i’ll be honest and tell you the only reason i care about mother’s day is completely selfish. the mr. always asks what our plans are (read: what my expectations are) so i tell him, lunch out but saturday not sunday because i don’t like dealing with the church crowd, and quiet, lots and lots of quiet. i don’t care about cards or flowers. i want quiet. i want to be alone. but here’s the thing: once they’re out of the house, i’ll do a quick survey and straighten up. then i’ll sit down with a book or maybe knitting and a movie and about half an hour in i find my mind wandering, wondering where they are, what they’re doing. so i text the mr. i know, i know, mea culpa. it’s true, i have a sickness and it is my kids.
i’m with them all day every single day. no babysitter. no family to help. its been all i’ve known for the last ten and half years and to be away from them feels strange. i’ll look up from my book to tell the red bean something funny i just read only she’s not there. i’m guessing i’m like an amputee with phantom pain only my children are the missing limbs.
here’s the thing, i get caught up in the laundry, finding the nacho’s missing shoe, the dishes, getting five littles out the door and into the car, the legos underfoot, the rotating artwork on the walls (i swear they use a roll of tape a week), getting the library books back on time, the dust bunnies that won’t quit breeding…i could go on but you get the idea. i get caught up in all the doing for them and with them, the breathlessness of motherhood, and then they aren’t here and i miss them terribly. i’ve become an adrenaline junkie without the extreme sports. those little people, my high.
they take me out to lunch saturday. a lovely lunch really and there were gifts from the three older kids. the red bean made me a card, a bracelet. the frog prince hands me a wad of toilet paper covered in scotch tape. i finally managed to open it to reveal a rock and a bottle cap. i look at him and he’s beaming. he tells me, “i found that rock in our yard and that is my favorite bottle cap but you can have it.” i look across the table at the mr. and can see the laugh he’s trying to suppress. the poulette hands me her gift, a bundle wrapped in paper and tied with string. i look at the string and ask her, “did you cut this string off the dust mop?” she looks at me like i’m crazy and says, “no, i found it in the hall.” the mr. starts laughing and i’m right there laughing with him because it is a string off the dust broom. then we’re all laughing and nodding our heads, this is classic poulette, it is so her. she made me a bracelet that would probably fit around my upper thigh. i gush and acknowledge my gifts and they feel quite pleased with themselves.
and that request for a quiet day? didn’t happen. the little miss seems to have found her voice and decided to put it to good use. all day long there were little squeals and gurgles coming from her. if i turned her in my lap so she was facing me, she just talked and talked and talked, all smiles, quite pleased with herself. there was that little part of me that thought, just a little quiet, please, i silently begged as i looked into her eyes. i finished saying my silent prayer and there she was, drool everywhere, smiling at me with her whole body and telling me something. in that moment my mama heart melted, i gave into the demands of the baby, my expectations of a quiet and peaceful day, and i cooed and squealed right back at her. she’s a squishy, cuddly reminder that this mama thing isn’t always breathlessness and rush, rush, rush, sometimes it’s just enough to slow down and savor the moment because this, it’s just a different kind of high, a high full of love and squeals and drool.
ps: photo credit goes to the red bean. if there were sound effects to go with that photo, you’d hear her squealing.
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linking up with just write today.
