Today I took my 2-year old to music class. She absolutely LOVES music class. She loves every. Single. Thing. about it. I on the other hand, don’t especially “enjoy” it per se. I mean, half of the class is spent crawling around the room on all fours pretending to be some type of animal while singing and dodging runny noses. I guess I sign her up for this class for two reasons only. 1) She loves it 2) I feel like a bad mom if I don’t, because she loves it.
Today we arrived a tad early which is rare, but I’m grateful we did because there was another mother (maybe slightly older looking) and her son. I told her that her son was adorable and she explained that he is actually her grandson and that she watches him every single day ‘til 7pm and loves it. I told her that she wins MVP Grandma-of-the-year award for doing such a thing. She smiled and told me that it’s been such a gift to her to get to “do it all over again.” She said, “Not that I was a bad mom the first time. I did everything fine, but I didn’t really enjoy it. I was busy and I mostly just did the same things my own parents had done for me- especially with discipline. I didn’t think about what was best for my kids really. I just checked the boxes.” I nodded as her words kind of washed over me. She said, “This time I get to be more present. I get to do it more thoughtfully.” Before I could say anything, the music teacher was coming around with hand sanitizer and various reminders. I sat there with Cami in my lap and I thought about what that grandmother meant. I realized how much I could relate to it. Even though I always believe I could do better, I do believe that I’m doing it better this time around than I did with Charli (my oldest whom is now 9). She was my first child and I was stressed beyond belief trying to do it all right. I was anxious and frustrated and lonely a lot of the time. Not because Charli was a difficult baby, but because I was just young. I was 31 and I’d basically been existing for 31 years in a world that was all-about-me. It’s a huge transition to have that first child, even when you’ve fought so hard for that opportunity. You feel that enormous weight of a little tiny life that is so fully and completely dependent upon you. It’s crushing. Nothing prepares you for the shift from coming “first” to coming dead last as a mommy. It can be a rocky adjustment at first. You’re not sure why you feel grief for your old life, your freedom. Maybe it’s having to eat your cookies while literally hiding from your kids or else they will steal them all…Maybe it’s the eating every meal in under 60 seconds so that you can be one step ahead of the toddler food getting flung into the air… Maybe it’s the no-privacy. Like. Ever… Or getting ready for events in less than 5 minutes while your holding a small child on your hip. Or the not having time to even feel your own feelings sometimes because you are so busy helping little people manage theirs - yet at the same time, you’d never change it. Any of it. Still. That doesn’t make it easy. As I’ve had the privilege of raising my second child 7 years after my first, I’ve tried to soak it all in this time. Even on the days that are just one big toddler tantrum after another I remember something Oprah said about how she manages all the stress in her life. She said that it helps to remind herself that she “gets” to do this. That got me. And I got that. I know this may sound strange, but on the really hard days, I sometimes imagine myself 20 or 30 years from now. I imagine my girls all grown up. I hope I'm still around then, but regardless, I think about what I might give to somehow travel back to this very moment. This tantrum my toddler is throwing over not getting to eat endless lollipops all day or the epic meltdown my nine-year-old is having over the shorts I told her she couldn’t wear to school in 38 degree weather…and I wonder what the “future-me” would do. I wonder what she would say if she could come back and get to do this moment over. I know she would be wiser, slower to react, and slower to anger. Softer. I know she would do it better than the current-me is doing it. I kind of believe that type of thinking is worthwhile in all things in life that matter. Every one of us can tell a story about something foolish our younger selves did or something we believed or said. A misstep the less-experienced version of ourselves took. A situation that seemed so black and white at the time. But what if in the midst of all the chaos. All the stress. The to-do lists. The tantrums. The taking sides… We could just take a moment to wonder what our future, wiser selves might do because somehow I bet they’d do it better.
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February 2022
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