I was talking to a friend of mine the other day who is trying to get pregnant but is worried about whether or not her husband will pitch in enough and step up to the daddy plate. I can totally understand her concerns...there are days when I wish my husband would take over for an entire day and just leave me be...let me go shopping by myself, let me shower by myself, let me pretend that I'm 21 again with nothing more pressing to worry about than whether or not i pass my final exams and graduate from college on time. Just being able to go to the bathroom without someone coming in would be HUGE! Don't misunderstand me...he's fantastic. He helps me out a ton and is wonderful with our boys. They adore him and he adores them. But being a mom, as many of you know, is very, Very hard. It's 24/7. No 'vacation'...vacations are actually more work than being home all day with your normal routine. Of all of my friends with children, none, that I know of anyway, would truly consider the workload between mom and dad 50/50. Most of it does tend to fall to the mom. Even friends of mine where both parents work, the mom ends up doing more of the day to day kissing of boo boos, tucking into bed at night, giving that one last kiss, soothing hurt feelings when it's been a hard day.
I couldn't sleep last night because I had a horrible headache from way to much wine (thank you honey bunny:) and got to thinking about all of this. My husband (who works long, hard hours) gets to come home and be the 'fun' parent. I'm a stay at home mom so most of the disciplining falls to me. Stephen of course supports me and when he is home he obviously does discipline as well. But the every day grind is mine to deal with. This means that when Stephen is home, the boys instantly run to him and want to play with him and be thrown in the air and do all of those things that daddys and their boys do. But at the end of the day, it's me that they want. When they fall and skin their knees, it's me they want. When they're sick and feeling crummy, it's me they want. This, to me, is one of the greatest joys of motherhood. As much as I love my sleep, I do love it when, in the middle of the night, my three year old quietly sneaks into the room, makes his way over to my side of the bed, and curls up next to me because he 'misses me'. This is the time when they are quiet. When they most resemble angels. And it's during these times that it's me that they want be with. I love that!
Last night was one of those nights when my son came and crawled in bed with me at 4 in the morning...last night in particular I truly didn't mind the interuption in sleep because I wasn't even asleep:) So I got to just hold him and give his sweet little head kisses. And then 30 minutes later my two year old woke up to and I got to spend a few quiet minutes holding him as well before heading back to bed. It was wonderful. It's during those quiet moments that I am reminded of just how much I love being a mom.
My sister and I are both daddy's girls through and through. Daddy is way up on his own little pedistal and can do no wrong in our eyes! But the same thing tends to hold true with our mom. Our dad was definately the 'fun' parent. He was fantastic for taking us camping, teaching us how to hit a baseball, going for walks around the block, to name just a few of the fun things we did with our dad. Our mom is the one who kept us from watching too much tv, who made sure we did our homework, who wouldn't let us go over to a friends house in the middle of the week to spend the night just b/c it was a school night. But even today, when I'm grown and have a family of my own, when it's been one of those days, when I just need a shoulder to cry on and Stephen's at work, when I really need someone, it's our mom that I call and talk to on the phone for an hour. It's our mom that calms me down and tells me that I'm going to get through this just like I've gotten through countless things before. I pray that I am half the mother that my mother was to me and my sister.
No comments:
Post a Comment