What I Wish I'd Known B.C. (Before Children)

I have struggled to find my footing as a parent.  Maybe it's because I was a middle child who (don't laugh Leigh) always felt just a bit "unrooted" or because of our slightly strange family or whatever.  Parenting is not something that has ever come easily or naturally to me.  For some reason, it's always been a struggle and I was floored when a colleague from my coaching days invited me to participate in a Facebook group of just moms.  My first thought was, why would they want me?  Seriously, what do I know?

But as I started to read questions/responses by these (mostly) first-time moms, I realized that I may actually have some... well, maybe not advice, but definitely a "what not to do" type of answer to many of the questions.  And then the question came that you always get, and I remember asking myself.  "What do you wish you'd known about before having children?"  I actually didn't answer the question because it took me so long to process the answer, I doubt anyone would have been interested.  But I stayed up nights and thought, I prayed over it in my devotions.  The truth is, my kids are still young.  I've only slightly-permanently screwed them up.  I feel like when all is said and done, my job as a mother will be like a permanent tattoo on their face, one they may learn to get over, pay enough money to some professional to erase, or learn to live with.  But as of now, my tattooing is only in permanent marker.  Still hope of some designs being diminished.  I still have a bit of time before needle meets ink.

I'm not one of those people who can see the "big picture."  I can see things develop on a soccer pitch, but I have a seriously hard time even planning a week's worth of meals before going to the grocery store.  I buck routines and get claustrophobic when there are time constraints.  So the idea that I should have sat down before having kids and set out a list of goals, an outline of what I wanted our family to look like and a general idea of my goals for my kids is ludicrous.  Completely and totally mad.  I'm not that person, and I can't do that.  So when the question was posed on this group, by people who were grasping at doing it right, living Jesus into the lives of their kids, I wanted to help, but didn't know how.  So I did what I do, I took some time, I thought it over and I came up with this.

The world is going to beat up, batter, fight and end up breaking the hearts of my precious babes at some point or other.  Someone will be left without a partner at the dance, not get picked for the team, or be told they are no longer the best friend to whomever.  I will not pretend that these things won't happen, or that, in that moment, they won't be earth-shattering for my child.  But I don't feel like it's my job to "toughen" my kid for those moments.  I don't need to be mean so that when the Big, Bad World is mean, my kid already knows how to handle it.  I want, in those moments, for my kids to yearn for my arms, be they 5, 12 or 28.  I want them to want to cuddle up in my lap, wrapped in my Nana's afghan and ask for my brownies or cookies or cake.  I want them to know that I am a safe harbor to come to, an anchor in the storm, and when they have no tears to cry, I'll cry for them, when they have no words to pray, I'll speak to their Father on their behalf.

Before I had Em, I thought my job was to get her "ready"... to make sure she was prepared for school, sports, friendships, LIFE.  Now, I'm not so sure.  Now, I think getting ready for school looks more like having kids who are excited to come tell me what they've learned and less about new crayons and lunch pails.  I think friendships will come because they've learned how to have conversations with me, have seen my interactions with my friends and have witnessed that friendship can nourish the soul, speak to the heart, and be felt in your bones.  Life is right now, where we're at, in the moments of preparation for the next step.  I don't want them to always be looking out there somewhere for something big or grand or tragic to happen.  I want them to be looking right where they're at, to enjoy the sunset and taste the meal before them.  To savor a friendship for the season they have it and to play in the mud as long they want, because they will grow up.  They will be hardened by life and circumstance and reality.  That's not my job.  So I wish I had known that my job description wasn't to teach a two year-old the ABC's and toilet training, but to love and love with such abandon that they want to go out, they want to explore the world, they want to LIVE even if they get hurt, even if they get beaten up, because their mama is on their side, cheering them on wearing the dorky t-shirt with their picture blown up on the front and the words, "Biggest fan!!!"

Maternity Pants

I feel like life is sometimes like the maternity pants you still have to wear after the baby is born.  Those of you who haven't walked through this particular phase in life with a friend, partner, or yourself may find the following analogy hard to follow, but for the rest, bear with me.  Maternity pants are familiar because you've been wearing them for months.  Comfortable.  Broken-in.  Stretchy.  Necessary.  Temporal.  Depressingly utilitarian.  Reminders that nothing just snaps back into place... some things just take time.

I call maternity pants 'training pants.'  Like those pants you buy for a toddler who is learning to use the toilet.  No fuss.  No frills.  No extras, like buttons or zippers, that require any more than the absolute bare necessity.  Nothing that will take more energy, nothing that will take more time.  Up.  Down.  Up again.  That's it.

When I was pregnant with Em, I was warned that I'd still need maternity pants after her birth.  I thought I was prepared to put those elastic-wasted bad boys back on, to still be big and awkward and not exactly myself, but the reality of this situation, that only the most basic of things were within my abilities, hit me square between my eyes.  It brought me to my knees.  I was so angry.  I was angry that the next phase hadn't started.  Angry that I wasn't "ME" instantly.  Angry... at what?  The process maybe?

And that's what maternity pants embody:  the process.  The process of growing a baby and then the process of finding a new normal after a baby is born.  I knew I needed those pants.  I knew my favorite pre-pregnancy GAP jeans would be more than I could handle.  My body, and my mind really, were in a new space.  One I'd never been in before. I was exhausted and frankly, a zipper might have been my proverbial last straw, but I so desperately wanted the process of becoming a mother to be over. I had changed, but not enough for new Big Mama pants, and so I was stuck with the training pants... for just a bit longer.

I'm in a strange space right now.  A space that is embodied by my training pants.  No I'm not still wearing any, not because I wouldn't fit in them but because I'm terrified that if I keep them, I'll get pregnant again.  I hated wearing my training pants after a kid is born because they make me feel big and frumpy and shapeless.  That said, I love having my new baby with me.  I love the comfy flexibility and easiness of those pants.  They fit a bit big.  They stretch, so I don't have to worry about busting out of the seams.  That dumb elastic waistband grew and stretched to accommodate the growth of lungs, finger nails, eyes, ears, the cutest little noses ever formed, and was now needed to accommodate both the physical and emotional aftermath now that Little Leslie had joined the world.

My life has stretched, expanded and accommodated the formation of new friendships, new cultures, new realities, new ways of processing the world.  It's been wonderful and beautiful and so special in a stretch-marked-and-swollen-ankles kind of way.  But now... I feel like life is just like my pants, ill-fitting because the process hasn't been completed yet.  My life was stretched to encircle so many things but now I feel like my heart is almost able to stand alone, no longer needing the constant, formative nurturing it did when I found myself here five years ago.

I realize that maternity clothes, like everything, are only for a season.  This too shall pass and all those other cliche phrases that actually turn out to be relatively true.  I'm a growing mama.  I've stretch my wings in ways I NEVER thought humanly possible for me.  I'm finding my mama bear roar and that is a massive deal for me.  I'm determined to be present, even if the space, like my maternity pants, is ill-fitting and slightly odd and totally about moving from one point to another.  I'm determined to embrace each step of the journey that God is leading me on, even if it is with a massive pout on my face.

There are times in life when we want to pray for something to be over.  For the process to be finished or at the very least, moved along at a faster clip.  I'm not generally one of those people.  I'm the one who busts out the gumboots (rubber boots) in the rain, who digs out the chunky, cable-knit sweater in the cold, and who relishes the snowstorm for the candles and massive down comforter.  I'm a total journey kind of girl.

So this space, this place of funk and strangeness and transition between something and something else, whatever those two may be, is the same for me.  I'm not enjoying the rawness, the tugs on my heart strings, the uncertainty, the fear, the feeling of loss and mourning.  But I serve a God who saw me through the transitions that GOT me to this place of messy perfection.  A God who sorted out friendships that have nurtured and ministered to my heart, my soul, and most importantly, have been the most beautiful Face of Christ I could imagine.  He sorted out friends and organizations and help and support, right to the last detail in moments of brokenness and desperation.  Why would I ever doubt the process that has proved true time and time again in my life?  He sorted the friend who started the MOPS that led to so much richness and understanding.  He sorted the roommate in college who was the perfect cure for homesickness, neediness, and insecurity.  He sorted the pastor who connected me to the group of women who saw something in a ridiculously inexperienced and particularly annoying newlywed girl that needed to be invested in, and in that showed me how to live faith.  He sorted surrogate family who stuck with the most awkward college freshmen ever planted in Central Illinois, to see me through graduation, dating, marrying, having babies, leaving my country of birth, and continue to be a sanctuary in the storm.  I have the back story for each, and each was years and years in the making to get all the right players to just the right place for check-mate at that particular moment of serendipity in my life.

So here I stand, in a life that feels like maternity pants, and I'm struggling with so many things, but in my marrow I know that this too, like my maternity pants, will pass.  There's a BBC show I love and at the end of one of the episodes, the narrator says, "Faith, like hope, is a rope and anchor in a shifting world.  Faith cannot be questioned, only lived.  It's heartbeat is love."  I love that.  I get that.  I'm living that because one day, without realizing, I will no longer need these training pants I'm wearing.  The process will be over somewhere between one load of laundry and the next, somewhere between one coffee date with a friend and school-pick up.  But for now, bring on the elastic because this mama isn't quiet ready for the Big Girl pants just yet cause Jesus is doing something, and I'll wear these pants, and live in this processing space until He decides its time to move on.

Running In Pajamas

Something has changed in my soul in the last year.  I can't exactly put my finger on what or when the change occurred, but at some point I grabbed hold of this idea that I'm not just a mom or that I should be something more.  I felt those words, heard them, said them, over and over and over throughout this mothering journey.

I'm just a stay-at-home mom.

I should be doing more.

I just do the laundry/make the beds/pack the lunches.

I should be spending more time with my kids/husband/etc.

You have four kids and I just have one!

If you can do this with no family around then I should be more than able to...

It's lies.  All of it.  There's not "just" or "should" in life.  This is not a motivational poster, this is my heart.  There's this great line in the movie "Glory Road" where the coach is telling his black players that no one can take their dignity because it's inside of them.  People can only take it away if you give it to them.

Every single time as a mother I've said "I'm just..." or "I should be..." I've created a space of discontent, doubt, self-loathing.  A space for the Enemy of My Soul to come in and steal away something that is mine by right.  My joy.  My peace.  My happiness.  My relationship with my husband.  My interactions with my children.  My ability to cope.  My claim as a beautiful mess that was created in the image of my Maker for such a time as this; crushed Cheerios, baby spit-up, frazzeled hair and all. 

When I compare myself to someone else's version of what life should be, could be, or even is, I'll never measure up.  I will always come out on the short end of that stick... and then I'll use that same stick to beat myself up further because I didn't measure up.  The cycle is vicious.

I loved this video.  It so spoke to me that not matter how many defects I see in myself, my children don't see them.  Em doesn't see the stretch marks on my thighs, she sees the lap that she always wants to be sitting in.  Cooper doesn't see the laundry as a measuring stick of his mamma's self-worth, he just sees a soft pile to jump into.  Harper doesn't see the dark circles under my eyes from sleepless nights, she just sees cheeks she can squish together with her suspiciously sticky hands.  And Zora doesn't see the stomach that does not look like it should, she just knows how soft and squishy and perfect it is to snuggle into.

I'm not even remotely close to the example I want for my children, but I do know, for a fact, one thing:  the more I compare myself to what I think my life should be, the further away I get from the example I want to be.  Period.  I can either beat myself up in my own head and defeat myself before the race has even started, or I can just start running, flabby-limbed, unprepared and still in my pajamas... probably with bits of some meal stuck to me.  Because even in my pajamas, I can run.  As a friend once said, "Any day you can put a check-mark under the 'run' column that makes you a runner.  Doesn't matter if it took you an hour to run one kilometer.  You still RAN."   I want my kids to see that I will run MY race, the one before JUST me.  It's not going to be pretty, it's never going to be perfect, but it has MY starting point and it has MY stopping point and it has mountains and valleys that only I can claim, no one else, and I'll make it... eventually.

I Know...

I know how to de-snot a child with congestion and teach them to sneeze into a tissue.

I know how to make a bunk bed in the middle of the night, in the dark.

I know how to make peanut-free, gluten-free, wheat-free granola bars... in case there are allergies at a playdate.

I know how to tame what looks like unruly ostrich feathers but what my daughter calls hair.

I know half a dozen ways to cure thrush.

I know how to be prepared, even for the unprepared-able.

I know how to soothe a sore throat and an aching heart.

I know how to move heaven and earth to get a toddler to the toilet in time, and I know how to forget my own bladder for hours on end.

I know how to snuggle a kid in just right so that they can sleep, no matter how far away from home and their own bed they are.

I know what it takes to get my whole crew of zoo animals through security at any airport, and keep them smiling the whole time.

I know how to stop a child, mid-swing, from hitting another.

I know how to roll down a grassy hill so that my four-year-old giggles in a way that makes the universe smile.

I know how to pick just the right kind of pink apples to bring smiles to the masses.

I know how to teach a child to tie shoes, fasten buckles, and sort out buttons so that they feel accomplished and capable.

I know how to pester a kid enough to make them start using their imagination and creativity rather than whining.

I know how to make lotion and house cleaner and laundry detergent that keeps the eczema monsters at bay.

I know how to manage a half-dozen lists in my head without forgetting any major things on any of them.

I know how to tenaciously protect my family from the chaos and loneliness of over-scheduling, over-committing, and over-planning.

I know how to coerce a fashionista into selecting outfits that mostly match without turning it into a battle of the wills.

I know how to repeat a single phrase hundreds of times without losing my mind, and only sporadically, my cool in the process.

I know how to get highlighter off walls and orange crayon off carpets.

I know how to make a bed so that a three-year-old can then "make the bed" all by themselves.

I know how to read a book in such a way that my kid wants to snuggle in, and have it read out loud and realize that books are important to life, not just Mommy.

I know how to get a child to beg for hummus and sushi and cabbage.

I know that I bleed love and foundation and PRESENCE.

I know that I can roar like a lion, saying stay-the-blast-away-from-my-kid-until-I-say-differently without uttering a single sound.

I know how to love fiercely, passionately, completely.

I know these things because I AM these things... and thousands and thousands of other seemingly insignificant events that make up the endless minutia that is motherhood.  I sometimes think I'm doing it all wrong.  I often feel like I've failed, utterly and completely, that day.  But that doesn't change what I know.  I know who I am.  I am the center of their universe, the answerer of questions, the thrilling part of the day and the keeper of the clean underwear for those that know what my heart sounds like from the inside.  I know I will often fail, and I know that in the end I am just me, but I also know that to them, just me is, literally, everything.