clarity

motherhood has provided me with some clarity, an understanding of my own mother and why she did and said certain things when we were little.  i heard the following words repeatedly when i was younger "you will understand when you have children of your own."  this would immediately instigate a roll of the eyes on my part, a heavy sigh and a "you just down understand" would fly out of my mouth. as if i had the world's worst mother and had such a miserable existence. this could not be further from the truth. my mom always says in her next life she is going to be one of her own children. i think she is on to something.

here we are 30 some odd years later and i have my ahh-haa moment, the light bulb goes off, i have clarity. i finally understand what she is talking about. it's like i finally understand the secret language of motherhood. it all makes sense. why we went to bed when it was still light out. why she insisted that we took a nap, she didn't care what we did but we had to be in our room for two hours. she needed some peace and quiet! i understand why she took a bath at night. what i do not understand is why she did not drink more? or maybe she did and i just do not remember it. and i am sure i will have many more ahh-haa moments along the way, after all chace is only 6 months old.

i put all this together this week when i was ever so lucky to have a cold. the same cold that the bean had and he so kindly gave to me. there is nothing worse than a summer cold. all i wanted to do was take some medicine and go to bed. but i could not do this, i am a mom now. it would not do me any good to complain, no one was listening. bean still needed his diaper changed, needed to be fed, and entertained. he did not care how i felt. he felt fine.  there are no days off in motherhood. children do not care if you are sick, tired, hungover, emotional or just feel like sometime to yourself. they need you, but mothers need their children too.

my love for your chace brings a kind of clarity about life that i never knew existed and could simply not understand until i became a mother.