People sometimes ask me what I find most surprising about motherhood. My response isn’t quite what I expected: just how fun it is.
“Fun” is really an understatement. It’s truly incredible to view the world through her eyes. Everything is new and fascinating: her feet, Josh’s mustache, my hair, different fabrics and surfaces. I can see the figurative wheels in her brain turning as she pieces things together, realizes that this button plays music, and the mobile starts spinning again when it’s wound up.
Her discoveries are reintroducing me to small delights I’ve taken for granted as a hurried adult.
I worried I wouldn’t be a good mom because I’m not very patient. I’ve been surprised by just how patient I can be when love is the motivator, rather than mere obligation. I believe I was prepared for the mild hardships and annoyances of life with a baby because of the depth of loss I felt after miscarriage.
When she doesn’t nap, I adjust my plans with minimal bitterness because that’s not what she needs at the moment. When she’s tired of being put in the bouncer and is only content to sit in my lap while I eat dinner, I remind myself that her future teenage self may want nothing to do with me.
My heart is being molded, day by day, to put her first, and that’s okay. I have yet to feel lost in the role of “mama” because I haven’t actually lost my old self; she’s just expanding. And truly, for all my fears about being impatient and “not good with kids,” she is bringing out the best in me. She is teaching me to slow down. She is helping me become soft and flexible in ways I couldn’t be otherwise.
When there is a pile of days-old laundry on the couch, I can un-see it because one day she won’t fall asleep in my lap after feeding. Each day she learns, slowly, how to need me a bit less, but today I am the only one who can soothe her.
Motherhood isn’t all sunshine and butterflies all the time, though. I wish she liked to nap more (in her crib). And her innocence, her knowledge of the world as a safe, warm place, actually breaks my heart a little. She has no idea of the suffering and conflict outside of her comfortable home. She has no clue about the senseless hate that exists beyond the stronghold of her parents’ arms. One day she will, and I cannot protect her.
I try not to think about that yet, because she’ll be little for a while still. But she is six months old next week, halfway through her first year, and it hits me like cold water to the face: time is a thief. Babies don’t keep.
For nine months of pregnancy, we were two hearts enmeshed in my body. Now we are two hearts in separate bodies, but she is forever my heart, beating outside of me. She has my heart, always.
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