for the mommas

One day I am going to look back at my blog to try to remember what it was like when Jack was a baby, and then I'll get here and remember, "Oh yeah, I didn't write anything that year."

Today my sweet mother in law took the big boys for me and Jack and I got the house to ourselves.  After he woke up from his nap, it was just me and Jack in this big, empty house and it took me back to the days of only having one baby, to the days where besides babbling back and forth with a baby, you could quite easily go the whole day without talking. No adult conversations.

And as he was happily enjoying his big brother's toys because there were no big brothers to steal them away, I began to dream of doing BIG, GREAT, GLAMOROUS things.  "While he sits happily, I can [insert how you'd like to make a significant contribution to the world]." In other words, I began to dream of being somewhere else, doing something else. I'm gonna guess I'm not the only mom out there who sometimes feels like any dreams I might have are on hold for awhile.

Then I came to my mind and thought, I'm not gonna get far fast with this dreaming, so I'll just pick up my Bible and sit with him while he's playing happily.  Mobile babies.  He saw me trying to read, so he crawled over and began batting at my Bible. Those pages are not baby proof. I set it aside. Oh yeah, even with one baby you can't do whatever you want.

The thing about being a mom, day in and day out, is that it doesn't feel significant.  It just doesn't.  There is no pay raise.  Your kids don't praise you and tell you what a talented mom you are.  There's no sense of accomplishment when you beat your three and almost five year old in a two on one game of Checkers.  Sitting on the floor while a 9 month old babbles at you and then carrying him around the house doing nothing just so he won't cry is not gratifying. And when you finally do get the time to accomplish something, like clean crusted cheerios off the kitchen floor, guess what! It's dinner time - time for something else to fall and crust on the floor.

Man, as a mom, it's so easy, so tempting, to mentally and emotionally check out of the life you are in, the kids right in front of you, so that you can dream about doing BIG, GREAT, GLAMOROUS things... or so that you can just dream about the days when you could take a car-ride without someone yelling at you, "Mom, mom, mom, mom, MOM!!!" (Yes, sometimes it takes 5 times before I zone in and my kids get my attention.)

Okay so what's the point?  This is the point.  It may not be glamorous, but it is significant, to lose your life for the "least of these."  To give up yourself, your plans, your dreams for someone else's life. So someone else can say, "My mom loved me and paid attention to me and tried to get into my world and understand me and played with me."  Just think, when we give up our lives for our kids (and I don't mean live vicariously through them or idolize them but sacrifice for them), we are most like Jesus, who gave his life up for us.

I've been praying that Jesus would help me to stay present.  That I'd stop "escaping" into my own world.  Maybe you will join me? My kids are back. Till next time!