobbery toothless smiles. Well, how can you resist that? What if they came, say around the age of six? Front teeth missing, bubble gum stuck in the top of a hairdo made possible with scissors the package swears will only cut paper. Band-Aids stuck everywhere, even though there is no booboo. I’m thinking we would not have been all that impressed and said none for me thanks.
You will never be able to get the markers on a high enough shelf and they will always decide to do a little creative body art mere hours before pictures are scheduled to be made. Worms, crayons, and all manner of little plastic toys will go through the washer and dryer. You will find your silverware in the yard, grow eyes in the back of your head and be able to distinguish the cry of your child from any other in a room filled with 200 people.
All this time you will tell yourself, I will get a break when he starts school. Guess again sister! When school starts they come home with a list of 10,000 site words that they must learn or your child will not be promoted to first grade. Learning those words can feel like nailing jello to a tree. Once promoted, there is another list of words to be memorized, or project to be done that you will find out about 11pm the night before it is due. (Perhaps you will be the mom that reads/signs the agenda every night and will not have these little surprises. I never seemed to master that.)
Our children are more concerned with what their book bag or lunch box looks like than their clothing when they are little. I can’t tell you how many times Alex went to school with two different colored socks on. I would look at her and say, I bet you have two pair of those! She just grinned. You will then see that some things really don’t matter. Funny how a 5 year old can teach you that two pair of socks can easily be turned into four!
We all have days where we are exhausted and have the sensation of feeling our way around in the dark. I never understood why my mom always wanted me to go to bed early. It seemed like she was always saying “Go to bed, get some sleep, and don’t stay up all night”. She should have teaching me how to operate off of as little sleep as possible! I now know she was really saying, “Go to bed, sleep while you can!”
We all want our husbands to understand that it is not babysitting but parenting and no, the laundry never, ever gets done and all put away. When you look around and see toys in the floor, bills piled high and your child eating a candy cane and it's the middle of August. Don’t lose heart. Go over and ask your husband if two can play the video game he is enjoying and put your mommy hat on the shelf for a little while. It will all be there when you come back to it, trust me.
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