that moment happened as i lay my crying 8 week old (really? 8 weeks??) to change his diaper this evening.
i was thinking about a friend of mine and her 3 children (because who wants to focus on the contents of a diaper...) and trying to picture her as a 13 year old and picturing me as a 13 year old and wondering if we would have been friends as our 13 year old selves when it hit me...we are mothers.
when did that happen?
(obviously, it happened around 4 years ago, but please...bear with my random though process.)
is it odd that at the ripe old age of 30, i sometimes feel that i'm still playing house? that the life i dreamt of for so long and has now become reality still feels like a dress rehearsal?
making cakes,
hiding in laundry baskets,
snuggling together on the floor...
there are moments that overwhelm me...like when all 3 under 3 1/2 are crying for me to hold them, or when i try and get out the door on time only to discover 2, not 1, bums are dirty (and for the record, both lyla and i are potty-trained...), or opening my bleary eyes to a frightened little face peering into mine at 3 am asking to snuggle just as the newest addition makes it known he's hungry, which wakes up the middle one who then lets it be known she needs a snuggle...and all i can think of is the fact that not one of my girls sleeps past 7:30am on a good day.
and in those moments, i force myself to pause.
to remember that these moments that make me want to do a crazy dance all the way to france are...fleeting.
they are going to be gone.
it's not a dress rehearsal.
becoming...
becoming a mama.
suddenly i feel at a loss for words.
how can i capture how i feel?
maybe these feelings are stronger tonight as i watched lyla conquer her fear of laying down in the bath to get her hair washed, knowing that in just 3 short weeks she is going to preschool and more fears are going to be conquered.
but as these doors open and new experiences happen, she is also going to know pain, heartache, joy, love...friendships are going to be formed and broken...
and i am going to have to entrust her and her tender emotions into the Hands of the One Who knew my own tender emotions as i was becoming...
i've been so immersed in these years of nursing, crying, diapering, training, holding, wiping that i didn't see the days speed by until tonight as my girls were tucked into their beds, snug as bugs in rugs.
my little boy, snuggled into his blankets and being kept in a state of sweet sleep by the constant rocking of my foot, will be ready to head out the door and into another before i know it...a door that i will need to walk out of...without him.
could it really be happening this fast? could the role that i imagined and longed for, for so long really be going by this quickly?
after a day of nursing, wiping, diapering, training, holding, guiding, crying, mediating, where i wondered how i was going to make it through, i remind myself again that it's these moments that i overlook so easily that are part of my becoming. the becoming of a stronger mama, a loving wife, a truer friend...
and it's part of their becoming too.
so, i choose to savor each memory of today. even the hard, agonizing, stinky ones. the ones where i wanted to bury my head under a couch cushion and get lost looking for coins. and the ones where fishy kisses were given freely, where a snuggle on said couch was sought out, where the made up words to a familiar song were sung with abandon...where sticky fingers clung to my own, dragging me into the next room to show me the newest treasure, the newest trick, the newest discovery.
i love who each one is becoming.
and i'm so thankful to the One who is allowing all this becoming-ness to happen together within the heart of our little yellow home.
and that He chose me to witness it all...
