MONDAY MUSING
This weekend I have been feeling stretched. I'm a mother of five kids, 10 years and under. Mothers feel stretching of all kinds. It begins with a stretching belly but the
stretching never ends. What kind of stretching
am I talking about?
- I want to feed my kids healthy food all the time but I have low cooking energy and limited funds.
- I want my kids to solve their own problems but we’re late “so hurry up and let me help you already”!
- I want them to do XYZ but that would eliminate unstructured creativity and discovery.
- I want to sit down and read to them but dinner, homework, housework are calling.
- I want them to take a cool class but I’d like to take a class too.
- I want to read to them but I want to read to me too.
- I want to give them a bath but I want one too.
- I want to look put together but they need XYZ.
Motherhood is the ultimate stretch zone. I want so much for them. I want so much me. And love is deeply intertwined in all this struggle. I constantly battle dream vs reality, me vs them, want vs need. All this stretching takes a toll. My heart, body, mind, and soul all bear stretchmarks of motherhood.
I'm not saying that these stretchmarks are bad (I think they are usually good). I'm not wishing for a different set of stretchmarks (you keep your whatever, I'll take mine). I'm just making an observation.
I. Feel. Stretched.
How about you?
So well-put, Abi. And I hear ya! Fun if we could find a way to look back and measure our growth, which is probably quite a bit as we nurture our babes over the years.
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