With time I’ve realized that I always write better when I’m honest… And the truth is that I’ve taken a long pause from writing not because I’ve been distracted or have nothing to write about. No.
Actually, every day I wake up, I eat breakfast with my family, and I write my to-do list. And one of the items on my list always says, “Write: Article for UVCMC.” Although that task rarely gets crossed because:
I
dont
know
how
to start
the article.
I have title after title on my list of articles waiting to be written, translated and/or published this year. But then, when I sit down to write my own pieces, the furthest I get to is drafting a structure, and as soon as I try to draft the first paragraph inspiration flees my body. And then, I end up staring blankly at my screen until I give up (again), or until my baby wakes up and suddenly I’m busy.
So maybe this article will not only be about motherhood, but also briefly about the mental block writers experience sometimes.
Yes, I called myself a writer. Although I hesitate to think I’m good enough to call myself one. But the truth is that I like to write, and I’ve been writing on this blog and elsewhere for over 6 years—actually, I’ve never stopped writing since I was in 4th grade—so I guess I can call myself a writer. Because, someone who writes is a writer. The same way that someone who paints is a painter, and someone who cooks is a cook.
Now, whether I’m a good writer or not is a different story, and is up to you to tell… In any case, I really enjoy it.
A few weeks ago, my precious little son turned 9 months of age. And wow, how quickly time passed. Yesterday he was born, and he was all sleepy and delicate, and today he is standing up alone, crawling all over the house destroying every book he gets his hands on, and drinking water from his sippy cup with no assistance. What? Where did time go?
So much has changed, and at the same time I still feel as excited as I felt the first weeks of my son’s life. Every day I wake up and I wonder what new thing he is gonna learn, and what new funny thing he’s gonna do that will make my heart and my husband’s melt like ice cream in the middle of summer.
Needless to say, I’ve been enjoying it so much, by the grace of God. At the same time, though, I must acknowledge that being a mother is quite an intense job. Filled with repetitive tasks, and the constant need to find new and creative ways to get things done around the house, especially when you are a new mom. This has been by far the biggest learning curve I’ve experienced.
(As soon as I wrote that sentence my son woke up crying, so here I am… a day later)
Reflecting on these past 9 months I’ve learned a couple of things that have helped me and encouraged me tremendously in my journey of learning to be a mother. Things I hope will be encouraging to another young mom. First of all, I’ve learned that
Motherhood is ordinary…
(In the best of ways)
Every woman in our ancestry has been a mom. That’s how we came to be. In the history of humanity women from all nations have been mothers. They have been pregnant, and then they have given birth, and then they cared for their children until they were ready to leave their homes to make their own.
Not only that, but women have successfully raised children in times when there were no gas stoves, and no electricity, and when there were no antibiotics or modern medicine, and also when there was no internet.
And no matter the era, or how much access to information (or lack thereof) they had, children have been born, grown and thrived to be responsible and functional adults themselves… Women of all times and places have learned to be mothers, and have found ways to do all the mundane tasks that we must do, all while holding an infant in their arms.
And I don’t know about you… but that is so encouraging to me. That motherhood is so ordinary, so normal, so instinctive, so simple in a way, and that God has created us to be attentive to so many details throughout the day. Oh! The amount of little things that need to be done all in a 24-hour cycle!
Changing diapers, rocking the baby to sleep (for the tenth time), cooking breakfast for everybody, doing dishes, cleaning bathrooms, picking up mail, answering calls, scheduling doctor appointments, doing dishes again, sweeping floors, etc, etc. And all of that is good, especially when we strive to enjoy the little tasks God has commended to us. It’s good to remember that all mothers have had to learn to be productive and efficient, and we can too!
However… Sometimes the monotony can make you grow weary, and when your child has woken up five times in the middle of the night your patience can grow thin, and when breastfeeding is being more challenging than you thought you can start feeling discontent, and… Oh, there are so many things that can make us bitter and drive us crazy. And when that happens it is good to remember that…
MOTHERHOOD IS EXTRAORDINARY
When you get pregnant a miraculous thing happens: you literally grow a whole human being in your own body for nine months! And throughout that time, it goes from being the size of a poppy seed to being so large, that it’s hard to imagine he could have ever fit in your womb.
And then, through the most crazy and intense event of a woman’s life, you give birth to that child. And God is so gracious to have designed mother and child so perfectly that the baby is born and soon takes his first breath. And the mother, while her body recovers from the experience, produces milk to keep nurturing the child for the next year.
What kind of magic is that?
The baby is fully dependent on the mother, but somehow knows how to suck breastmilk instinctively. The child is born knowing that being with mom means life, love and protection, and we know that milk will be his only source of nutrients for at least six months. And throughout that time he will grow, and grow, and grow. Can you imagine that? He will gain pound after pound, and inch after inch with breastmilk as his only source of food. And let’s not even mention all the symphony of hormonal arrangements that enable women to produce such liquid gold, and how perfectly curated it is to feed her own child.
And the magic doesn’t stop there. Through the first months of life, while mom and dad learn how to care for this precious child, he will develop new skills and abilities EVERY SINGLE DAY. He will go from seeing blurry to recognizing faces, from sleeping most of the day, to crawling out of bed at 6 AM. In the first months of a baby’s life he will generate over 1 million new synapses PER SECOND, which is part of his normal neurological development and the grounds for his development for the rest of his life…
What on earth can be more special and mesmerizing than seeing a human being, a creature made in the image of God, suddenly lift his hands, bring them closer to his eyes and realize that they are ATTACHED TO HIS BODY! And not only that but THEY MOVE IF YOU TELL THEM TO!
The look of amazement in a baby’s face is absolutely and utterly priceless. How special it all is! What a privilege to be part of it!
However… with realizing how extraordinary this all is sometimes comes a sense of overwhelm and anxiousness… Am I doing things right? Am I using the right diapers? Did I choose the best doctor? Is the laundry detergent gonna harm my baby? Should I take more walks with my newborn son? Is he gonna start crawling soon? Is he too small? Or too big? Am I spoiling my baby if I carry him too much? And then come the what ifs… What if he gets sick? What if he doesn’t become a Chrisitian when he’s older? What if I don’t have enough breastmilk to feed him? What if he doesn’t sleep well tonight? What if, what if, what if…?
There are so many things that can cause us anxiety. Even the most unimportant thing can feel like it’s very high stakes when we are dealing with a human being’s well-being, and when we are constantly assessing if we are doing the best we can for our child. Here is the thing though….
Motherhood is ordinary.
And I wish I could finish the article there, but I feel the need to sum it up with this: If you only focus on how extraordinary motherhood is you will feel overwhelmed and unfit for such an important task. Every single thing you do will feel like a humongous task, and you will have the temptation to see yourself like a hero. And that will absolutely exhaust you, mentally, physically and emotionally. On the other hand, if you only focus on how ordinary motherhood is, you will grow discontent and bitter by how mundane everything is, and you will have the temptation to see yourself as a victim. You will find it hard to rejoice in the daily tasks you must accomplish, and you will seek diversion and entertainment to keep your mind away from reality.
The truth is: you’re neither a hero, nor a victim. You are a mom.
As I struggled with both things in the past months, especially with feeling like a huge hero every time I changed a diaper or nursed my baby, I grew tired. So I’ve learned to pray to God daily, that he helps me see motherhood in the light of his wisdom and not mine, and that he helps me embrace the beautiful and simple moments I get to be a wife and a mom.
