Motherhood

Motherhood is complicated. At least for me it is. I love my children, I want to be home with them, but I also want to get a break from them. I went shopping with my oldest daughter and my Mother in Law last Saturday. We were gone for 12 hours. When I came home (at 10 p.m.) I decided it's good to miss your children once in a while. And this Saturday I'm doing it again, this time with my sisters. Mega shopping and girlie fun, with no curfew- It will be good to just be Amy for a while.
Jeff has offered to switch places with me more than once. He'll be the one at home and I'll go to work. I think it over, would I prefer that? I get a magazine in the mail from my Alma mater, Westminster College, for alumni. I see a familiar face looking out at me, a girl (woman now) that I was in school with is now a doctor, her husband is a doctor. They travel to Europe. Do I want HER life?
Today over on another blog I watched a Mormon Messages video about Stephanie Nielson, who was terribly burned in a plane crash nearly 2 years ago now. Through the crisis of nearly losing her mortal life, and of actually losing the life she led before, she has gained a new understanding of the gift of motherhood.
The reality of my life comes full circle. Motherhood is not the magazine pictures you see everywhere. It is fits and spurts and messes and scrapes and throw up and blood and losing your temper. It is back talk and attitude and late nights and worry and fear and horrible nightmares. Motherhood is not what I thought it would be, and I am NOT the mother I thought I would be.
It is better.
And I am working on being better.
Through my own life's "plane crashes" where things have not gone the way I thought they would, I too have learned what a gift and opportunity and privilege it is to be a mother. I would not trade sippy cups and dirty diapers and sticky faces for money, or luxury or fame. I have had the tremendous privilege of seeing two different sides of the coin. I have been a working mother who was really good at her job, who got lots of praise and recognition, and a paycheck! And I have been a stay-at-home mother who gets only the occasional "thank you" spoken verbally. I know it doesn't sound like the right choice, on the list of "pros" and "cons" the tangible things that make full-time motherhood desirable are few and the cons loom large.
But motherhood is not about the tangible things. It is the fulfillment of deep spiritual yearnings, unexplainable, but very real. It is the deep and abiding love beyond human vocabulary that permeates the life you live. It is knowledge, given and received, experiences that prepare for future immortal, omnipotent power. Motherhood is deep, visceral, the very essence of existence.
Motherhood is beautiful because it is hard.