Today's Mama Moment... Here we go.
Why blog? Why not? I'm a mom, just like so many others, who needs an outlet. A place to write about the oddities in life and those bizarre parenting moments that you can hardly believe actually happened. Most recently... "We do not lick our shoes" and "Don't put the raisins in your bellybutton." Yeah, toddlers are fun. I also need an outlet for the heavy emotions that come with motherhood. The tears and the joys and the questions that we'll never know the answers to. I read somewhere (probably Pinterest, if I had to guess) that when you become a mother, you forever walk around with your heart outside of your body. Never has a more true sentiment been said.
While I'm dealing with the day-to-day, I've recently come to truly recognize how lucky I am to be caught up in "normal." My biggest struggles with my girls involve pre-tween bad behavior and drug resistant ear infections. While I sit here blogging about normalcy, countless Mamas are sitting and watching their children fight for their lives. Babies fighting cancer and other unimaginable horrors. Babies who never get to go to the park, while I often find excuses to avoid taking my girls for an hour of swinging and sliding. Babies who have lived their whole lives getting blood draws, chemo, spinal taps, bone marrow aspirations, and other painful and miserable procedures, while I shed tears over a few antibiotic shots in the chubby thigh of a 1 year old and the fear of anesthesia for a routine tube placement. I am lucky. You probably are too.
So tonight... when the cranky baby, with the ear infection from hell, wails at 1:30am, I'm going to do the same thing I did last night. I'm going to hold her, comfort her, take her out to the couch with me, and thank my lucky stars that the only battle she is fighting is a miserable earache. I'm going to do my best to make her feel better, and use this experience as a lesson in thankfulness and appreciation.
And when I can hardly keep my eyes open tomorrow, I will prep the 8 year old and her Daddy for their first Girl Scout Father/Daughter Cake Decorating event, and I will smile. I'll drink more coffee than any one person really should, and I'll be thankful for that sleepless night. A night with a crying baby in my arms, looking to me for love and comfort. And then I'll think about a baby boy, all the way on the other side of the country, whose Mama wishes more than anything that she could pick him up and hold him. I will think about her struggle to decide how long to keep fighting, and how long to keep hoping for her miracle. That baby has taught me a wonderful lesson, and no matter what the outcome of their story may be, he and his family have been an inspiration to this Mama. Baby Matthew has made me see my life just a little bit differently, and appreciate a night (more like a month's worth of nights) that I would have otherwise complained about.
Perspective is a powerful thing.
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