Strong as a Mother

"Mother, noun, to bring up a child with care and affection." "Motherhood, noun, the state of being a mother." Being a mother is one of the greatest callings on Earth that I could have ever been given. When you hear the word motherhood, what do you think of? I think of sacrifice, sacrificing my personal desires. I think of how it redefines the meaning of life. Everything I do is now for my kids and their future. I think of the most unconditional love. I never would have thought being a mother could bring out so many emotions that I did not even know I had in me. The anger, sadness, and pure joy children make you feel is unlike any other emotions I have ever felt. The peace they bring with every cuddle, even on the hardest days, melts the troubles of the world away. The frustration you feel when they are asserting their independence is unmatched. The sadness in your heart when you realize they don't need you today like they did yesterday, and you having to let them explore and grow into their own little being is indescribable. Excuse me while I go ugly cry. Motherhood is one of the best things to feel and experience, in my opinion.

I did not always think motherhood would be like this, not even close. Before having kids i totally thought it was just sleepless nights and getting fat. That is kind of all I was warned about when it came to motherhood. I remember being told, "Oh you like your body now, just wait until you have kids." " You sure like to sleep, wait until you have kids." While I will admit, my body does look different these days, and my nights are, at times, completely sleepless. I really thought life with kids was going to be miserable. I thought motherhood was getting a babysitter after getting sick of your kids. I really thought we would use babysitters more. We don't ever use babysitters though. I thought motherhood would be loving my "tiger stripes" and extra skin. After having kids, I HATED my stretch marks. I HATED them! I thought I would always have them and they would never fade. I thought I would have the loose extra skin forever. I wanted to look and see pre-baby skin on my body. With time, the appearance of my skin has changed and I am way more accepting of my body now. I thought becoming a mother I would love myself more than ever before. NOPE! I did not recognize myself in the mirror at all. I hated looking at pictures of me. In fact, I don't have too many of me in my postpartum days of my life because I did not like how I looked. Where was this motherhood confidence so many mommas had? Was there something wrong with me? I wanted to feel like myself again. I wanted to feel sexy, yes SEXY, when I was naked. I wanted to love the body that did an amazing thing, twice, for my family. I wanted to love the journey of motherhood. It has been a totally different journey than I would have ever imagined. I am learning how to love myself and my journey through motherhood. I am slowly training myself to love everything about my wonderful body, and redefine what motherhood means for me.

Life gets too hard to bear alone sometimes. What do you do if you don't like asking for help though? That was me. Life gets hard and lonely, until recently I did NOT ask for help. I would bear the load until I broke. I say broke like I am a toy, throw it out. I felt this way, like a toy that was broken and no longer useful. I had to teach myself and rewire my brain to ask for help when I could no longer bear the load alone. I turn to my husband to bear the load with me a lot now. I never did before, I did not want to burden him with my silly issues. I had to learn to let people in and open up a lot. I never would have thought I would in a million years be publishing my story on the internet. I keep a lot to myself. It isn't someone else's job to carry my load of problems, that was my job. After becoming a mom of two I learned that life was not meant to have you carry your burden alone. It was not what life was designed for. I turned a lot to religion, a therapist, my husband, my sister, and grandma. I am learning now that telling people about my struggle helps people feel a lot less alone in this journey. I don't know anybody that has their crap together, I do know a lot of people that fake having their crap together. They fake having it all together, and at times gossip about the ones that don't have it together. I am not perfect in this at all, there were definitely times when I felt like I had it together and would talk bad about others, I am only human. Since my hard fall to reality, where I could no longer fake having my stuff together, I realized how wrong I was for ever judging another mom. How could I honestly look at another mom and judge her for her actions? It is not easy living in 2020, let alone feeling like you have your stuff together enough to judge any other person for anything they are doing. Motherhood should be about building each other up and helping each other through the dark times. It's so important to empathize with those around you who may not appear to be struggling. The moms that look fine but are truly broken inside. You do not have to know their story, or struggles to be a support system for them.

I feel like in general moms want to do the best by their kids. They want to become better and show their kids how to do the same. Being a mother is HARD. Life is just hard overall. It is meant to be hard, to teach you lessons to better yourself. Life throws major curve balls that make us take a step back and reevaluate what we want to do with life. It is a constant balancing act between being a mom, a wife, a maid, a chef, and being a person outside of all that; all while trying to be the best example to your littles. Motherhood is finding the balance in loving everyone else and yourself. It is learning to allow yourself to feel loved and cared for. Momma, let me tell you, it is so worth it to take the time, after the kids are in bed, just for you. Take care of you. Teach those littles how important it is to fill their own cup, so they know how to when they are adults. Our jobs as moms are to create functional adults. It is one of the hardest things to do. I want my kids to not NEED me in their lives when they move out, I want them to WANT me in their lives. I am not doing self care stuff for me, I do it for my kids. They learn from modeled behavior. Love yourself a little harder to allow your kids to love themselves a little harder.

Children are not meant to be yours forever. This has to be the hardest part of motherhood for me. It is exciting to think of my kids finding their own way in the world, but so humbling to know that they won't need me forever. It is hard to think of the days that I will no longer be wiping boogers from noses, and won't need to hold their hands to cross the street. Teaching your children to become independent, is one of the hardest pills to swallow. There are times I am like "Stop you still need me", then they do the task all by themselves. I feel happiness and sadness all at the same time. The most valuable thing you can do for your children is teach them to love learning. Children are meant to turn into adults one day. I had to learn to allow my kids to do things I would have never been allowed to do as a kid, and get over my discomfort with their exploration. Watching my kids fall in love with nature and have the curiosity of the world is something I wish I had. I wish instead of fearing the world, I could see it through the eyes of a child. Children see the beauty in all creations, in the ability to learn. As an adult, I see the horrors of the world, and instead of seeing the natural beauty in all things, all I see is the danger. I wish I could be a child learning the boundaries, without fear. Children are the future of the world, it is the mother and father's job to create a better future for the world. No pressure.

Motherhood is messy, scary, and hard. I think motherhood can be so isolating. Children are different, and each parenting style is different. Children are different. Society teaches us to parent a certain way. It is not typical to have parenting taught to us to cater to the child, and their needs. We are taught to have the child conform to society, and the norms set by who knows who. When you parent in a different way, it can be isolating. Children who act different, have to learn to be alone because they don't fit in with the crowd. Instead of embracing differences, we cast out those that don't fit in our idea of how you should be. It almost takes a diagnosis of some sort to be accepted as normal, instead of just being a different human being in the world with value. Children are different for a reason, we all have different strengths in life. This is what keeps life moving, differences. It is important to support each other and find similarities instead of differences. Who cares if this mom does not spank her children or that mom doesn't vaccinate. In the end we are all just trying to do our best for our kids. Motherhood is finding people who want the same thing for their kids as you do, to teach your children they don't have to fit into the mold society puts on us. We teach our children to be good humans with good hearts.

Motherhood is like starting a new workout regimen. There is a million reasons why you don't want to show up, but do anyways. There are days that it seems like there is no end in sight. Some days go by so fast, you wish there were more minutes to soak in the good feelings. Days that you have to end early. Times that you distract yourself to make it through. Everyday you do show up you prove to yourself you are strong as a mother.