It’s Only A Season

This afternoon I remembered something I had started forgetting. All the times I had spent praying and waiting for a baby, I always told myself that I never wanted to complain once I was finally a mother. I had gotten so sick and tired of seeing all these mothers post memes about how awful their kids are, how motherhood is a loss of identity, and how they miss the “good ole days” – the days before kids came along. I never wanted to be like that because I wanted that life so badly. I didn’t want to take for granted the most amazing blessing I would ever receive. Motherhood.

The last couple of weeks, Olivia has started taking her clothes off and removing her diaper at some point in the night or when she first wakes up. Therefore, it has resulted in doing multiple loads of laundry and changing crib sheets pretty much daily. She has even started doing it during her naps, now, too, so sometimes I’m changing sheets and doing laundry twice a day.  Ever since she was sleeping in her own room (around 6 months old) I walk into her room every morning and say, “good morning my beautiful princess.” This morning I saw on the baby monitor that she was naked. So I went into her room and started correcting her for taking her clothes and diaper off instead of my usual greeting. My husband reminded me that one day I’ll regret it if I start the mornings off by correcting her out of frustration. Later, I apologized to her and said, “by the way, good morning my beautiful princess.” Her face lit up, and it broke my heart. I realized my husband was 100% right.  20 years from now, I won’t care how many times I had to change those crib sheets throughout the day. Why? Because I’ll miss it. I’ll miss these days of going into a nursery with a naked baby covered in pee. I’ll miss the mornings where I hear my naked baby holding her diaper in her hand say, “ma!” on the baby monitor. I’ll miss it.

And then this afternoon, while I was singing “our” song to my smiling baby girl, I began crying because I remembered what I had started to forget – this is only a season. In the past, anytime I was tempted to start complaining or anytime I was starting to feel overwhelmed by a challenging season, I would stop and remind myself that “this was only a season. One day I will miss this and wish I would have just enjoyed it more.” I guess 21 months into motherhood, the stress and overwhelming feeling of a new baby arriving in a few weeks, and just the day to day stuff had finally caught up with me. I let my guard down and was more frustrated by motherhood than just enjoying it.

Instead of continuing to feel guilty about how I had started to complain and take motherhood for granted, I am going to move forward. I am going to be more intentional about stopping myself when I start getting upset or overwhelmed and just remind myself that this is only a season. And not just a season, but a beautiful one. Yes, it can be challenging and tiring, but it’s beautiful. I cannot think of a single difficult moment I’ve had as a mother that I don’t miss. Those sleepless nights I got to hold my tiny baby girl in my arms were precious. I can honestly say that today has been my only regret in motherhood so far. I really can’t think of anything aside from today where I wish I could go back and do it differently. And I want to be sure that days like today are scarce.

So just in case any other mommas need the reminder today… this is only a season. Take a deep breath and enjoy it!