Monday, December 31, 2012

Motherhood Guest Post; AP @ I Love You More than Carrots

A guest post by: AP @ I love you More Than Carrots
There are days when I wish that someone prepared me for what Motherhood would be. 

Prepared me for what it would both bring to and take away from my life. How it would change my relationship with my husband, my friends. How it would change me as a person. For good. For the better

I mean, I wish someone had really sat me down.

There are days when I wish that someone sat me down, held my hand and told me, "motherhood is going to be the best, most fulfilling, incredible and awesome journey you will ever embark on but it will also be the most painstaking, worry-filled, most exhausting, most selfless position you will ever desire."

It will be both your greatest accomplishment and the most difficult responsibility you've ever owned.

I wish someone told me there would be days, many days, when I would doubt myself as a woman. As a mother who should be entrusted with the care and upbringing of two tiny precious souls. I wish someone told me that it's OK to doubt yourself but know that you're not alone in those doubts.

I wish someone had told me there would be days when I would high-five myself just for making it to the end of the day without seeing the inside of an ER. Days when I would practically meet my husband at the foot of the driveway, tossing the kids into his car through the open window. I wish someone had told me there would be days like this. Days when I wouldn't even feel the least bit of guilt for it.

There are days when I wish that someone sat me down and reassured me that "yes, I am doing it right. It's OK that the toddler didn't eat any vegetables today and if he watches three hours of Thomas the Tank Engine tomorrow, that's OK too. You'll both be better for it." 

I wish someone had prepared me. Maybe even just a whisper. A quick chat over coffee. 

I wish someone walked beside me and explained to me what it felt like to be so tired you can't fall asleep. To feel so emotionally and physically drained. To have not slept a really, really good full night's sleep since you don't know when. 

I wish someone walked beside me and prepared me for what it would feel like to be so frustrated that you can't even fathom another five minutes in the same room as your children. I wish someone walked beside me and told me that it's OK to leave the room, to lock yourself in the bathroom and curse really, really loudly.

I wish someone hugged me and told me not to worry about being able to love another child as much as I do my first. I wish someone reassured me that I would be giving him the greatest gift a mother could give him, a sibling and unconditional love. I wish someone had quieted that worry. It seems so silly now.

I wish someone prepared me for the amount of love I could cram into my heart, my soul, my very being. So much love that it spills out into everything that I do for my boys. Words full of frustration and rage but backed with so much love. So much consideration for their well-being. 

So much love that I finally understand what an incredible woman my own mother is. 

I wish someone had prepared me for the worry. The worry that comes with growing that precious tiny being. Feeling them breathe and move right there beneath your heart. Protecting them the best and only way you know how. Only to have to surrender that worry to God once they are born. Once you can no longer wrap your body around them and protect them from the world. 

I know all of these things now. I've felt all of these things on any given day during any given week during these past thirty months. 

I'm here to sit with you. To hold your hand. To walk beside you and tell you you're doing OK. You'll be OK. You are the greatest mother to your children and they will love you leaps and bounds and all the way to the moon and back. 

Even if you raise your voice. Even if you lock yourself in the bathroom and curse. Even if you wish, just for a minute, that you had your "old life" back. Even if they don't eat a vegetable at all on Tuesday and wear their pajamas to the grocery store every third day of the week. 

Even if you love them with every fiber of your being and it hurts so much to love them this way.

I wish someone had prepared me. 

4 comments:

  1. Well nice to meet you AP! Your writing is amazing! I love how you put the segment in there about loving the first child as much as the second and how you wish someone would have told you it was ok for my friends deal with that when they are preggers with their 2, 3 forth and I know Becky had anxiety over it all and she knew she would love Graham the same but the anxiety was still there so it rocks you added that how sweet of you! I also laughed at the part of you meeting your hubs at the driveway I may or may not have called the hubs on occassion and said what time are you going to be home and Kelcee and I would be sitting outside waiting on him oh yeah lol we all have those days. I think noone tells us because no one wants to talk about those times, scared that they may look badly, or people will judge them or maybe just maybe the chuckle at watching us figure it out ourselves or it could just be that everyone represses that stuff and just thinks of all the good because afterall the good always outways the crazy days and having a child is the best gift GOD every gave me and I know you and Becky feel the same!

    I will head over to your blog
    xoxo

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  2. THANK you for writing this!!!!! I am a stay home mom to an 18 month old and might be pregnant with 2nd! I could not have said it better myself!!

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  3. THANK you for writing this!!!!! I am a stay home mom to an 18 month old and might be pregnant with 2nd! I could not have said it better myself!!

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  4. Thank you for writing this. This is exactly what I needed to hear. As a new mom, I wish someone would've told me so many of those things, including the wanting to hand the baby off to dad right away some days.
    I've been so open and honest about the trials that no one talks about publicly to new moms; so I can completely appreciate others doing the same! :)

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