Serenity now
Ah the joys of an hour alone. Liz, asleep in her car seat, Meg, at school, Erin, also at school, and me, with a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch standing in the kitchen about to post to my blog for the second time this week. It's nothing short of a miracle. I could take a shower (novel idea), I could finally do the exercise DVD I ordered that has been sitting in my kitchen hutch for a week because I haven't had 20 minutes to do it, I could clean...but no, I think I'll write instead.
Lately I've been thinking about the passage of time and how quickly the weeks are flying by now that the kids are in school and our weeks have a routine and structure. While observing this, and attempting to make the most of each moment, I took a good long look at Elizabeth this morning. She got four shots yesterday and was diagnosed with an ear infection. She had a fever last night, and has a perpetually drippy nose. Overall, she should be miserable. But she's not. She's a happy, content baby...who is getting so big it hurts to hold her for longer than 5 minutes. And I will not attribute this to my muscle atrophy and pathetic lack of upper body strength. It occurred to me as she snuggled against me this morning that I fought long and hard to have another baby, as Pete will attest. My God, the begging and pleading I did on behalf of my biological clock. And then she wound up arriving completely unplanned and had such a fight on her hands from the moment she took her first breath. Yesterday, the doctor told us to please stop thinking of her as "a special baby" and instead look at her as "a normal baby." So with all of these thoughts and events, I felt the need to stop and be thankful that I HAVE a baby. A little girl who thinks that the sun rises and sets around the people within the walls of this house, and doesn't care about the world that turns outside. She plays and giggles and loves and explores...and so I am spending the day savoring her baby-ness. Because as we all know, it is so fleeting. Before I know it she'll be off and running from me, instead of turning and crawling toward me.
From these thoughts about Elizabeth, I am propelled to think and ponder the ways of my other daughters. There is Meghan...who has been known from the start as a lover. She is physical and fearless and one of the most loving children I've ever known. Without bias, I can say this. She creates and plays and imagines and embraces each of her days with a zest for life that only a child possesses. And she is four and a half, and runs through the doors of her preschool classroom yelling "BYE!!" behind her, without even so much as a pause to smooch me. And this too will be her fleeting phase before she moves into the next realm of her development.
And my Erin. Erin who hates to be told what to do and where to go. She is so very smart and so very bright, and while her heart is big, she never lets it get in the way of what she wants at a given moment. She will no doubt be successful in whatever goals she sets for herself. And that is why she is resisting school and separating from me...it's simply not in her plan. It wasn't her idea. I respect her feelings and love her deeply...and accept that home is where we come to act badly when the rest of the world is intolerant of our tantrums. So I will hug her and love her, and be firm in letting her know that while she may feel like a square peg being shoved into the round hole of public school education, she fits perfectly into our family. And this phase of not wanting to let go will soon be replaced by something else...and I'll probably miss the days when she never wanted to be away from me.
I have only been a mother for 6 years. And that's only to one of them. As a family we have yet to deal with cliques, boyfriends (or girlfriends), first loves and broken hearts, body image issues, extracurricular hobbies, sports, talents, sleepaway camp and sleepovers, college applications, acceptances and rejections. The list of that with which we've dealt is brief in comparison to that about which we have yet to even consider. I guess that is why it is so important to take only one day at a time, and possibly consider having the Serenity Prayer tattooed onto some part of my body...
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Perhaps God granted me some wisdom in the past few days to realize that I cannot change how Erin behaves when she goes to school. But I can change how I react and how I allow it to effect me for the rest of the day. Perhaps I'm just in a better hormonal frame of mind this week. Or perhaps motherhood is turning out to simply be the best education I've ever received in my life.
Lately I've been thinking about the passage of time and how quickly the weeks are flying by now that the kids are in school and our weeks have a routine and structure. While observing this, and attempting to make the most of each moment, I took a good long look at Elizabeth this morning. She got four shots yesterday and was diagnosed with an ear infection. She had a fever last night, and has a perpetually drippy nose. Overall, she should be miserable. But she's not. She's a happy, content baby...who is getting so big it hurts to hold her for longer than 5 minutes. And I will not attribute this to my muscle atrophy and pathetic lack of upper body strength. It occurred to me as she snuggled against me this morning that I fought long and hard to have another baby, as Pete will attest. My God, the begging and pleading I did on behalf of my biological clock. And then she wound up arriving completely unplanned and had such a fight on her hands from the moment she took her first breath. Yesterday, the doctor told us to please stop thinking of her as "a special baby" and instead look at her as "a normal baby." So with all of these thoughts and events, I felt the need to stop and be thankful that I HAVE a baby. A little girl who thinks that the sun rises and sets around the people within the walls of this house, and doesn't care about the world that turns outside. She plays and giggles and loves and explores...and so I am spending the day savoring her baby-ness. Because as we all know, it is so fleeting. Before I know it she'll be off and running from me, instead of turning and crawling toward me.
From these thoughts about Elizabeth, I am propelled to think and ponder the ways of my other daughters. There is Meghan...who has been known from the start as a lover. She is physical and fearless and one of the most loving children I've ever known. Without bias, I can say this. She creates and plays and imagines and embraces each of her days with a zest for life that only a child possesses. And she is four and a half, and runs through the doors of her preschool classroom yelling "BYE!!" behind her, without even so much as a pause to smooch me. And this too will be her fleeting phase before she moves into the next realm of her development.
And my Erin. Erin who hates to be told what to do and where to go. She is so very smart and so very bright, and while her heart is big, she never lets it get in the way of what she wants at a given moment. She will no doubt be successful in whatever goals she sets for herself. And that is why she is resisting school and separating from me...it's simply not in her plan. It wasn't her idea. I respect her feelings and love her deeply...and accept that home is where we come to act badly when the rest of the world is intolerant of our tantrums. So I will hug her and love her, and be firm in letting her know that while she may feel like a square peg being shoved into the round hole of public school education, she fits perfectly into our family. And this phase of not wanting to let go will soon be replaced by something else...and I'll probably miss the days when she never wanted to be away from me.
I have only been a mother for 6 years. And that's only to one of them. As a family we have yet to deal with cliques, boyfriends (or girlfriends), first loves and broken hearts, body image issues, extracurricular hobbies, sports, talents, sleepaway camp and sleepovers, college applications, acceptances and rejections. The list of that with which we've dealt is brief in comparison to that about which we have yet to even consider. I guess that is why it is so important to take only one day at a time, and possibly consider having the Serenity Prayer tattooed onto some part of my body...
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
Perhaps God granted me some wisdom in the past few days to realize that I cannot change how Erin behaves when she goes to school. But I can change how I react and how I allow it to effect me for the rest of the day. Perhaps I'm just in a better hormonal frame of mind this week. Or perhaps motherhood is turning out to simply be the best education I've ever received in my life.
Labels: motherhood, Serenity prayer
posted by Kate @ 7:39 AM
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