Learning Curve

I've officially been a mother for a little over three years now.  I have felt like a mother for just over three and a half.  I have wanted to be a mother for much longer.
I've learned so much in that short time, and my journey has only just begun.
I'm humbled by the thought of what I have yet to learn.
I'm moved by what others have taught me.
And sometimes I'm even frustrated by how little I just naturally know.

helping with my mother's day blueberry pancakes.

But there are things I have learned in these last few years.  Things I never would have imagined or felt.  And, lucky you - I've compiled them into a neat and tidy list.

I have learned:

• That there is a love so powerful that it hurts.
• That there are times you won't like your child, but in just a moment you will remember why you love them so fiercely.
• What it feels like to not like yourself because of the emotions that are brought out in you during the most trying times. 

• That being alone is beautiful.
• That a crowded couch is lovely.

• How to shop for the perfect toy car, truck, train, or airplane.
• That there is a universal feeling of when you hear a child cry and you pause for a moment to listen in case it's your own.
• What it feels like to have your screaming child irreparably disrupting the lives of others around you.
• What relief feels like to hear someone else's screaming child, and to thank God that it isn't your own.   

• That you don't have to grow a baby inside of you to love it with every ounce of your being.
• That being able to drink red wine at your own baby shower is a pretty sweet trade-off to hours of labor. 
• That love can break your heart.
• And mend it back up again.
• And then fill it so full that you're afraid it might just burst.
• What it feels like to see or hear something awful on the news and to instantly picture your baby in that baby's place.
• What it feels like to cry either happy or sad tears nearly everyday.  Whether it is because of what I know, what I feel, or what I'm missing.
• That there must have been times when my own mother worried about how I might turn out.
• That I will always imagine the worst-case-scenario.
• But I will also dream about the best.
• That mothers of boys will clean up a lot of pee in one lifetime...or one year.

• That no one will love my kids as much as I do.
• Or think the things they do are as amazing as I do.
• And very few will care when they fall down, or stand up.  
• How to mend nearly every type of hole in clothing and get pencil marks off the wall. 
• What it feels like to watch a child's heart break.
• What it feels like to have my own broken.
• That I am not my body, or my job, or my wardrobe.
• That nothing - NOTHING - is more annoying than a high-pitched scream administered in public when one does not get one's way.

• That I can't judge other mothers and worry about what they are doing or aren't doing, because we are all just trying the best we can to survive and keep them alive.
• That no one knows absolutely everything about parenting.  And those that think they do usually don't have any children.
• Why my parents had trouble falling asleep until I got home at night.

• That I have to follow my gut, because most authors of parenting books are people that followed their own gut with their own children, and started out right where I am.  Either that or they're scholars that didn't spend any time raising their own children to begin with.
• That I am unfathomably and unfairly lucky to have a caring and helpful partner in this journey.
• What it takes to get ink out of everything.
• That life is fragile, and being a mother is not to be taken for granted, even on especially on the days that are hard, and painful, and exhausting. Because the next day will heal my heart and most likely be so much more than what today was.