As our family enjoys a babymoon at our house, it is my pleasure to share with becoming claudine readers special guest posts from bloggers who are mothers. These are women graciously sharing words and pictures about birth and mothering. Each has a wonderful reflection about the complexity, joy, challenges, happiness and gifts of mothering, and I am truly privileged to host their stories over the next several weeks. Enjoy!
I was 19 when I brought my first baby into the world. I wasn’t ready to go to college at 19, much less be a mother. That said, I believe that a child comes into a mother’s life at a time and for a purpose. Without this little one who shattered the path I was on and helped me make a change that I couldn’t make on my own, I would not be the woman I am today.
From day one, as I held my baby girl, I knew that she was supposed to be mine. Not that it was easy. I was a single mom. She was a trying child. We walked a path in the floor on the nights when the only thing that would calm her tears was the rhythm of my footfalls and the sound of my heart in her ear as she snuggled against my chest. We read and sang. We laughed and grew up together. She tried my patience and taught me what it really means to love. The Gilmore Girls? They got nothin’ on us.
It’s hard to admit that a child is what brought me courage. It’s humbling to share that she taught me who I really am. With every battle, we learned a little more about one another. With every tear I dried, I learned something more about sacrifice. With every triumph, I learned how it felt to have taught her (with a small army of loyal help and love for me too!) how to be strong, fearless, and full of life.
The year The Teenager turned 12, we welcomed her baby sister into our family. Amante and I had been married three years. The circumstances of her birth were far different than those of her sister’s. But that doesn’t change the fact that they are both mine. In many ways, they are polar opposites. Kate is tall and skinny where The Teenager is shorter and softer around the edges like I am . She’s blonder and more fair where The Teen is dark and brooding. She will sit and play for hours. The Teenager has never been content to do one thing at a time for long. But in other ways, they are identical. Their laughs are infectious. They both love to read, sing, play games. They want to be IN the world experiencing it instead of viewing it from the grandstand. They both have fiery Irish tempers (they get that from me!). And most importantly, they love with the deepest most honest depths of their hearts. It has taken time to go from being Mom and Teen to being Mom, Teen and Toddler. But we are growing together, just like The Teenager and I did in the first eight years of her life.
Today, there is nothing in the world, tough as motherhood is, that I would rather do than raise my girls. There is nowhere I would rather be than home with them, sharing their moments, listening to their squabbles, drying their tears. This life as a mom is not glamorous. It’s often thankless, filled with late nights and early mornings. There are moments when I don’t know what to do, don’t how to answer their questions, don’t know how to meet their needs. There are often moments when I ask myself what the heck I got myself into.
And then I remember: I birthed these babies. I brought them into the world. They are GIFTS. I was chosen to raise them. I was picked, out of millions of women, to be THEIR mother. And that gives me the courage and creativity to solve most any problem they throw at me.
They are love and light and peace.
They are the embodiment of grace.
They are beautiful.
They need me, and I need them.
We work in an amazing tandem as we weave in and out of our days...
