As a mom of teenage kids down to toddler I can experience a whole array of child related occurrences in a single day. I know the days are long and sometimes, perhaps often, challenging and exhausting. Correction, always exhausting. By the end of the day and after all of them are safe and warm in their beds it’s about all I can do to drag myself through the rest of my to-do list. From sun up til sun down my day is full of an endless number of tasks. I am doing the things that are by no means glamorous or exciting, but rather necessary, although not uncommon. It is the call of duty taken on by many mothers, every single day, for each and every one of their children. So this is for moms, because although those days are long, the years are short.
For Moms on Those Days
The bible reads “to everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under the heaven”. -Ecclesiastes 3:1.
This is your season. It’s called motherhood.
For moms…
There will be those days…
…when your kids are bickering. Constantly. When they get into wrestling matches or tug of war with a toy, and no matter what you say, it’s like there is a gravitational pull that causes them to just have to touch each other. The noise in your house is nearly more than you can take, and some where along the lines you will experience what a migraine feels like. Some days you are more like a referee than a parent, and phrases come out of your mouth that you never thought would. Like, “Ok, why is their a snail shell in my dryer?”.
There will be those days…
…when you look around your house and feel as if you will never catch up on laundry, or dishes, or vacuuming, or dusting, or your favorite TV show. And the idea of reading a book off your wish list is almost laughable. When you talk about your hobbies your statements always seem to start with “I used to….”, and more often your conversations include, “Yesterday my kids….”. You can detect the smell of urine from a 20 foot radius, and have mastered the art of changing a diaper just about anywhere.
There will be those days…
…when someone rises far too early for no apparent reason. Then, that evening someone else is suddenly afraid of monsters in their closet, and won’t go to sleep until well after their bedtime, even with many reassurances and military like procedures to clear out their room of anything scary. Eventually, the nights will come when your teenagers are out past your bedtime. You are so tired waiting for them, but you also have an uncontrollable desire to greet them at the door so you can grill them for every detail of their night out with friends.
There will be those days…
…when you live for an evening out with your spouse. When date night seems many moons ago and a romantic get away is close to impossible. Your nights together might be more like a bowl of popcorn in bed and half an episode of forensic files because that’s all you could stay awake for. Your conversations consist of a complicated exchange of schedules and “divide and conquer” is a regularly spoken theme.
There will be those days…
…when worrying seems endless and your heart breaks for your kids who are grinding through the struggles of finding themselves in childhood and adolescence. When all you want to do is keep them under your protective wing, but have to face the inevitable moments of releasing them to take flight on their own. You watch them make friends, and at some point you will watch them lose friends. You listen as they talk about their first crush, most likely with your ear pressed to their bedroom door as they Facetime their BFF on their iphone. There are consequences you must enforce when they make bad choices, even though it hurts your heart to do so. Tough love isn’t just hard for the child.
These are those days in parenting. The never ending, draining, frustrating days that you get up for again, and again, and again. These are the days that that you endure in order to shape, and mold, and God-willing raise your kids to become loving, generous, hard working adults. In those moments it might seem like bedtime will never come, like there must be four extra people living in your house without you knowing it based on the amount of laundry you do. You might breakdown, you might get sick with worry, you might feel like you can’t possibly survive your daughter’s dramatic teenage years.
But those days won’t last forever. In fact, one day, there will be no more of those days at all.
One day, there will be those days…
…when there are no more toys in your house to fight over. You will have realized that the bickering and the wrestling matches were merely a primitive form of communication, as an unbreakable bond was being formed between siblings. Your house will still show signs of their once daily presence. Like the marks on the wall where you measured them year after year as they grew, until one day they were no longer growing, but instead, grown.
Those days will come…
…when you look around your impeccably clean house and give anything to step on just one more LEGO piece or find a baby doll tucked sweetly into your bed. You will watch TV, but fondly remember the days when episodes of paw patrol were the only show you saw as your toddler sat next to you with their little leg draped over yours. You will read what you want, every single day. But once in a while you will pick up the now tattered picture book you read to each and every one of your kids, just to feel it in your hands and remember when they fit so perfectly in your lap.
There will come those days…
…when curfews and waiting up for them to come home are no longer your duty. When the early mornings are quiet and possibly the time of day when you miss them being little the most. The monster patrol has long since retired, but a shaggy, worn stuffed puppy still guards their room from a shelf. You wait for the phone calls or texts because you know how busy they are, but what you really wish for is a hug, and to have them sitting at your kitchen counter, feet dangling, while they wait for breakfast in their pajamas.
There will come those days…
…when worrying about dating pales in comparison to worrying about who they will choose as a spouse. They will be flying solo, without you as their compass to guide them. Oh, sometimes they will ask your advice or confide in you the complicated decisions that they must now make as an adult. But they are the pilots, and your heart aches and worries more than you ever thought it could as you watch them steer the plane of life with pride. You pray you raised them right, and that they know home is always, always the place to come when things go wrong.
So right now, if you have one of those days…
…take in the moments of chaos. Watch them play, and wrestle until you have to call the game. Let them crawl in your lap for as long as they fit. Because one day they won’t. Hold their sweet little hand until the day comes when they let go of yours. Breath in their sleepy smell in the morning when they call for you. And chase the away the monsters in the night, until the need for you to come to their rescue disappears with the years. Enjoy every look you exchange with your spouse over a little head when they do or say something that melts your heart. Because one day they may be looking over yours.
With every one of those days that goes by, you are one inch closer to the end of a season. Your journey that felt like miles in the midst of it, will seem like mere baby steps. The days ahead will be full of new beginnings. But the days you are having right now will be missed in more ways than you can count. Those babies, the ones that you hold. The ones that you snuggle, and whose face you know so well, will grow. God gives us this short time because he knows how hard it is. But also, because it fills our hearts so full that it lasts a lifetime.
As much as we want to speed through the challenges, they are the same precious minutes that we wish would last longer. All of the things that become our best memories, we find within the struggle, the weariness, and the sheer joy of those days.
