a fresh perspective on “mundane” motherhood | no. 05

Her little hand is resting in mine. Soft and small, but bigger than I remembered. Little wrinkles around the knuckles from the last of the baby fat clinging on. Her lips slightly parted at the beginning of deep sleep.

I could’ve left a while ago. She’d technically been sleeping for a while; there was no reason to stay. Except something held me there. Staring at her sleeping. Wondering how I ever carried this large child inside my body? Hadn’t she always just been? Wasn’t she just a baby? Wasn’t I just a child myself?

I get teary-eyed and a realization hits me. It’s nothing new, I’ve rolled it over in my mind many times before, and here it comes again. Someday her husband will be next to her in my place, holding her hand.

I won’t be her home anymore.

I won’t be the one to comfort her to sleep, dry her tears, tell stupid on-the-fly stories that somehow manage to make her laugh, and believe I’m the best storyteller ever.

Even as she’s still living under our roof, one day she will just…take herself to bed.

It sounds so simple and arbitrary but I’m realizing at this moment how valuable it is. It’s worth everything just to hold her little hand in mine.

I have missed maybe 2 bedtimes in her entire life.

4 ½ years of laying down with a person and comforting them to sleep. Every. Single. Night. We’ve gone through phases of needing rocking while standing, rocking while sitting, reading aloud while bouncing and rocking, twisting my hair, twisting her hair, laying down with her, and sitting next to her bed while she falls asleep.

Even as I write this, the memory of holding her hand was a few months ago and I realize our bedtime has changed even more.

So often as mothers we get stuck in this “mom-mode” which has somehow become more automated and task-oriented than actually mothering and nurturing. We clean, diffuse arguments, cook, run errands, drive kids to activities, clean again, accumulate “busy work” and manage to brush off the requests to play or ignore the run-on-sentence novel our child has dictated to us while we make breakfast at 7am.

Since when did my responsibilities become the definition of my motherhood? Yes, we all have responsibilities for a house to function and a family to be cared for. I’m talking about “doing” so much that we wake up one day and realize our child hasn’t asked for us to “fill in the blank” in a long time. When did they realize that we weren’t going to help/play/listen so they just stopped asking?

Lately, I’m finding much more joy, peace, and beauty in learning how to nurture. Not just to nurture my child but my own soul in the process. Listening to the run-on-sentence stories and trying to track with thoughtful questions that clarify her ideas. Saying yes to playing and truly trying to understand why my gut reaction wants to say no, even if I don’t have a valid excuse. Putting my phone down around my child and catching myself when I don’t.

Too often the mundane moments of motherhood and homemaking feel draining, boring, and undervalued. What if we started viewing mundane tasks as a holy experience? Believing that we would be communing with God as we put children to sleep? Believing we are in the presence of Holy Spirit when we wash dishes?

What if playing with our kids not only creates a strong bond between us and our kids but also actively showcases new sides of God’s character we never knew or forgot?

How about the next time it takes me 45 minutes or 2 hours to put my child to sleep I am thankful? If every night averaged at 20 minutes to fall asleep, having a 2-hour accidental bedtime means I got an extra hour and 40 minutes with my child which would’ve been non-existent.

When we only get 18 years with our kids, 18 summers, 18 winters, 18 autumns, 18 springs with them, how much should we treasure and value those precious extra-long bedtimes? The truth is, my daughter will change how much she needs/spends time with me well before she turns 18.

Today I challenge myself and I’m challenging you to treat the mundane moments of your day as though they are priceless – because they are. I have never met one person who has started talking about kids with me who didn’t mention at least once “don’t blink, they grow up fast!” or “enjoy it now, they’re only young once!”

Mainly, I think this comes from a place of regret rather than joy. Regret from not spending more time with your children, not watching, and soaking in the enigmatic experience we’re living with them.

I for one won’t let that pass me by. Right now, I am a mother who has a small child who needs me. I do laundry, I cook, I clean, I listen to stories with run-on sentences longer than Benito Cereno, and become genuinely interested despite myself. I kiss boo-boos, give showers, wipe butts, and raise a respectable and kind human. Someday I will do something that is none of these things.

For now, her hand is in mine. She’s asleep. It is beautiful. She loves me. I love her. So I stay longer than I need to. And I treasure it.