Being a mom

Catch a glimpse of a mother holding her newborn baby, and you’ll likely notice that universal new mom expression: part joy, part utter exhaustion, a big part wonder, an even bigger part love. It is a look of realized anticipation – and unanswerable questions. You’re here. I love you. Who are you? Who will you become? Who will I become?

We come to know our children, little by little, as well as we can. My three are still young– aged 6 and 4. I’ve known them all their lives, and I still have the same questions I did the first time I held each of them, felt their small newborn weight, gazed upon faces unknown and yet familiar.

In a way they are each the same to me as they were in their first moments: the determined and imaginative little girl, the thoughtful and sensitive boy, the younger sister always watching and ready to join the action. In many other ways, they change every day, adjusting to the world around them and to their own comprehension of that world and of themselves.

I have a clear recollection of rocking my oldest daughter back to sleep after a middle-of-the-night feeding when she was a few months old. Watching her in the dusky glow of the nightlight, I saw in her face the newborn Ella, the baby she had become in the months since her arrival, and the little girl she would soon be.

That phenomenon still hits me sometimes, always out of the blue. I’ll look at her to say something, and I’ll see the toddler she was not so long ago, the vibrant kindergartener she is now, and the teenager she’ll be well before I’m ready, all in that one small, wonderfully expressive face. In those moments, I still wonder who she’ll become. I wonder who my serious, sweet, silly son will be 20 years down the road. I try to envisage how the playfulness and caring and fiery temper of my 4-year-old will manifest in her grown self.

I imagine my own mother still occasionally glimpses the child I was, somewhere behind my graying hair and deepening crow’s feet. I imagine mothers everywhere have those glimpses of their children.

When I was a little girl, then a teenager, then a college student, I had a hard time answering the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Being a mom is the one job I always knew I wanted. It’s everything and nothing like I expected, and it changes every day. Sometimes, often, it’s beautiful and fun and beyond sweet. Other times it’s downright ugly.

Mothering is hard work, but it’s good work, life’s work. If that sounds really cheesy to you, you’re probably not a mom. And if you think keeping kids safe and good and preparing them to be positive members of our world is a cake walk… well, all I can say to that is, “Ha!”

We complain sometimes, mostly amongst ourselves, about the constant responsibility of keeping the family running, maintaining professional lives, cleaning the children, feeding the children, teaching the children, entertaining the children, driving the children around, trying to keep the children from killing each other, and seeking amidst the chaos five consecutive minutes of peace. 

But most of us wouldn’t trade it for anything – not a million bucks, not a second home in the Bahamas, not even a full time nanny. Because it’s really a pretty great gig. And the payment comes in the form of kisses and snuggles, sweet voices calling, “Mama, I love you,” watching our children learn and grow, sharing with them the constant wonder of things little and large, and the hope that whatever they become it will be something good.

Do I want to escape sometimes, just walk out the door and keep going? Absolutely. Will I ever do it? No way. I want to stick around to see who my children become – tomorrow, next year, decades down the road. Wherever they go, whatever they do, whomever they become, I’ll love them forever. Along with all the other stuff, that’s just what moms do.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul and posted on her Blog: Writings from a full life. This essay also appears in the May 10, 2013 edition of the Record-Littleton. 

Forever, in the blink of an eye

Off to preschool.

My baby started preschool yesterday. She’s been ready for a while and could have started months ago, but she is the baby, and so I waited. But with my parents (who watch my kids regularly) away for nearly a month and work piling up higher than the few hours each week I have to do it, I decided to bite the bullet of paying three preschool tuitions – and letting go of my baby just a little bit.

My oldest children are twins, and so from nearly the moment they were born, my life became incredibly, ridiculously busy. For Ella and Owen there is rarely any such thing as quiet, alone time with Mama, and there never has been. They were born together, fed together, swaddled together, learned to walk and ride bikes and ski together, started school together, and even share a bedroom. Like any siblings, and perhaps especially twins, they are alternately best friends and stalwart rivals.

With Katy things are a little different. She is in many ways the center of her brother’s and sister’s world, the doted upon little sister. And while she has older siblings to show her the ways of the world, when they are otherwise occupied, she explores that world on her own.

I worked as a small-town journalist before becoming a mom. With an always unpredictable schedule that can include late nights and early mornings, it’s not a career that lends itself well to parenthood. So I gradually delved into freelance writing. Occasional work evolved into regular copy writing gigs, articles for various publications, a few odd jobs here and there, and a book.

Two babies, especially for a new mom, were often simply too much to cart to the post office or grocery store, let alone to meetings or the office. Unless it was inevitable, I ran errands and worked when I was able to sneak in a couple of kid-free hours. By the time Katy came along two years after her brother and sister, I was as busy working as I wanted to be. When the “big kids” went off to Nana’s or Gaga’s house, Katy was placed in a baby sling and carried to meetings with me, or settled into the bouncy seat while I sat at the keyboard.

For the past two years, on the one morning each week when it is just Katy and me, we have run our weekly errands – the grocery store, the bank, the post office. She is something of a celebrity at the Food Co-op, where she smiles coyly each week and charms the staff into giving her samples of strawberries and slices of cheese.

Yesterday, I felt a bit lonely walking into the store without Katy. All the folks we normally see – Cutter in Produce, Tammy in the Deli, Carol at checkout – asked where Katy was. I finished my shopping in record time, unloaded and stored the groceries in mere minutes, and was quickly at the keyboard to work. All of that was great. But I missed my regular sidekick.

She is my last baby, and while I love how grown up and smart and increasingly self-sufficient my children, at ages 5 and 3, are becoming, I sometimes feel as if they’ll go off to kindergarten next fall and college the year after. When I was a kid, I never understood why my mom seemed so perplexed by my brothers and me growing older. It seemed to take forever to get to middle school, then high school, then college. Now I know that my forever was like a blink of the eye to Mom.

With three small children running my life, my days are more often than not maddeningly crazy. Sometimes it is frustrating, regularly stressful, but it’s also really fun – in a crazy sort of way. Even while I long for a quiet moment during the chaos, I know that it won’t last long, that these days when I am at the center of my kids’ world are brief. Sometimes when I think I just might scream, one of those little monsters comes over and hugs me hard, just for the heck or it, or calls out, “Mama? I love you.” How long will they do that? Not long enough, I think.

Yesterday my baby started preschool. She was ready. Ella and Owen are thrilled to have their little sister at their school with them, and Katy is so happy to be there. To her, it seems like it’s taken forever to get there. To me, it feels like the blink of an eye.