Happy Mother’s Day to all of my Mammas out there! It’s funny that we only get one day to celebrate everything that we do, but so it goes.
This is my sixth year celebrating mother’s day as a “mum” of sorts. Crazy huh? I still remember my very first post about mother’s day, 2013… when I was about six months preggo with my Nuke Baby, getting bigger by the day (with not a clue just what was truly in store for me, size-wise or indefinitely). We had gone out looking for strollers that day, and ended up somewhere in Brooklyn at a hipster Beer joint (how very apropos). Life was perhaps a bit simpler back then, but also in many ways not as interesting.
Fast forward five years later, and here we are… having just flown back from the Big Easy (which is quite ironic as motherhood is anything but easy). We had gone to New Orleans for an early birthday celebration (more on that later), and a fortuitous Mother’s Day toast as well. To be honest I had somewhat mixed feelings about celebrating Mother’s Day, since we couldn't take our little guy with us. “But he’s part of our family!” I said to myself. Sure sure, but it would also be a train-wreak of a weekend getaway if we had taken our seventeen months old along. To tell you more about that would mean many, many more posts, chapters, and essays…. Really, we don’t have time to get into how much I worry and obsess about my little fella. Let’s save that for another day. The point is, it’s tough to entirely embrace Mother’s Day when one of your children is not with you. So YES, we went on holiday with just one kid, and YES that meant our baby boy had to stay home with the grandparents (though he seemed none the worse for it), and YES – we very much enjoyed our time away and unanimously agreed that it would have been a horror show had we traveled for three days in New Orleans as a family of four.
Cue… judgement.
The fact is, you need to do what works for you, and that, in many aspects, is what motherhood is sort of like. There is no perfect, ideal, and cohesive road for motherhood, only the twist and turns of the “figure it out yourself” sort. I am a mother, who has a complicated relationship with her own mother, and I love both my children wildly and unconditionally. One is four, and one is a year and change… and most days I look at them in sheer wonder and absolute love (though sometimes that joy is shrouded amidst a haze of sleepiness and borderline illness of some variety).
That, in a sense, is what motherhood is. “She has two kids under the age of four,” is how my colleague described me earlier in the week to our boss. He (the boss) nodded… and then looked at me with what I perceived as a hint of admiration mixed with sheer bewilderment. My boss doesn't have any kids of his own -- he had no idea what my colleague (who’s expecting himself) was talking about. I bet he’s just thrilled that I turn up to work everyday and (attempt to) do my job.
The fact is, half the time I am barely just clinging on, and the other half I look at my boys playing happily together and my heart just floods and throbs. The problem is that other half is actually just a couple of minutes out of the week, and most of the time I am actually (both mentally and physically) just clinging on.
What I’ve learned, over these past five years of either being a mom or about to be a mom (with a lifetime of more “mommy-hood” to look forward to), is that it’s okay to simply cling on. In fact, I would be a psychopath (or a massive liar) if I were to admit otherwise. Today, as we were flying back from Louis Armstrong airport, my oldest reaches around his seat on the plane (my seat was right behind his), and proceeded to grab my hand with his little hand (okay, maybe not so little, my oldest is a MASSIVE boy). He did this at least twice, and each time I held his hand tightly, rubbed it a bit with my own as if to say, “Mommy’s here, and I love you. I love you desperately.” Then, on our way back from JFK, I face-timed our little guy (okay so technically I face-timed my dad), because I so urgently wanted to see his gorgeous face with that captivating smile. When he recognized me on the i-phone screen, he smiled right back at me, laughed actually, and uttered, “Mamma!!”
It was pure magic. I was in heaven.
It’s these simple moments, you see… that I realize how I am, forever and without question, bound to these little humans who I gave life to. Was I ever a fully-fledged person before I had my children? Why yes, of course I was… I had a life and it was a great one – but now all of that is a thing of the past, and to be honest I had bid adieu to that chica long before I even realized. I am a changed person because of my kids, and for that, I am grateful. For that… I am celebrating!!!
Happy Mother’s Day to all. I salute all the mammas out there today, and everyday. We are all, in our own ways… the perfectly imperfect mother.
Related:
2013 -- Elegant Expecting -- Mother's Day Weekend
2014 -- First Mother's Day
2015 -- A Conflicted Mother's Day
2017 -- Mother's Day Brunch at the Naples Ritz Carlton Golf Resort
2017 -- Rockshic does Mother's Day -- Naples Style
