There
is a time in the morning, every morning, that my mind is practically spewing
thoughts. My neurons are firing at a
rapid rate and my thoughts can’t be controlled.
I think this has something to do with the fully rested mind and the
recent flood of caffeine I’ve incurred.
Yes, I have a 3-month-old and I am fully rested – I know I’m lucky. I have never been one of those mom-zombies,
or “mombies”, walking around, barely functioning. I have super awesome newborns who sleep – it’s
the 2-3 year olds you have to watch out for.
I have recently become a mother of 4 at
the age of 28. I get a lot of
looks. I first became a mother at the
age of 21 and popped one out approximately every 2 years until I got to 4. Are we going to have more? I don’t honestly know. We’re at this place in life where society
says you’re crazy if you have more than a certain number. It is truly funny the different reactions you
get from people when you say you’re considering a 5th child. They range from joy to disbelief to horror to
awe to straight up condescending. I
always think, we can all handle different things and what I can handle is not
that same as you, so why is it that I get negative reactions at all? Is it perhaps because they imagine themselves
in my shoes and it sounds unpleasant? I
guess I am guilty of this in a way. I
have patience for my children - messes and potty accidents and all - but when I
see pets doing the same thing – I’m out.
My mom has two dogs and three cats and I feel the need to tiptoe around
when I am at her house because surely there is some sort of animal residue on
everything. I just couldn’t handle
that. But I assume there are people that
look at my house and all they see are tiny fingerprints and questionable stains
on my carpet. You see, we can all handle
different things with our own amounts of grace and toleration. I’m so not a person who uses phrases like
this, but this is a good example of saying “You do you and I’ll do me.”
The funny thing about me being a parent
of 4 children is that I was that person when I was younger who hated
babysitting and thought little kids were gross.
This all stems from one terrible babysitting experience – I was asked by
a fellow church member if I could watch their two children every Wednesday
night while they attended service. I had
taken a Red Cross babysitting course recently and was excited to bring my
binder filled with crafts and activities to their house and be the best
babysitter they’d ever seen. They lived
in a questionable neighborhood and I was warned to not take the kids
outside. I was also told that the only
TV in their house was in their bedroom and I could use it but the only place to
sit in their tiny master was in their bed - awkward. So every Wednesday I was left with their two
children – an older boy and a baby girl who were both still in diapers. Week after week the same thing would happen -
the boy would have a poopy diaper and when I went to change him he would
scream, “MOMMY! MOMMY! MOMMY!” repeatedly.
I was pretty young, like maybe 12, and I didn’t know what to do. If it were now I would just scoop him up and
change him and get it over with, but at that age it completely freaked me
out. I would listen to him scream for
quite a while before I would finally just change him despite the hollering, and
he would stop immediately once I had finished.
To top it off, my mom had recently bought something for me that I wanted,
but she told me I had to pay her back.
At the end of my night I would get my money and go home and hand it all
to my mom. So all of the work I was
doing seemed like it was for nothing.
After a few weeks of giving her all the money I was exasperated and told
her what was going on. I don’t think she
understood that I was giving her everything I was making and she told me that I
should only give her a percentage of my earnings so that I could have some
spending money too. By this time, I had
had enough and was completely turned off to babysitting at all. I called up the family and told them I could
no longer babysit. I didn’t have a
backbone to just tell them it was too much for me, so I think I told them I had
some other activity going on Wednesday nights for the foreseeable future.
There was even a time in my bad attitude
teenage years that my mom told me she didn’t think I should have kids. I’m not sure why actually – maybe I was just being
a mean big sister and that made her think I would be a horrible parent. It’s a good thing how you act as a teenager
doesn’t determine the outcome of your life, because I was a selfish, entitled
brat during high school. But sometimes
when you’re floating through life and you don’t know what you’re supposed to do
or really who you are something happens and it all makes sense, and that for me
was having my first baby. I was only 21
when I had Haven. I remember when she
first came out and I thought, “Oh my gosh.
I know I felt something moving in there, but that’s an actual baby. Like, a real baby.” It’s almost like shock. You don’t understand how much there is to
parenting, and that it’s 24 hours a day.
At 3 a.m. when they cry they’re still your responsibility and nobody
else’s. But when you look into their
eyes and they look back at you and they smile because yours is the only face
they know and they love, that’s a life-changing moment. At least it was for me – as I understand it,
not everybody feels that way. The
emotions I feel are so strong for my babies the only way to describe it is like
your heart breaking, but in a good way.
Happy tears in the most intense way you’ve ever felt. That’s how it feels to hold your own baby and
love so intensely it hurts.
Being a mom is the most rewarding and
challenging experience I’ve ever had. If
I thought I was exhausted at another time in my life, I really wasn’t. There is nothing more all-encompassing than
being a parent, because there are no breaks.
So far at least, we are not the parents that leave our children and go
on vacations alone to recharge, frankly because I can’t stand the thought of
leaving my babies behind. Maybe someday
when my youngest isn’t so young I will feel comfortable with that, but not
now. As for now I am very content to be
exactly where I am. With my babies and
my husband, and just doing this crazy life the best I can, and hoping my
children know how much I love them.
