365 as mom
“Can we please keep the bathroom door closed so he doesn’t eat the toilet paper or splash in the toilet (or eat the toilet paper after it’s been splashed in the toilet)?” is what I asked James an hour before jotting down some thoughts reflecting on my first year as a mom.
Had planned on writing what sage things I’ve learned about motherhood, but after repeating that question again out loud to myself I need to audible to something else.
Maybe more along the lines of what I’ve learned about myself. It’s been the best year of my life. Best, most joy-inducing, sin-revealing, awe-inspiring, and sanctifying year of my life.
I’ve learned just as much (more?) about who I am as wife, daughter, sister, Christian, and reporter as who I am as a mom these past 365 days.
‘Cause it’s not like I’ve had to impart life lessons or navigate discipline or simultaneously manage a toddler and a newborn. (How do moms do that??) No, but I have had to catch myself robotically snapping at [husband] James when I’m tired. (Ah, but tired here seems like cop-out. Just end the sentence at James, period.) Or giving off an aroma of resentment when he’s out of the house 8-6 M-F WORKING while I’m balancing working from home with a part-time (godsend-of-a) nanny. You know, the short fuse at night before bedtime or the text message with a hint of attitude- just so he KNOWS how challenging the balancing act has really been that day while he’s out of the house playing golf— errr working. (At risk of rounding like a brat, I have to remind myself of this.) Or trying to people-please so it can seem like I’ve got it all under control. (“Yes of course let’s do this, this, and this, and this/this/this at Christmas and it’s all goooood!”)
So much of the past year has been like dunking your head under cold water and coming up for air in hopes of feeling refreshed and renewed as you vehemently vow to look onward and upward, but having selfishness and pride and insecurity slowly… streak… down your face as unavoidable remnants and stark reminders that you can’t just merely try harder the next day “to do better” without really, really confronting the root of it first and foremost.
I thrive on “hard.” I love a challenge, always have. Pumping in the bathroom stall of the press box while taking second-half notes on my phone. Accepting a new position at work two weeks before James was born. Naturally drawn to the when-the going-gets-tough, the-tough-get-going mantra as applicable in 9/10 situations. Yada, yada, yada. Check the boxes and cross off the to-do list.
But those things are actually my “easy,” I think. I know.
Some of my “hard” in actual reality: not teetering between an image that’s both Godly and worldly depending on how I feel that day (it’s an art!); justifying to myself why I “deserve” to feel/act a certain way (comes naturally); or caring too much about the approval of others (and questioning every other sentence in writing this post).
That last point brings me to this from Cleere Cherry:
“I think we are really hungry, honestly, for not the trendy kind of authenticity, but true authenticity, the kind that strips away the pretense and allows us to actually be where are at. We live in a culture of fig leaves. We have all different kinds of things we use to cope and conceal and control. We are so used to applying filters. I don't think we are aware of how much our decisions to alter the outside affect our emotional health and spiritual awareness on the inside. While we may not think that applying a temporary filter to our outside automatically tells our insides you're not enough or you're too much, we inherently begin to do the same thing with the inside. What begins as an initial touch-up to the external turns into a constant obsession. We desperately want to be known by Jesus and by others and by ourselves, but we are terrified of what it requires. We have trained ourselves with hiding what isn't presentable or cool in our minds. And the problem is when others say they love us or when we hear that Jesus loves us, we cannot even fully receive that love because we know it's not the real us that we are presenting.
“I wonder how much of life we don't run after. It's normalized. In efforts to chameleon ourselves, we don't know who we are outside of who we think we should be or what others think we should be. Who am I in God? What do we enjoy? What lights us on fire? By working to gather fig leaves, think about how little time you actually have left to pursue what matters. Isn't that a little heartbreaking?
“The intimacy we crave is on the other side of us willing to be unfiltered. God's greatest desire is intimacy with us. He knows that intimacy is only built through trust. God is never mad that we surrender the raw version of ourselves to Him. The more honest you are with yourself, others, and Jesus, the more free you will become. Honesty is brave, countercultural, and beautiful. You are not supposed to age backwards. You aren't supposed to not have scars from life and circumstances.”
Scars and such. When doubt creeps in, I tell myself I’d rather get rocked by an old-school, neck-roll-wearing Mike ‘backer coming free through the A-gap than be RB4 on the sidelines. Really living.
I put shoes on my one-year-old for the first time on Day 364 of his life so take this with a grain of salt. But three things that I confidently speak on after the past year:
1) The No. 1 thing that has helped James and I: Our days/weeks/lives go much smoother when we read our Bible together out loud at night or in the morning before baby James is awake or after he’s in bed. Just 10 minutes a couple/few times a week makes a huge difference. Doesn’t matter how much or how little you know when you start. There will be a million other things that need your attention at the time and sitting down at the dining room table reading Scripture together often sounds like a mentally taxing chore, but ya never regret it afterwards.
2) When I start to question what I’m doing as a mom re: napping, eating, schedule, etc. (hahah all the freakin’ time), I try to ask myself, what if this was our third? It’d be chaos and conflicting schedules and more of whatever goes by default. And so we’ve mainly operated with a looooose schedule. Our instructions for our year-and-a-half-old lab were longer the first weekend we left her than what we gave our parents for our kid when we left for the UK for two weeks. But that’s what works for us. If you need a stricter schedule for your sanity, then own it!!! Pick a direction and go with it even (especially) if you have no idea if it’s the right direction. Then pivot if it’s not working. Who cares what your friend/SIL/random girl is doing? The number of different ways to parent the early months will consume you if you let them.
3) How long/if you nurse should be the least interesting thing about you as a mom. Ending with a vulnerable bang here! I nursed James for 7 mos. Nursed/pumped exclusively for 4.5 mos., then supplemented with formula for the last 2.5 or so because I couldn’t keep up with the amount he needed. It was taking me pumping 3x to fill up one 6 oz bottle toward the end. Looking back, was I determined to reach 7 mos. because I was convinced that’s what was best for him— or because I had an arbitrary number in my mind and was focused on reaching it? A mix of both but more of the latter. Like I said—I crave hard. Like if it’s hard then it must be good. WRONG. It was my ego that told me I needed to reach 7. Not my doctor or my mom or anyone else. So many variables when it comes to nursing. Take the pressure off, even if it’s all internal.
It applies the other way, too. If nursing comes easy and 12 mos. is a breeze(-ish), then ignore those who suggest it’s not worth it. Heck yeah it’s worth the effort if you think it’s worth the effort. Least interesting. Both sides of spectrum.
Most days as a mom you don’t go 120 seconds without thinking of a tiny person. If it’s not what’s-for-lunch, it’s trying to unload three forks and a plate from the dishwasher before he dives through the dog door and out onto the porch. If it’s not fighting tooth and nail to change a diaper (open to any and all suggestions), it’s picking him from his nap and holding on so so tight to sleepy cuddles. If it’s not being in his presence, it’s missing his presence. But also when you’re not missing his presence, it’s wondering if you should be missing it.
It’s looking at him wondering daily how you got so incredibly lucky and knowing that there’s no other love like it. But also allowing yourself to feel disbelief over the fact that how much you love him dims(!) in comparison to how much our Savior loves all of us.
”Or what man is there among you who, when his son asks for a loaf, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he will not give him a snake, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give what is good to those who ask Him!”- Matthew 7:9-11
I wish I could write here all that I’ve learned (and forgotten) and learned again (and daily must preach to myself again and again and again because oh how easy it is to get swept up by the ways of this world) about grace and heaven. But I’ll link some of it if you’re interested.
Here is the beautiful gist of what I must remind myself constantly. (And here for Part II)
Here is a 40-minute podcast episode centered on the story of Jonah that encapsulates every human heart.
And Tim Keller’s short podcast series on marriage here. Home run of an excerpt:
“The real mistake is you feel like the conflict marriage has brought you into is a conflict with your spouse. Not a bit. The power of marriage is this: marriage brings you into a confrontation not with your spouse, but yourself.
“It gets you by the scruff of your neck and puts you in front of a mirror and says, 'Look at these things.' Marriage helps you escape from your sins because it's inescapable!!! Marriage will show you your worts and flaws in a way that you can't escape them, and you'll have to cry out to God, and say 'Lord, only you can help me.' And that's the beginning of your healing. Proverbs says iron sharpens iron and friend sharpens friend and if that's true of good friends, how much more will the ultimate friendship -- a marriage -- do that? It's constructive conflict. You ought to think of each individual that goes into a marriage as a rough stone put into a gem tumbler and the gem tumbler brings you into constructive conflict with one another, knocking the rough edges off so that when you come out of that tumbler, you're beautiful, smooth, and polished. And the glories inherent in that gem are revealed for the eye to see.”
Webb Simpson (golfer who co-hosts a great podcast) complimented his wife and mom-of-five, Dowd, by saying: “She fulfills herself by denying herself so that the ones she can’t live without can live without her.”
This is the goal. Fulfilling by denying. Work in progress. But that’s the answer. The only answer.
OK bye thanks for reading this far. All three of you.
-AA