Life changing joy

Motherhood is a tricky, sneaky thing.
Not unlike the now-toddlers who made me a mother.

I came into this whole thing pretty sure I knew what I was getting into. I had babysat all my life. Like really all my life. For a lot of kids. A lot of kids that I really loved a lot. And who I treated, not as temporary charges, but as my own. So, I thought I had a pretty good taste of what I was headed for.

Obviously, I was really wrong. No matter how much I loved those kids as my own, they weren't my own. Not a one of them. Their parents always came home. I always retreated back to my own individual life.

When I was pregnant, I was so blissfully happy, that I couldn't even hear the tempered warnings from the parents who had gone before. No one wanted to scare me -- and perhaps my insistence that this was my life long dream being fulfilled quieted a few knowing onlookers. One of our best couple friends, less than a year into parenthood when we announced our pregnancy, tried to gently warn us, saying "you can't really explain it until you are there, but it is life changing." I was thinking of the life changing joy. Hmm.

It is life changing joy. Every single day. Every single minute. Even when I am asleep.

I have never known such love. Nor have I known such exhaustion. Or self-deprivation. 

I adore my children, as most loving parents do. And I want to be with them. I want to shape their lives into good, as they grow. I want to nurture their individuality and encourage their personalities to shine.
I also would like to occasionally visit the bathroom without an audience or a commentary team.

None of these thoughts are earth shattering revelations. In fact, I am now confident they are the thoughts of nearly every mother & parent.
And I am equally confident that a mother-to-be is out there reading & thinking a commentary team might be cute. Hmm.

Today at 4:45pm (which my mother always said was the worst time of the day, I concur), as I sat at the art table with my kids and refereed coloring, I composed a facebook status (this is a form of self-meditation/therapy/coping) on a piece of my son's art work:
 


For somewhere less than 5 minutes of peaceful (albeit heavily supervised) coloring, I had to endure a lot more than 5 minutes of screaming about markers vs. crayons, a lot of toddler removal from the top of the art table itself, & crayon/marker retrieval from the floor. Not to mention the repeated mantra "On the paper, NOT on the (_________)." On days like today, at 5pm, I ask myself why do I only want to work part time?

I didn't post it. Instead, I scooped up (ok, maybe it was more like herded and bribed with a banana) my toddlers to the bath tub and went on with the evening.

Most days might not be like I imagined they would be when I was babysitting other mother's children. And few days have passed since my pregnancy that have had the complete bliss I felt in those nine months.
And yet I am still here, doing the best job I know how.

This life changing joy is all relative.