Reflections

In which I remember how it used to be and what a bit of perspective has taught me for the future

When my children were babies and toddlers, it sometimes felt like I couldn’t catch a break. I was Mom and in charge 24/7. I was always on call, day or night. It was a life I was grateful for and mothering toddlers has its own unique sense of delight. Some days, though, I did long for just a tiny escape. Even my husband’s 8-5 looked like a reprieve.

I felt this even while I adored being a mother. It was a both and world. It still is, by the way. I had a loving husband who came home after a long day at the office with it’s own set of demands. Ones that I often didn’t see and he was too kind to add to the toddler prattle clanging around in my brain. Delightful as it is, it still reverberates in your head some days. I remember closing my eyes during those moments when the children would rush at their father and vie for the spots closest to him on the couch with one landing on his shoulders and another straddling the back of the couch. Those moments might be the closet to silence I would get until those precious little eyelids closed for the night. Even that mini break was abbreviated with the need to get supper on the table because no one knows hangry like a toddler does.

These days when it’s often only my nine and thirteen year old sons here at the house with me, I realized that I no longer feel that constant alertness, that need to know where everyone is every single second. In the toddler years if let down my guard, no telling what disaster awaited. One afternoon I caught myself thinking, “I haven’t seen the boys in awhile” without the accompanying adrenal rush of the search. The search to account for the safety of each little body. Even when asleep, every mother knows that instant awareness that awakens you at night and requires a check on the babes. It was relentlessly exhausting.

It hit me on one of those days at the park. We homeschool moms had brought our children for play time. It’s not like that anymore. Park playdates are truly fun. I get to sit and chat with mom friends. My guys have enough grown-up under their belts to know how to figure out playing together with others and have a good time. I can’t remember the last time I needed to intervene to settle a squabble and even when some direction is needed, it’s quickly and easily handled. Pushing hydration in the heat is often my biggest stress on those summer park days.

At the park I watched the mom with the tot who loved nothing more than toddling about. Hand him a fun toy and he would inspect in but then instead of sitting and enjoying it, he would carry it about on his forays. For me it was delicious to watch those fat little legs waddle here and there never in one place for more than a second and how quickly he moved! Even full grown adults needed to sprint to catch up. For his mom, it was constant vigilance and even then he would head determinedly towards the road in that millisecond she turned her eyes away from him. Bless her!

Then it hit me again one morning when I was sitting on my favorite porch chair with my coffee and journal and watched my husband drive off to his job. His trip out the door no longer looks like escape. It looks like faithful endurance in his own challenging world of providing for his family. I wonder if he might look at me on my chair with just a bit of longing. The flexibility I now enjoy I imagine could appeal.

Mothering is still a challenge, no doubt, but it’s different now. Seasons do come and go. Pressure points change. What I have learned is that the battle is to learn endurance, to fight patiently. That which threatens to overwhelm will not always do so. Something else will but the endurance you’ve learned will serve you. You will become stronger. Relief will come.

I am called to faithfulness more than the elimination of struggle. Patient endurance I think may be one of the best ways to prepare for future struggle. The perspective the years have given me offers courage for what is to come, hope that struggle can be endured. Growth does happen when I am faithful and always, without doubt, the Father is present.