Mother's Day musings

This past Mother's Day, as with the last few Mother's Days, I celebrated my journey into Mommydom and I honored my mother, my mother-in-law, my grandmother(s), sister/sisters-in-law, aunts, and friends who have been blessed with children. Since I've had kids of my own, I've come to appreciate just how much my own mom did for me.  Thinking about it, she's had 27 years of washing seven kids worth of stinky gym socks and dirty underwear, picking up toys unnoticed until stepped upon, attending musical concerts from kindergarten choirs to high school band performances, disagreeing over chores not getting done and homework not being finished, tending to sick kids, planning high school graduation parties, navigating the minefield that makes up the teenage years, and more recently, sending her children off into the big bad world.  All while working nearly full time hours.  Now, some of us have married and have families of our own.  Some of us have gone on to college, graduated, and now have (or are looking for) 'real' jobs in the 'real' world.  It all makes me contemplate my own future as a parent.  I see my son wanting to do more for himself and if Daddy is heading out in the tractor, it's like I turn invisible. "Mom? What's a Mom? Dad, let's go.".  I see my daughter ready to launch herself out into her future (or at least off the living room couch) even though she isn't even two yet. It's my job to give my children the tools they need to succeed in life but I can't help my kids use them.  That's something they have to learn on their own. I can cushion my daughter's belly flop off the couch but I can't protect her from life and I'm learning to trust she and her brother can venture into life without me being there 24/7.  I can't stop every bump even though I want to.  So, Mother's Day has become a day of contemplation and a reminder for me to take the time to enjoy my children now because they are growing up oh so fast.  They can't stay little forever.

And on this past Mother's Day, as I honored my own mother as well as the other moms in my life, I also said a prayer for all those women who yearn to be moms, feel they are a mom yet have empty arms, and have troubles (whatever they may be) making their dreams of motherhood come true.  Why do I do this?  Simple.  Because I was one of them just a few years ago and I still am one of them, in some ways.  It took two years and three miscarriages before I successfully carried a baby to term.  V was my miracle baby in more ways than one.  A has just reinforced my idea that children are gifts from God because, despite numerous tests being run, I'm still having problems sustaining a pregnancy and my doctors can't say for certain why that is.  I would love to have more children and I don't feel that our family is complete.  Yet I'm content with the two children I have. Knowing what it's like on both sides of the coin makes for a bittersweet yet joyous holiday.  There's joy in knowing I'm a mom because of V and A.  And there's bittersweetness in knowing I have six (yes, six) other babies who aren't here with me.  So, when I celebrate the motherhood of all the moms I know and love, I also honor the ones who-like myself-have empty arms but yearn to be a mother more than anything else.