Motherhood Currently.

It has been a year since I've written in this space.

And in that year I got to become a mom again! My baby boy, August, made his way into the world in early May and ignited a light I didn't know was out. He is the piece I didn't know was missing. He is the gift I didn't know I was praying for. 

And in all his glorious, adorable, delicious existence, he has also been my most "challenging" baby. All of my babies have had colic in some form but this boy had me questioning my primal mothering abilities. I had always prided myself on knowing my children on a spiritual level, void of words, just knowing exactly what they needed simply by being connected to them on a different level and having this insane confidence that I knew what I was doing. But in those early days with August, amongst the nonstop crying, no, SCREAMING, after all the diaper changes, the bouncing, the rocking, the 27th humming of Edelweiss...I sat on my bed with him and thought maybe I didn't know what he needed. And it was devastating. 

Luckily, my logical brain took over and so did google, and I joined some groups of women who had babies with colic, generally "high-needs" babies, and I read over all the cures for acid reflux, fussiness, and traditional colic. I tweaked my diet and cut out a lot of dairy, I spent most of my days on a yoga ball because for the love of God he liked it, and we learned how to time administering gripe water at the perfect time to ease whatever baby ailments he had. But also time. He kind of grew out of the worst of it. 

Make no mistake, he is still pretty "high needs." He requires a lot of holding and a lot of attention and still a lot of bouncing. He's very particular. He has no chill. But he's also amazing, obviously. He has a smile that takes up space and his whole body goes right along with it. 

 

I'm lucky. I'm lucky because I didn't have PPA or PPD. But I got a couple of quick glimpses of what that might look like and feel like in those moments where I was second-guessing everything my baby needed. And what I once didn't understand I now have an idea. 

I feel like God does that to me a lot. Things I didn't understand, judged or criticized at one point or another, He serves it up to me loud and clear and He puts me in my place. I think God does that a lot until you get it. And, no, I didn't get PPA or PPD and, no I never judged it when someone else did. I'm speaking in more general terms and I don't think God gives you something like that. I just think sometimes He needs you to experience things so you can have a deeper compassion for others so that you may become a better human. 

So I had this baby and the thing about having a baby ten years after you thought you were done having babies forever is you get a chance to savor everything about having a baby. For years I tried to remember what babyhood looked like for my other three. I couldn't remember a lot. Especially with Lola. I would often think - if I could go back I would hold their littleness tight and breathe them in and enjoy every single second of them before they grew. Especially with Christian. 

Well, when you have a surprise baby ten years later you get to do that. You get to do all those things you said you would do if your kids were babies again. He reminds me of Christian. It's a bittersweet gift but I absorb it and feel it in with my whole self and I spend a lot of time staring at him. In a way, August has reignited how much I love being a mother and how much I like being with my kids (most of the time). Not that I didn't like being with my older kids. It's just as they get older, they're doing their thing, spreading their wings, and you naturally separate and they become their own little human. 

I think I got wrapped up in becoming my own big human. I needed to be something greater and bigger than a mother because they were growing up.  I felt like I needed to do more to contribute to the world and leave an imprint and I still struggle with those feelings. Why? Because that's what our world and our culture values. Motherhood is not valued. Not like it should be. Productivity, fruitfulness, work, achieving, having lots of things, titles, degrees...that's what's valued. And for good reason! I value some of that! But before August I felt like if I wasn't doing those things I wasn't contributing. 

And then when you are a single parent, you are all things. It's very hard to remember to absorb all the precious moments when everything rests on your shoulders. Motherhood looked very different as a single parent. It was forever stressful and I felt like I had something to prove. Another one of those extended moments that gave me a lifetime of compassion for those who are doing Motherhood alone. I also have immense gratitude that I'm not doing it alone and I can be the kind of mother I want to be to my kids. Because that shit is hard.

When I was sharing my thoughts on this about a year ago, a good friend stopped me and said, "...but you are contributing. You're taking care of your children." 

So right now I'm immersed in that. I'm absorbing my children. I'm valuing motherhood by practicing it and writing about it and remembering it. Even when I feel like I don't know what I'm doing.