As mother day approaches, I sit here on this Friday night in Elea’s nursery, pitch black, ocean sounds blasting, and a little giant baby snuggled on my chest, holding on to my shirt as tightly as can be. I rock us both with my right toes, my left leg folded under my right leg for left hand support, as my hands hold onto a tiny bright screen that sheds just the right amount of light onto my babes face. And my thumbs go crazy, as they so carefully type this post, making sure to touch the right letter.

This has been a crazy week. We wrapped up Elea’s first birthday celebration on Sunday and had family staying with us from Dallas.    I woke up feeling kinda sick so I had to make sure to give myself a break. Wednesday came along and I was starting to feel better, when Elea and Nate slid down the jungle gym slide and Elea tweaks her foot. She refuses to walk or crawl and seems to be in pain. Long story short, her foot is bruised but no broken bones. We are safe. I sat Wednesday night crying my eyes out, angry that I wasn’t able to prevent her from getting hurt. I thought for sure it was broken. My prayer chain worked.

Onto Thursday, my book club meets and we have an amazing meeting with even more amazing women. I go to bed feeling great with a full heart.

Friday morning hits me hard. Elea is up every couple hours. I resign and bring her into bed hopping she’ll nurse when needed and let me sleep. 5:50am comes around and she is wide awake. Play time comes around too soon. BUT her foot seems better so I am grateful.

We get ready for tea time with Nathan, and while he is helping me get the baby ready, in frustration that he can’t help me carry in the diaper box he says *uck.

Yes.

* u c k. The F bomb. The worst. I am completely taken aback, especially because he used it in the correct context. Where? What? How? We never. No one around him ever…a million thoughts cross my mind while I accidentally smear poop on my hand and Elea is giggling up a storm. I quickly snap back in and begin to ask questions. What did he say? Can he repeat what he said? Did he mean to say fudge? Maybe fun? Forge? Anything other than what I thought I heard?! Please. But he is pretty adamant, he assures me, that what he meant was *uck. Ok, so I continue with my questions and the story is more or less the same.

So, naturally, being that I have a marriage and family therapist on retainer (she’s my sister and she accepts my children’s love as payment), I text my sister. After discussing the whole scenario the following hits hard:

“You can’t really control what Nathan will hear, you’ll protect him as much as possible… I’m so glad that you have a great relationship with him where he’ll tell you exactly what happened. That’s what’s worth protecting and making sure it stays strong.”

I can’t and will not be able to protect Nathan from everything, possibly not many things at all BUT I can equip him with the right foundation with our Father at the center, so that he can find comfort in sharing and asking for guidance from a loved one. It takes a village to raise babies, and I can only continue to strive to teach my children about grace, love and faith. I can continue to try and surround him with people who love him and will be there when he reaches out, but mostly people from whom he will see what he should be like.

We finished the week with a yummy Indian dinner ( at Nathan’s request) and very much enjoyed each other’s company. The family sitting next to us even commended us as we left on how well behaved our children were and how well cultured they seemed. What else could we give our children, I thought as we left the restaurant, but experiences and exposure to the world to make them better human beings.

So on this coming Mother’s Day, all I want is to make some more time for long hot showers, more time to sit and take in my rapidly growing babes and to be gentle with myself as I learn to be a better versions of myself (and a better mommy, of course!) as every day passes by.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the hard working mamas out there, especially the ones who get to clean up poop more than once a day ( it’s only fair 😁).

Xoxo