Confession: I want to skip past this chapter of my life
A few days ago I did something that I regret: I took time to curl my hair with a curling iron. Most days it is tied up in a ponytail or bun but every so often I’ll style it just to feel a little more feminine. While curling my hair, my youngest child was bouncing around on my bed so I could watch her and I wondered to myself why I didn’t do self care more often. This task only took about 12 minutes and it felt really nice. Towards the end, my youngest jumped down, announced she’d brush her teeth and ran quickly in and out of my bathroom. When she came out, I saw her holding my electronic toothbrush, doing her best to mimic me. After unplugging my curling iron, I took the toothbrush and put it back where it belonged and the two of us went about our day.
That evening, as I was giving her a bath I looked at my cream colored bathroom walls and noticed little smears of toothpaste that I hadn’t seen that morning. Rolling my eyes, I reached for some toilet paper and wiped it off. Then I found some more. Wipe. Then I found some more. I sighed and mentally complained that toothpaste on the walls was exactly why I didn’t take time to style my hair anymore. I was over bath time and grabbed the hanging white towel to dry off my daughter. I carried her to her bedroom, laid her on the ground with the towel and began to dress her. As I reached for her clothes I realized I had white on my forearm. Weird. Even weirder that it was toothpaste. Then I saw there was some on my daughter’s belly. What the? Then I saw more all over my shirt. It dawned on me that there was white toothpaste all over the white towel that I had wrapped her up in. I hadn’t seen it because it was white on white. Now the white was all over me, her, and the carpet. I have no idea how she got that much toothpaste on the walls and towel during the 30 seconds she was in my bathroom that morning.
Welcome to my life.
Sigh. She isn’t a bad kid and I’m not a lazy parent. She’s just an independent-almost-three-year-old and I’m her momma. This means that it is my job to be the regulated adult and her job to learn how to be taught, guided, and corrected. I often have to remind myself that my youngest hasn’t lived a lot of life. Three years ago she was still in the womb being sustained by an umbilical cord. I need to have realistic expectations—not just for her but also for myself. I expect her to be messy. I expect her to have trouble sleeping in her room from time to time. I expect her to throw tantrums and do unkind things.
But what do I expect of myself? I’m not really sure actually. All I can think about during times like this is that my mom did it for me. Whatever “it” happened to be. Kissing my boo-boos. Getting up from the table to bring me water. Wiping up the toothpaste. Not raising her voice at me. Accepting me for who I was at the time and who I was becoming.
I want to be a mom like that. A mom who looks at her imperfect child and loves and accepts her anyway. If I’m honest, it’s really hard for me to have that mindset when I’m wiping up toothpaste from the walls and carpet. But that is when it is the most important.
It’s ok to have the long nights and the longer days. They are life. The nights and days are a gift, whatever they look like. One day, there will be no more days. I don’t need to hurry toward that.
From a parenting perspective, there is a lot of hard in my life right now. It is all a gift; the fun things and the hard things. Lord, thank you for the gift of the long nights and the longer days.
To close, here’s a poem I wrote for my mom after my first daughter was born. It is a reminder to me of how quickly the time goes.
“Remember” My Precious daughter you do not remember the nights I rocked you and held you close You do not recall the things I whispered or the way I gazed at your tender breathing in the darkness Or how every time I held you my heart broke a little more because I knew the day would come when you would not need these arms And so these arms that held you, fed you, clothed you, soothed you now ache from the weight of your absence and I am left with a breaking heart Then somewhere in the darkness a baby cries and I watch you hold her to your chest In your arms you rock her, soothe her and you think that she will not remember the things you whisper in the moonlight I see your heart break just as mine did as you hold her in your arms and you think that she will not remember But in that sacred brokenness is where you understand my love for you And as you rock your precious daughter it is as if you are back inside my arms and somewhere in that moment I know that you remember
