What I Know . . . the Mom's Day Edition

Basically, when I had my first child, I was utterly and completely clueless. Sure, I took Lamaze. Sure, I read a book or two. Sure . . . I had a sister 10 years younger so I was an experienced babysitter and mothering fill-in from time to time. But still, what did I know?

The things I didn't know, of course, had less to do with swaddling a baby and changing a diaper and how to breastfeed, and more to do with the things you only find out once you have a baby, or two, or three, or four.

So . . . this is what I know now.

That sure, I could write a thousand funny, adorable, charming, smart, silly stories about my kids. But in the end, the lessons I have learned are far more profound than the stories I have to tell. That I am different because I have mothered.

I thought when I became a mother, that I would teach my children things. How to read and write, how to pray, how to ride a bicycle, the secrets of how to tie your shoes and make a decent scrambled egg, and all the rest of the mysteries of the cosmos. But in the end, through four children, I learned you teach them nothing.

You try to model a person worthy of their love because children seem to love most openly of all--and I trip and fall as much as anyone. I yell too much after too little sleep. I am eccentric and moody at times. I don't cook particularly well, and laundry is a haphazard affair. But they know, beyond anything, that I love them with all my soul, with a fierce kind of mother-love that is maybe a little bolder and louder than most moms. But what I know . . . is that babies come into the world with their own soul agenda.

They each are so different. So destined for the lives their little souls intend to live. Oldest Daughter played this concert last night. She arranged (!!) songs by U2 and the Beatles. I cried through the entire thing. Oldest Son . . . my math genius. My kindest child in many way, a gentle heart with a mind for numbers. Baby Girl--who won the poetry contest (remember when she was guest blogger?? She won!) and is my creative writer and crafter and painter. The mushy one, who loves to curl up with me. And then . . . there is Demon Baby. We pray his agenda isn't this place. But I am fairly certain his fearless nature and passion will lead him places I can only dream of, maybe. Right now, he loves space and the stars.

I didn't teach them any of their essence. They arrive that way. They teach me. That's how it works, I think. That's what I know.

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!