I have so very much to be thankful for. So even though I'm not sleeping, not fitting into the size jeans I'd hoped to by now, and not any better at planning our family meals than I'd expected to be at this point in marriage... I'm feeling the blessed exhaustion that only comes from motherhood.
My little man woke up all night last night, refusing to surrender for more than an hour or two's sleep at most, and I got up with him each time. It was not heroically motivated. It was not a supreme act of sacrifice. It was, quite simply, my job. I've had lots of jobs in my life. LOTS. Probably twice as many as the average 28 year old. I've done everything from running a small non profit organization to slinging pancakes at Denny's to dressing up in a gigantic red bird suit and terrorizing young children. Oh, and I worked at a coffee shop for about a month when I was 15, and it was neither as glamorous or as gratifying as a java fiend might hope...
All this to say, this is just another job, this motherhood gig. It's "just a job" ... and so much more than that, all at once. It's filled with moments of drudgery and angst and frustration and clock-watching, punctuated by days where the weekend looms like a far-off fairytale, sustaining hope where hope has all but left the building. And then there are the other moments. The ones that catch your breath as you look down at your child, sleeping in your arms, breathing softly through tiny, parted lips ... cheeks as soft as duck down and rosy with new life, and you cannot fathom that this is what you "do" for a living. Raising humans is frequently thankless, often exhausting, but always miraculous. The tiny people we're entrusted with literally depend upon us for their survival, let alone their successful and eventual entrance into society. And when I read stories like this one, it stops me dead in my tracks, breath catching painfully in my throat as I realize that there are parents who would give anything for the privilege of being up at night with a fussy, healthy child.
And then I pour another cup of coffee. Brewed to perfection by my handsome husband before he left my "office" for his this morning. Life. Is. Good.
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ReplyDeletefixed, thank you!
ReplyDeleteJenny I'm trying to understand your blog title, The Great Deception. I'm 82 years old and baptised a Catholic. I only went to the fourth in a Catholic School. The rest of the time in public school. Still I consider myself well grounded in the Catholic Faith. Now at 82 with our nation which says 52% of the nation says marriage between two people of the same sex should be legal, makes me cry every time I look at a crucifix. I really do. Just this morning the gospel from Matthew said, He who gives scandel to these little ones, it would be better for them if they had a mill stone around them and drowned into the deepest sea. Wow! What a shock we will all face on the day of our Particular Judgement and then the General Judgement
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