Mothering

Life has been a bit rolly polly these past few weeks.

 

All six of us are slowly adjusting to our new spots in life. 

 

A new high school for Brad.  His first change in 14 years.

 

8th grade life for Spence.  A zero hour class.  ASB and leadership. 

 

5th grade for Hannah.  Top of the school, trynig new things, including soccer.

 

3rd grade for my Sienna girl.  Right in between Hannah and Austin, settling into life and finding her place.

 

The big school for Austin.  A kindergartner.  Loving the life that comes with being a "big kid" but struggling a bit to keep up the pace and not give in to the rest his "little kid" body still requires. 

 

And me. 

 

I'm a stay at home mom with no one to mother.

 

It's funny, how life has a way of making you yearn for things just out of your reach.  With newborns, you find yourself wishing ahead to the sleep-through-the-night stage.  And then there's the desire for potty training.  Dressing themselves.  Filling their own cups of milk.  And then there's the first taste of freedom that preschool offers.  Where you find yourself, for the first time in years perhaps, with a few hours to clean uninterrupted or maybe even sit and read something without illustrations.  And then before you know it, you have more time alone than you do with those beautiful souls that you send out into the world each morning. 

 

I cried on the first day of school.  I knew that I would.  In the car on the way there, I glanced in the rearview mirror and found three beautiful faces staring back at me.  Smiles of excitement.  New clothes all bright and shiny.  And I realized that while they were on the cusp of exactly what they wanted, what they needed, I was not. 

 

I've spent the last fourteen years mothering.  I've pushed a cart through Costco with a kid or two perched up front more times than I can remember.  I've snuggled a kid on the couch and watched Toy Story in the middle of the day in my jammies simply because I could.  And while I know that my mothering is far from over, the mother that I've been all these years is slowly fading away and a new one is taking her place. 

 

It's a strange place to be.  I've found myself staring at my children more and more, trying to memorize their exact features at this exact time in their life.  Pondering who they will be.  Who I'll be and whether or not I'll know how to mother who they are now.  A sadness has settled around my shoulders as it has become more and more clear that I have moved on. That we all have.  The chapter of mothering little ones has closed for me and I can't help but feel the finality of that. 

 

But. 

 

I have four amazingly tremendous spirits still in need of me.  Less bandaging of an owie, more healing the wounds of unkind words.  Less physical jobs required of me, more emotional support to be had.  Less late nights with sick ones, more late nights of comforting an unwell spirit. 

 

It's a strange place to be.  But I'm beginning to be okay with being here.