Looking back on motherhood

The past week each time I have been at a store I have noticed the people flocking around the card aisle to pick out their Mother’s Day cards. I’ve heard the question more times than I can count being asked “What are you getting your mom for Mother’s Day?” Of course watching all these people scurrying about to find the perfect card or gift it has made me reflect a lot on me being a mother and what it has meant.

In the midst of all this I have thought a lot about my role as a mother and the roller coaster ride that it has been. I’ve bandaged cuts and scrapes by the hundreds, consoled thousands of tears, laughed at more things my kids have said and done than I can count and been showered with more hugs, kisses and I love you’s than I probably deserved on some days. But becoming a mom is a job that you are basically just thrown into and you think you have all this training that will make you the “perfect mom” because you watched your own mom do it all your life up until that point. (And believe me I had a wonderful example to follow.) But no matter how much I observed over the years, how many books I could have read or how many pointers I could have received – it’s basically a on the job training kind of thing and the times that you succeed are always a hit or miss kind of thing.

I have been extremely blessed that for the most part that they have turned out ok, it has been an uphill battle along the way and to be honest there were things that I could have done differently and definitely much better. As much as I wish they were perfect they each have their flaws and their mistakes that they have made. But even if I had been the perfect mom and did everything right according to Dr. Spock they still wouldn’t be perfect. We have made our mistakes in this children/mother partnership and we have learned a lot of lessons through this journey that we have been on that’s for sure.

It seems like they have grown up so fast and that the hands on the clock just spin faster and faster with each day. My kids are not babies anymore. One of them has a child of her own, the other is graduating next weekend and the youngest one will soon be 15. I swear it just seems like yesterday that it was April 18th 1990 and I was getting my first shot at this thing called motherhood. It’s almost as if I just blinked and the onesies turned into caps & gowns and the Fisher Price plastic key set turned into the real thing. It was like they instantly went from crawling and pulling at my pants legs to heading out the door to the real world and not even looking back.

If I had known that this would happen so fast; that all the opportunities to do things with my kids would have passed me by so quickly I would have done so many things differently. I wouldn’t have worked 2 and 3 jobs at a time – instead I would’ve sacrificed a little more of other things instead of my time. I would’ve listened more to what they had to say and I would’ve appreciated the finger paints and the class projects that hung on my refrigerator more. I would’ve cherished more the moments of them sleeping with me cuddled up beside me and maybe them being a recluse in their bedroom as a teenager wouldn’t be so painful on certain days when I get to missing the times that they actually preferred to sit in the same room with me.

But like other things in life we learn as we go and motherhood is no different. There are really no do-overs – it’s a thing that happens when you aren’t looking and before you know it – well it has left you looking back at a stretch of memories miles long. I think for the most part that I have been a good mom. I have loved my children with all my heart. I have tried to be their biggest fans (and their loudest one). I have watched them each accept Christ with a heart that could have exploded with elation and I have seen them make their ways through struggles – but also through victories.

If I could turn back time to the days that I held their tiny beings in my arms and watched them as they slept there is still no guarantee that knowing what I know now that I would raise them “mistake free”. All I can do is look back with them over the years of being their mother and hope that we can smile at our journey together and hope that they see in the rear view mirror a mother who loved them more than life itself.

So in retrospect thinking about how blessed I am as a mother; it’s nice to for a mom to have her own special day – not because of any award that I can be given, but instead the rewards that I have already received.