I love parenting children under five. They’re overly demanding, throw fits hourly, and eat their boogers. That’s not all I love about them though. They are precious, innocent, and still want to please Mom and Dad. They haven’t mastered lying yet. Pretty much everything other than the fits and booger eating is funny or amazing. You take a million pictures of them a day because EVERYTHING is monumental. “Johnny ate a burger for lunch, isn’t he cute?” Above all, they still know they need us. They need us to open their package of crackers and tie their shoes. They need us to kiss every injury, even when it doesn’t really hurt.
Some of these things may not sound like blessings. I get annoyed by hearing the same question 20 times in a row despite the fact I’ve answered it all twenty times. I just want to get the dishwasher emptied or take a phone call. Why can’t you play quietly for five minutes? I want some sleep. I’ve never been so tired in my life. Please stop crying. I don’t know what else to do. Quit wiping your snot on the furniture! A lot of times, I just tune it all out.
My oldest child is 11. She was my only child for 6 years. I always thought I didn’t want another baby because I didn’t want to love anyone as much as I loved her. I felt as though I would be betraying her. She was my everything. Then, I got baby fever when she was 5. I talked my husband in to having another. I didn’t have to wait for baby fever again because I got pregnant with my youngest when my middle son was 2. Now, my youngest is two and I’m realizing we are at the end of the firsts.
People like me who love to nurture littles until the end of time wrestle with having more children. My situation is a bit different as there are one million and one reasons why I should never be pregnant again. I KNOW that I do not want to carry another child. I KNOW that my husband and I do not need any more kiddos around here. That doesn’t stop me from craving more babies from time to time. In a perfect world I’d just keep having them.
More than anything, this is about entering into a new period of life. No more flutters in the tummy. No more heartburn or peeing when you laugh simply for the sake of growing a human. There will be no more first breaths and first steps. That chapter of my life is over. Parting with that brings a grief of its own.
As I reflected on this, I realized that ultimately, I just need to be needed. As a stay-at-home mom my entire universe revolves around all the little things I do to take care of my kids. For more than a decade I have been a mom of littles. What will I do? I still have a few more years of this, but after that it's gone. If I’m struggling with this, I’ll really be in trouble when the kids are grown and move out to lead their independent adult lives.
I know that my children will always need me. I still need my mom. I may not have to open packages of fruit snacks or wipe tushies, but I will always be mommy.
Kommentare