Son, here’s the thing. Sometimes come 9pm mama is just flat out done.
So when you peer down from that top bunk bed eye to eye with me and question the end of your day with the everlasting, “but whyyyyy?,” a small world flashes before my eyes.
It’s been over 12 hours since I woke you up over and over again. I’ve found lost back packs and missing shoes and matching socks (sometimes). I’ve cooked breakfast sausages or poured cereal and delivered you on time and well loved and (mostly) without shouting to school. And then I’ve blinked and picked you up at school again.
We’ve been to the playground and I’ve pushed your baby sister on the swings. I’ve emptied mulch out of her crocs for what feels like one hundred million times and I’ve remembered the bottled water but always forgotten the snacks.
You’ve run and scootered and played soccer with your friends and I’ve pushed and pulled and cajoled to get you both out of there and off to pick up your middle brother from preschool. I’ve parked and unbuckled car seats and opened doors and pushed school bells and signed check out sheets and gathered up all the art papers and pencil drawings in the whole wide world while slinging your sister under one wailing arm and the car keys and my bag under the other.
I’ve loaded you all up again and driven you home and answered a bajillion “why?” questions and finally turned up the radio and declared it “singing time.” The closest to quiet time I can get between the three of you.
Your blink-of-an-eye days age me. How they’re all marathon and sprint all rolled up into one. And how I feel them in my greying hair roots and tired bones and stretch-marked heart.
….if this sounds familiar -keep reading with me over at the What to Expect When You’re Expecting blog, won’t you. Just click here.
This sounds sooo familiar to my days :) What a beautiful post…
I love it when you write about this stuff. Seriously. We are friends simply for the fact that I can say “what? You too?! Oh thank goodness.” :)
Your children are beautiful. My fourth grandson is coming to visit so I’ll be posting his pic. hahahahahahaha He’s quite an active boy for three. hahahahahahaha
I love re-living those days with you….my four are all grown up and gone and just when I thought those days were a blur…you help me remember. Thank you.
You’re posts almost always make me cry. This one found the tears flowing, for sure. So, so true. I’m learning that it’s all about giving myself away till I think there can’t possibly be any of me left, but I get such priceless treasure in return. It’s exhausted bliss looking into those big blue eyes and swiping back her soft brown hair. So worth it, but man am I tired.
Thank you for writing today!
Oh, the 9 p.m. totally wiped out feeling. Been-there-done-that this week.
I had that bedtime conversation with my husband last night and maybe the night before.
I promised the four-year-old last night that I would do whatever it takes to have him in bed by 8 p.m. for the rest of the month. Nothing good comes from having him up later (on a regular basis). His daddy thinks he needs discipline late at night. I think sleep is the answer. So. there. Summertime fun! (Or not).
Mama to six, almost five to almost 17.
Yes. This is it isn’t it – the marathon-sprint of motherhood from sun rise to bed time and every moment in between. Lovely words, friend, as usual :)
Always LOVE your posts!! So encouraging and real!
I’ve laughed yeses through this and now all I want to do is sit, close my eyes to all the boxes and try not to cry, because I have only a handful of precious minutes to sit still. Let’s get together, drink coffee and discuss our love/hate relationship with cardboard boxes and packing tape. Thank you for just making us all say AMEN! :)
Your posts have given me HOPE from the first time I discovered you. It’s the one thing that’s kept me going in the last year. I have always acted in ways that were patient, kind, living, and investing in my two grandsons we are raising despite the weariness in my soul. What does one do when you have lost the sparkle in your own eye, the anticipation of interacting with little ones, the spontaneity, the “being in the moment”?
The weariness inside me now matches the outside of me and I feel like the life is being sucked out of me whenever I interact with my grandsons. I’m asking God to restore my former “sparkle”. I’m just enduring the time until they go to bed and feeling guilty that I’m so weary.
Keep praying friend, he has enough grace and love and sparkle for you. Bless you for taking care of those grandsons who need you.
Thank you Charity.
Lisa-Jo, you get me every time! Reeling me in with the laughter, then the one-two punch of tears. I so get it! Lugging the two-year old (whose hair bow is drooping) on my hip and the 10-month old in the anvil-heavy car seat in the crook of my arm to have special lunch with the 6-year-old at school, because it takes too much time and effort to get out the double stroller! I appreciate your posts. I feel your angst. I identify with the heart-stabbing love of it all (that literally wears us to ragged bits). Thank you, new friend!!
Oh this was so good and timely and beautiful and tear-inducing – of commiseration and joy both. I don’t always do what you did there at the end – a sweet brush of the hair, laugh, and smile – but you’ve inspired me to try harder to do so! thank you :)
amazing and such a wonderful reminder as I try to make it through to bedtime with my 2 year old and new baby boy! Thank you.
Thanks, I needed that one today. Always a pleasure reading about another mom who has the same messes that I do, and is trying to be the mom the kids deserve. Thanks for inspiring me to be real with my mom friends…
Can I just say I relate? And this – “I catch the long line of what I’ve survived today before it spills out my lips” – this is the hard part, but the most important part. Thanks for sharing and thanks for reminding me that I’m not the only one!
Yes. Except sometimes I don’t catch it.
This made me smile. It is amazing how much a mom does in a single day. May God continue to bless you with energy and attention to stay firmly planted on this holy ground.
Love this post. I have always said 9:00 is my time to clock out after waiting on my kids all day long!!! You make a good point that although we are exhausted, the kids are (hopefully) left with pleasant memories of all the fun they had all day!! Keep on going Mom, someday I am hoping, they will look back and know all that we sacraficed so that they were being taken care of. My husband is good about giving me breaks on the weekends or weeknights, if he is able to. Its a sanity saver, that is for sure.
Beautifully written….brought tears to my eyes! Thank you for the reminder!