So thankful for these boys that call me mom and the grace of God that keeps me pressing on...
"What
I didn’t realize was what happens behind the storybook pages—underneath
the strollers and the names and the “Mom” title. I didn’t know how
deeply love could hurt, how much I’d be changed by it. I didn’t
understand that there was a another character that complemented my mom’s
feed-us, take-care-of-us, do-fun-stuff-with-us
side we saw every day. That at night, she sometimes cried for us, prayed
for us, worried about us, planned for us, examined and reexamined her
choices, wondering if they were the right ones for us. As my kids get
older—and really, probably more likely as I get older and learn
more about the world—I understand this more. That motherhood is so much
more than reading books and going for walks and having tickle fights on
the bed. But the best way for me to process the intensity and the hard
parts is to read books, go for walks and have tickle fights on the bed.
We don’t draw chalk rainbows and hula-hoop in the driveway because we
think life’s a big unicorn. We do it because we know it’s not. We accept
that it’s hard, demanding, sad and lots of times confusing, so we bring
the rainbows and hula-hoops. And we color and twist our hips like it’s our job.
The same goes for motherhood.
It
is hard, it is exhausting, it pushes our limits, it pulls our emotions.
So we lean in to all of it and draw fuel for the Ebb from the excess of
the Flow.
Every
time I face challenges in motherhood, whether it’s exhaustion,
frustration or sadness, I run for the hula-hoop. Hitch up the stroller
for a walk, cue the music for a kitchen dance, watch them chase each
other around the kitchen island in fits of giggles, play airplane from
our bed, sketch hopscotch squares in the driveway, pull them into my
neck and smell their cheeks, kiss their foreheads, feel them breathe. It
doesn’t make the challenges go away, but it smoothes the path to go
through them." - Kelle Hampton
