Tonight, I take my time lathering Clark's chapped knees with lotion, interrupting it to play peekaboo behind his jungle-themed pajamas. He laughs freely and instantly soothes my guilty mother heart. All is well with the world when my children are laughing.
I had one of those bad mothering days today (the reason for my guilt). The kind you want to forget and wish it were just a bad dream. I could list legitimate excuses for my "I-just-lost-it" moments: up all night with a feverish baby and a sore throat myself, one too many toddler tantrums, CF worries (an electrically fried air compressor with no back-up), and...I'll spare you the rest. But, I've learned excuses just make it worse. It's being dishonest with myself and I'd rather just face my faults head on--a satisfying alternative to the ever addicting cycle of justification. Excusing myself only sends me further in the wrong direction.
My children get the worst of me. And my children get the best of me. I'd be doing something wrong if it weren't that way. I don't hold back, I can't hold back when loving them and with that comes every part of me. The true relationship as mother and child holds no fake facade. Everything is exposed and vulnerable. The role of motherhood denudes one's character of conceit, yet in the same moment buoys it up knowing she's involved in an eternal work beyond the confines of her tired and sticky arms.
Only two hours into our slumber I heard the most worrisome sound--MD’s cough. We have only recently finished a two-week schedule of vigorous treatments every 3-4 hours even through the night at times. The hard work payed off, she had stopped coughing and was her happy, enthusiastic self. It only lasted two days. We lay there, listening to her cough, breathe, rustle and repeat. I may have only been quietly laying there but I was having a mental battle: swallowing my pride. I knew I needed to get up and give her a neb and a chest PT but my selfish justification was beginning its list: I’m exhausted, nauseous, pregnant, we just got her better, etc.. As bitter as these lumps of excuses were, going down my throat, it felt good to get them down and out of the way.
I made my way to her room, picked her up, and took her out to the kitchen table where she sat quietly as she breathed in her meds. I took the mask off, she looked up at me and beat her fingertips to her chest--she knew her chest thumping was next. This was when I got my tender mercy. We sat together on the couch, with her head laying on my chest and there she stayed only repositioning now and then to get comfortable (she is her wiggle worm mother’s daughter, after all). Now, normally she needs her dose of Elmo giving one of his third-person-spouts about why he rides his bicycle in order to make it through a PT session. Tonight, she simply cooperated. I turned her over to her back to get the front of her chest and as she lay there on the pile of blanket, with her arms spread eagle, she gave me the sweetest smile followed by an air-smooch, it made me cry and laugh at once. She then asked “that funny?” and did it three more times.
So many times, as a mother, I feel like I swallow those bitter bites of my selfish pride. Gratefully, it’s not always as difficult as it was last night. I feel myself getting better, not in a boastful sort of way, but I feel that Heavenly Father blesses me as a mother to do what I need to do to take care of his sweet MD in the best way possible. He greatly blesses mothers, He really does.
“Th[e] ability and willingness properly to rear children, the gift to love, and eagerness, yes, longing to express it in soul development, make motherhood the noblest office or calling in the word...In her high duty and service to humanity, endowing with immortality eternal spirits, [a mother] is co-partner with the creator himself.” --David O. McKay
