Back When I Was A Better Mom

The story goes something like this...  

Around three years ago, my visibly pregnant cousin, Allison walks into the bathroom of a Mexican restaurant in Houston.  She finds herself sharing the small space with a woman and her two young kids.  The two young kids are everywhere.  Crawling all over the floor, peeking underneath the stall, complaining, whining, and really from the sound of it doing a fabulous job at wreaking havoc of what is normally considered a pretty personal experience. Allie makes her way to the sink, gives off a polite smile, and sets to her goal of getting out of there as quickly as possible when the woman looks at her, notices her belly and says, you know I was a much better mother too before I had kids.

Weren't we all lady, weren't we all. 


On August 25th, Mia celebrated the first year of her birth and John and I celebrated surviving our first year of parenthood.  We pray there are many, many more to come.  It has been a tremendous journey thus far and while Mia really did make it seem pretty stinkin' easy to have a baby there were still plenty of times when I thought... this all seemed so much clearer when I was reading about it in my parenting book.  For the sake of transparency here, let me be totally honest... my 5 parenting books.  

Back when I was a better Mom...

You never fed a baby to get them back to sleep... until it was 4am and your eyes burned so bad from lack of sleep that you thought you might actually suffer from the first case of sleep deprived blindness.  In this situation the only plausible thing to do is in fact feed your baby, I mean honestly, how helpful can a sleep deprived blind mother be at a 2am diaper change.

You never rushed home to get your baby down for a nap, the baby isn't in charge, you are... until you skipped said nap and spent the next 7 days of your life in some alternate "I think I will just stay up forever and never sleep again" baby universe.  All of the sudden the phrase.. "sorry, we can only stay an hour..." doesn't seem that difficult to muster up.

You put your baby to sleep in their own room... until she started projectile vomiting and was diagnosed with reflux.  Having to sleep in the Nap Nanny was the fastest one way ticket to our bedroom sweet Mia could have gotten.  

You diligently washed off and/or sterilized all items that would come in contact with your baby's mouth... until you spent a week at the beach and watched her eat enough sand and shells to warrant her as the first valid human entry into a sand castle competition.  Then you started saying what all the seasoned parent's say... "it helps build their immune system, right?"

You subjected anyone who would be left alone with your baby to a grueling interview... until you were out shopping in a thunderstorm and realized at the cash register you left your wallet in your car.  Then you ask the nice grandmother type lady behind you to watch your stroller for a minute.  (Umm...sorry John... the store was full panel glass windows you could see in and I was parked in front of the only entrance... she wasn't going anywhere with her.)


You wondered what it meant when I Thessalonians 5:17 says pray without ceasing... until you held the most precious little being in your arms and realized it was your job to take care of her, then the concept suddenly made sense.

Back when I was a better Mom, I desired to have children and knew I would love them, but without evening knowing it, I was ignorant to the concept of how much.  

Thank you Lord for entrusting me with Baby Mia so that I might better understand how great this love is.  We pray that through her life You would be glorified.

To my sweet Mia... thank you for making me something more than a "better" Mom.

 

Happy One Year of Life Mia, we love you!