Thursday, November 1, 2012

The Kid in Me

It's 12:35am. I fall into my bed with bones so weary and muscles so sore I could swear I must have been hit by a Mac truck. No, it was just another day filled with the pleasure and pain of parenthood. I never got around to putting the clothes in the dryer or picking up the ones still lying on my bathroom floor from a weeks worth of baths and showers. Some things just have to take a back seat to diaper changes, tummy time and seemingly endless one sided conversation on the Thomas the Train telephone. Blaze is finally asleep in his bassinet beside me. Arrow is probably zonked out in his toddler bed with his sippy cup still clenched tightly in his hand and his ball cap still on his head backwards. As I lie here, trying to clear my mind of the day's clutter, I'm my thoughts drift back to the beginning of it all.

Is that a line? Does that mean positive? I ask myself as I read and re-read the instructions on the pregnancy test again. The realization that my life, as I knew it, would never be the same again sent waves of adrenaline and nausea rushing through me. I really didn't know what to do, say or think. I just stood there staring at the stick. It was quite a surprise and one I wasn't ready for.

Everyone was thrilled when we finally shared the news about a month later on Christmas eve. A few weeks later, my sister-in-law gave me a book that was written by a Christian singer. She wrote it during her first pregnancy. It was a cute little book filled with songs, stories and letters to her future little one. The lyrics to one song gave voice to the unspoken feelings I was struggling with. It started with the lines: "I'm not the least bit ready for you, but come, come anyway - I’m not the least bit worthy of you, but come, come anyway ". As I read the words, tears started streaming down my face. I looked over at the sonogram photo on the dresser and repeated the words to the little one growing inside me. I was excited about the baby but was honestly scared to death.

I had never been much of a "kid person". It didn't really matter to me whether I had them or not. I remember telling my sister that I felt like I was on a roller coaster that was moving slowly up the first steep hill about to reach the top where I would drop of the cliff, never to get off the ride again. Life was about to change forever. Little did I know just how all encompassing that change would be, even less did I know how much I would change - for the better.

Motherhood has given me the courage and confidence to sing with more passion, work with more motivation, play with more abandonment, feel with more depth, love with more intensity, live with more purpose. I never fully understood life until I gave birth to it. I never fully understood love until I held it in my arms and saw, not only my reflection, but that of God. The way a mother feels about her children is not describable with words, no matter how you mix the 36 letters together. It pushes you to the end of yourself and self-sufficiency. Reliance on God is the only way to survive because it literally hurts to love someone so much.

So, almost three weeks after I started this post, I'm ending it. As it goes - life happened and it ends as it started...it's late, my back is aching, the laundry is waiting and my eyes are closing...but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Link: Lyrics to "Come Anyway"