As much as I LOVE being a mum – how it has made me the person I was always meant to be – I am also the first to admit there are days that are hard.
Days when the parenting has been relentless. When you are wrung out from being mum. When you have clothed and fed and comforted and organised and planned and cooked and wiped tears and soothed tantrums. When you haven’t had a moment in an entire day that was just for you.
It is usually these days when I miss living near my own mum the most. When I resort to hour-long Facetime pep-talk where I can vent, but still know that she thinks I am a good mum.
And then she reminds me, like she always does, that, with young kids, the days might feel long at times, but the years are so, so short. And that there will come a day when I will look back on these days and wish with every bone in my body that I could go back, even just for one more day of sticky fingers and messy floors and my children being the very size they are now.
And I know she is right. Which is why I try to embrace the chaos and the craziness. Look at my yogurt smeared table and think of how lucky I am, how there are people out there who would give anything to have a two-year-old rub yogurt into their dining table, but who might never have that happen to them.
It is easy to forget sometimes, when you are knee-deep in motherhood, just how incredibly lucky we really are.
Which is why, when I came across this poem below on Pinterest one day, I printed it and taped it to the inside of one of my kitchen presses. So that I can look at it, on the days I need it the most, and remind myself, just how fast these amazingly crazy and chaotic days are going by. And how I need to just embrace them and breathe them in and be grateful for them.
The Last Time
From the moment you hold your baby in your arms,
you will never be the same.
You might long for the person you were before,
When you have freedom and time,
And nothing in particular to worry about.
You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,
And days will run into days that are exactly the same,
Full of feedings and burping,
Nappy changes and crying,
Whining and fighting,
Naps or a lack of naps,
It might seem like a never-ending cycle.
But don’t forget …
There is a last time for everything.
There will come a time when you will feed
your baby for the very last time.
They will fall asleep on you after a long day
And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child.
One day you will carry them on your hip then set them down,
And never pick them up that way again.
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night
And from that day on they will want to bathe alone.
They will hold your hand to cross the road,
Then never reach for it again.
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,
And it will be the last night you ever wake to this.
One afternoon you will sing “the wheels on the bus”
and do all the actions,
Then never sing them that song again.
They will kiss you goodbye at the school gate,
The next day they will ask to walk to the gate alone.
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face.
They will run to you with arms raised for the very last time.
The thing is, you won’t even know it’s the last time
Until there are no more times.
And even then, it will take you a while to realize.
So while you are living in these times,
remember there are only so many of them
and when they are gone, you will yearn for just one more day of them.
For one last time.
-Author Unknown-
