Reflections on motherhood...

So, this is more than a week late, but it has taken a week of reflection to get this right.  I am a mother. I made the choice to become a mother, and I do not regret it. Although, there are moments when I wonder why I thought it was good idea in the first place.

Some of those moments involve bodily functions they never warned you about in all those motherhood lessons in Young Women’s…like the time not one, but two of my children threw up on my carpeted stairs. Or the time my then 3 year old decided it was a good idea to just let loose in the tub which required a rescrubbing of not only the tub but the kids. Things I used to gag at, don’t even phase me now. You get a very strong stomach when you are a mom. Or a severely degenerate sense of smell. It’s probably a combination of the two. One of those blessings God gives mothers just so they can survive.

I also missed the lesson on the endless loads of laundry…a chore that is never, ever truly done. I can’t recall the counsel on dishes that have been put through the dishwasher, that you rinsed beforehand, and somehow are still NOT clean and so you have to wash them by hand and someone took you drainer and is using it to sled down the stairs. So you shake them hard to get the extra water off and end up breaking 2 plates, lodging a fork in the ceiling and accidentally sending a sippy cup to certain doom out the open kitchen window (which of course was opened because someone forgot to move the plastic bowl off the stove before turning it on).

I can’t remember seeing sweet little sayings on printed paper with a magnet on the back where you are told that everything you own will have a stain of some kind on it. Spaghetti sauce on this blouse, mustard on these pants, juice on those shoes…maybe that’s what they really meant by food storage. I was going to be one of those mothers with perfectly pressed and neatly groomed children in matching clothes.  Now I’m feeling good if they’re wearing clothes at all and have socks on that match (each other, not their actual clothes, that would be asking too much)

I was there for the lesson on being a peacemaker. I guess I should have remembered it applies to the person in charge, especially when you have one yelling for help in the bathroom, one whining about long division, one on the computer playing a game with the volume up full blast and yet another wrapped around my leg asking, no wait…demanding a snack and a story RIGHT NOW! Does locking yourself in the bathroom count as keeping the peace?

Since becoming a mother, I have folded an estimated 5,096 loads of laundry, washed an estimated 20,000 dishes, scrubbed the toilet 728 times, fixed about 13, 930 meals and washed windows twice (okay, I’m a slacker on that one). And I have heard in return, a couple dozen thank you’s.

Now don’t get me wrong. I’m sure I was equally ungrateful to my mother for her efforts. It’s only now I realize what it took…what it takes…to be a mother.  And that’s when I realized that motherhood is very much like investing money.

Let’s say you took everything you had and put it in an account. If you went back the next day, you would not see any change, or even the next week or the next month. It would take years, built upon years, for you to see the kind of return on investment you dreamed of when you placed your hard earned savings in and interest bearing account in the first place.

When you are a mother, you invest everything you have…your time, talents, energy, sanity…seriously everything… into an account (you children) you hope you will be able to see grow. But daily progress is hard to track, even weekly or monthly progress is little hard to see. Its only later, much later, that you see the payoff and realize the waiting was worth it. My mother is in the pay-off stage now I think.

But until then when we can withdraw our money and bask in the glory of its wonderfulness,  the Lord allows us little glimpses into how our account is growing, without our even knowing it. Like the first time your child said a prayer all on their own, or when the assistant principle tells you how impressed she is with your son because what he wants most in his life is to be a good husband and father. Or maybe when it when your 4 or 6 year old stop playing long enough to come and set their little hands on yours and look up at you and whisper with a smile, “Mom? I love you.” 

I asked my brothers a question, “Did you want to be on you mission, everyday you were on your mission?” Actually, no they didn’t. Infact, there were way more days that were hard, and several times they just wanted to go home.  But they stayed, because all the hard times were more frequent, the good times outweighed them. And looking back, they’d do it again in a heartbeat.

Motherhood is my mission. I stay because although it’s hard, there are good moments that make it all worth it. Sometimes I’d like to go home, but then I realize I am home.

And there is no where else I would rather be.