The Joys of Motherhood
My baby is sick. She’s been sick for days. It’s a strange little illness because it’s lingering – and it seems to be a combination of everything. Coughing, sore throat, fevers, body aches, puking… it’s like a terrible cold/flu combination. Suffice it to say, she’s pretty miserable. This little girl is typically the picture of happiness. She’s like a little ball of joy that runs around spouting sunshine everywhere she goes. But with this sickness… not so much.
It’s not that she’s turned into a monster child, because she hasn’t. She’s more on the whiny side, which I understand. Still, after days of listening to somebody whine and say ‘ow’ a million times a day it starts to wear on you. And she’s not the only one in my household that has this illness. There are others. And they’re all whining. Sometimes I think mother’s really should be required to drink a bottle of wine every night. I’d be drunk so that could be a problem. But maybe it would balance out the crazy going on in my head and I’d be able to manage the constant barrage of whine without feeling like I should be diving into a bottle.
Kids are interesting, that’s for sure.
But despite the illness, my little girl is still angelic. She came to me yesterday so tired of being sick. The whining that I’m whining about is coming from a kid that just wants to feel well! So she snuggles up to me and cries, just lets her tears flow into my shirt. ‘It hurts mom. Everything hurts. My body hurts.’ And I’m thinking as she’s crying that I kind of want to cry along with her. It’s heartbreaking.
Prior to the cryfest on my shirt I found her sitting at my computer, slumped into the chair, sniffling. She was looking for me and when I wasn’t there she just kind of gave up the search. So I’m just going to say that as a mother when you’re watching your sweet little kid power through some moronic illness it hurts your heart. Motherhood hurts your heart – it just does. It probably hurts because it expands your heart too, giving it the capacity to feel more deeply than you’ve ever felt before.
On the plus side, she wants to curl up next to me and fall asleep – she wants my touch and the comfort of knowing that I’m there for her. Having tiny little human’s that hold you as the center of their universe is pretty extraordinary, I have to say. It has its challenges as well, but I’m quite sure there is something magical in their touch. There is a quote from Les Miserables that I absolutely love. The quote is this… “And remember the truth that once was spoken, to Love another person is to see the face of God.” Sometimes I think that’s how little kids see their mom. They look at them through such a filter of love that they see God shining back.
And those are the joys. Kids are extraordinary despite the hard times and the challenges that come with them. And like I tell my kids, anything worth having is worth going through all the hard, the mud, the mess, the tears for because at the end of the day you come out on top with a greater ability to experience the wonder and magic of the world around you.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have kids screaming in the background at who knows what for who knows why. I think I may still need that bottle of wine… Too bad I can’t drink it for another five months. Darn