20-Mar-2008 - Seasons of Motherhood...
You know, being a mom is HARD work. If anyone tells you anything different, they're lying! If you're a mom of only preschool or early school age children, you know I'm telling the truth!
The thing is, I see moms with little kids, and the moms are struggling so much! They might have 2 or 3 kids and they are so bogged down and discouraged. They look at me with 8 kids and say, "I don't know how you do it! I only have 2 kids and I'm dyin'!" The secret is--when I had just 2 or 3 tiny ones, *I* was dyin' too! I was always at my dear Mommy's house because I needed her support. It takes time to "grow into" being a mom. I tell all my friends who stop at 2 or 3 children that they've stopped just when they were getting good at it. And I think that is really true. I was always in love with being a momma, but I never truly embraced motherhood until after I'd had several children. I wish I had appreciated sooner what a sacred vocation I'd been called to. But, in the throes of potty training, obedience training, "terrific" twos, bedtime/naptime battles, and sleepless nights, life sometimes doesn't feel so sacred. I know you know what I mean...
Like I said, the infant/preschool season is the season of hardest physical work for moms. You can't go to the bathroom alone. You can't read a sentence of a book without pudgy fingers and questioning minds and mouths interrupting. You can't sit through a sermon at church because your little one is just learning what "quiet" and "still" mean and is having a hard time implementing those concepts into their busy body! You have to do your husbands laundry, your laundry, the children's laundry. If something is picked up, carried, cleaned, changed, washed, dried, moved, put away, or cooked--*YOU* are the one to do it.
Take heart, momma, there IS light at the end of the tunnel. They grow (all too quickly, by the way--I know you hear it all the time, but it's painfully true), and they mature and they get stronger. They learn (*IF* you train them) to be helpers in the laundry room, kitchen, and around the house in general. They even learn to entertain themselves, and what's really cool (and melts my mommy heart) is that they learn to love interacting with and entertaining younger brothers and sisters and to help with them as well. Here's a picture of our oldest with our youngest. Moments like these happen ALL the time here. But, it took a while to get here.
Comments
21-Mar-2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by cahanbury
Wow. I really needed to hear that. Mine are 6,5,3 and 1 and I am just starting to climb out of the hole that is mothering preschoolers... I see light at the end of the tunnel. It's small, but it's there.
I think I found your blog either on the main page where they list who's online and updated blogs or by clicking from one of my friends to one of their friends and so on. That's how I like to find people.
21-Mar-2008 - Untitled Comment
Posted by Angie
What a great post Lori! This is so true and I was just talking to a neighbor mom of kids 6, 4, and 4 months about this. It wasn't long ago that I felt like that but it really does go by so quickly and then you wonder where that time went. Having 5 kids 3-9 is nothing like when I had 5 kids 0-6. Oh those days were hard.
Thanks for writing this. It's a great encouragement.
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