My Annabelle is finishing second grade, Elijah first, and Lisabeth 3K. Sometimes, I look around and wonder how I got to this time, this treasured time. It really does pass us by so quickly, like they say, “in a blink.”
This year I have seen my Annabelle settle into her skin; she is comfortable being herself, and I too have relaxed as a mom. Sometimes I don’t do all the things I feel are on the checklist of motherhood.
You need to know that when I became a mother, I was coming out of a deep depression and it hung on like the baggage it was. Then, I had Annabelle, and looking back, I am certain I had postpartum depression, but I was too embarrassed and not even that, I had no idea what emotional and communicative integrity really were. I was too busy being good and trying to juggle the weight of the world and everyone’s problems to deal with my own stuff. I didn’t become a mother well. I was anxious and stressed and scared of doing things wrong. I had not settled into my skin. I did not know me.
Annabelle came into the world, and she was hardly quiet. People were going to look at me, and sometimes they were not going to like the way my kids sounded in the grocery store. Back then, a mere eight and half years ago, I was still enslaved to the world’s opinions of me. A good mom as they say would keep their kids quiet and a would always know how to calm a crying babe and make them always mind, without scenes in Target or Publix. As it was, that was not the way it happened. And so, God used my children to set me free from the slavery of the world’s views.
But I still feel the checklist. The good mother checklist. Did I hug my kids today? Did I tell them I loved them? Did I read the Bible to them? Did I pray with them?
Or the opposite – the bad mom list. Did I lose it on them or in front of them? Did I forget to hug them? Did I mention Jesus today? Did I spend too much time self-absorbed?
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