Skip to main content

I See Babies Cry, I Watch Them Grow




Today started Pumpkin's last week of preschool. You faithful readers know how hard it was when I dropped her off for her first day of daycare at 8-weeks old. She's been in "school" since that time, but for some reason "Kindergarten" was a hard step for mama. When I look at her, I scarcely see a baby. She asks questions that I cannot answer and has conversations that tell me, like the song she sang at PK graduation, she "will learn much more than I'll ever know." Sometimes she is so grown up I almost forget she's a little girl, at least for a little while longer.

Then there's Bug. Suddenly she wears panties and sleeps in a big girl bed. She holds entire conversations and loves to play school. She idolizes her "sissy my best fwind." Her laugh is infectious, from the deepest, happiest place in her soul and she loves to laugh and make others laugh.

They are growing so fast I sometimes wish I could make time stand still, even if only for a moment. It is not only bittersweet, but I start to be overcome with fear if I let myself think on it too hard. The world is a scary place. The nightly news is full of unthinkable tragedy. I refuse to even watch it with the girls in the room to protect them. For their entire lives, I have lived to protect them from the world.

The world I have protected them from thus far has been safe. I've put up baby gates, chimes on the doors, vaccinated them, and taught them to look both ways when they cross the street. My sleepless nights have been because of an upset tummy or a bad dream. Soon there will be lessons much harder and nights much more nerve-wracking. They won't be upstairs for me to listen for their cries. There won't be a barrier or safety net I can put up to protect them.

So far, their entire world has consisted of safety, loving, and kindness. All too soon they will learn that is not all the world is. I want them to know - need them know - that they can still be kind and loving. I want them to know that is what we are put here to do.

But how do I explain heartbreak? How do I explain tragedy? How do I tell them that sometimes it seems that love and kindness are not enough, but they really are? How do I explain evil? And how in the world, as much as I love them, do I let them go into world like this?

Just this Sunday the Gospel of John had Jesus praying for his disciples: "I am not asking you to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one. They do not belong to the world, , just as i do not belong to the world. Sanctify them in your truth; your word is truth. As you have sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world."

This prayer that Jesus prayed for his friends - for us - is the same prayer I pray for them. I cannot protect them. They are in the world, but they are not of this world. More than anything in my life before, motherhood has been a test of my faith. It is the hardest test I have ever taken and rather than get easier with time, I have learned it only gets harder. I trust that God will protect them where I cannot and I remember that they are not mine, but his. I am just honored and grateful to be able to love them and watch over them for a short time.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I Want You To Have It All

As those of you who follow me on IG know, I've thrown the idea(l) of a work-life balance out the proverbial window. Those scales will never balance and there will be days and weeks they tip one way before dropping back the other. There are times I am baking and carpooling like some modern day Donna Reed with a Best Mom coffee mug and other times where I feel like the Queen of the Courtroom, only to find out my kid didn't have lunch at school or forgot her ballet shoes. As an example, it is a known fact around my office that when I am in a big trial someone in my house is going to have a major illness  - literally these have ranged from pneumonia to emergency appendectomy. Talk about mom guilt - not only am I not there to love on them, I can't even really give them any mental energy until I am out of the courtroom. All of that is to say that life, an parenting, and lawyering are all like that - you win some, you lose some. Chasing some pipe dream of balance and harmony only ...
Post a Comment
Read more

I'll Come Runnin'

Sometimes being a working mom is the pits. I’m not talking about the early morning meetings on less than a few hours of sleep or the late night ones which prevent me from bedtime prayers and tucking in. I’m not talking about working with a baby on one hip and a phone on one shoulder, or with spit up on my documents or, better yet, my blouse. I’m not even talking about the pangs of guilt I feel every time she comes down with something “she caught at daycare.” It’s something much deeper than that. Something that I know I have to fight to overcome. It’s the overwhelming sadness of not being there to witness every discovery, kiss every boo-boo, and rock her every time the world is not perfect. It’s the feeling of having to say goodbye, even if just for a short time. I guess that feeling isn’t unique to working moms. I think it’s something every mom feels at one time or another. Working moms just get it earlier…and maybe more frequently. Even those moms who are home right now...
Post a Comment
Read more

Don't Know What You've Got 'Till It's Gone

Fair warning – this post may turn into a saccharine ode to my beloved and not-too-long-gone-and-not-at-all-lost hubby. Sadly, he hasn’t even been gone 24-hours and I’m already doing a tribute. It’s because I’ve been in quite the frenzy since he left, so much so that I double-checked myself in the car to make sure all the appropriate articles of clothing were on the proper parts of my body. Don’t get me wrong, I have always recognized what a good husband and daddy my Hubby is and I appreciate him to no end. But I never realized just how much the little things (like his presence) help me to keep my sanity. It all started yesterday. I picked Pumpkin up from school per usual. Nothing out of the ordinary there. We get home (to a clean home, no less – thank God for cleaning lady Wednesday). I let the dogs out and pour Pumpkin's evening milk cocktail. Again, typical M.O. The trash is sitting out by the door waiting for me to bring down to the big can on my way out again. No big deal – it’...
Post a Comment
Read more