To capture a moment...

Dear Joshua, Lauren and Mara,

I'm writing today to capture a moment in time, a quick glimpse into the thoughts of a mother's mind.  Perhaps more importantly, a mother's heart.  My thoughts have been wandering lately and have led me to a realization that I'm trying to grasp fully.  All of you seem to be growing and changing at a pace I am not sure I want to accept.  I feel immediately guilty for wishing away even a second of your smallness, even the times that I was so exhausted or scared or uninformed about what I should do to keep from messing you up permanently.  Even the times that I was so angry and frustrated and just plain out of patience to grant you the grace you so deserved for just being little and for needing me so very much.  I feel so guilty for wanting you to be able to walk or run, or hurry up, or do it yourself so that I could have just a second's peace.  Because it seems as though, as the hours tick by these days, that smallness that I love so much is turning into independence.  And while I celebrate that (most of the time), and know that we're passing through these seasons together, I also know that  you changing is also changing me.

I have been reading a book lately that I have revisited so many times.  Honestly, I can't tell you how many times I've read it.  It is a mother's memoir to her children that addresses this very topic.  And in her book, Lift, Kelly Corrigan (an author who truly seems to speak the words that my heart speaks in silence) talks about how she saw her own mother differently as she watched her interact with her own children, and she wondered if that's the way she was with her when she was small.  That particular passage has been playing over and over in my own mind since I read it, and for the amount of times I have underlined and starred and highlighted it in my own copy of the book, it seems to be the one piece that sticks with me and makes me think every single time.  I've had those thoughts as I watched Nana playing with all three of you.  I'm sure your Daddy has wondered it as he watches Grandma play with you.  But it somehow hit me that YOU all might wonder the same thing when you watch me push your own children on a swing one day, or make a slide with my legs for them to slide down, or blow raspberries on their bellies like I do to you.  Because the mother I am today will be a different me than the one you remember later.  And somehow, in the passage of time and the changes we will go through to get you to your grown up selves, this me...the one I am right at this very moment...will have turned into someone else.

You may not remember how every single morning-- every single one-- each of you require my lap for a few minutes when you first wake up.  Joshua, you're so grown up now that you barely fit in my lap, but you always come down the stairs and come immediately to my lap for a hug and a "how was your sleep?" conversation with me.  Lauren asks outright to snuggle, and is never ashamed to want all of my lap.  I know that that, too, will someday soon come to an end as you get bigger and need me less and less.  Mara, you still DEMAND cuddle time with me, and will accept no part of sharing my lap with anyone else.  I know you won't remember it, but I will never forget how you will kick and push your sister off of my lap to claim what you think is yours and yours alone.  And while it exasperates me sometimes that you all want to be right on top of me all the time, I also love it.  I love being wanted and needed and I love feeling like my hugs and kisses mean something to you.

You may not remember how much I love to cook for you and how much joy it brings my heart to make you something that you love.  I understand my mother and grandmother so much more now- because their expressions of love to me have always been the same.  Although I can't bake you a pie that comes anywhere close to rivaling Grandma Mary's, and I can't roll pot pie dough like your Nana does, there are some things that I know are starting to stand for love in your little minds.  And I hope that someday, when you and your family are coming to stay with your Daddy and I for a weekend visit, that smelling familiar smells will flash you back to these very days when I could bake you a birthday cake that put a smile on your face a mile wide, or when we mixed blueberry muffins (right from the box) like we did at the beach that made you so very happy and filled you up with love.

You may not remember how you loved to go shopping with me (OK, not you Joshua...but one day you did).  Lauren and Mara, you both want to go everywhere with me, even when I'm begging you to stay behind to play at home.  I doubt you'll remember wanting to go to any grocery store that has a cart that is shaped like a car so that you can both pretend to drive it through the aisles while I shop and repeat "beep beep" over and over and over until absolutely every person in the store has noticed that you're trying to get through.  I doubt you'll remember smiling at me and telling me that you "love spending time with me" but I assure you that I always will.  Those sweet little words are etched on my heart.

I doubt you'll remember how many times you begged me to take you to the "orange playground" this spring and summer.  And Mara, it's no exaggeration that you make this request at least 100 times every single day.  I doubt you'll recall how we ran between every piece of playground equipment like our hair was on fire, trying to get every ounce of playing time out of our trip to the playground.  We go up and down slides, and then run to the swings (trying out each and every swing hanging on the swingset), and then back to the climby things again.  Joshua, you usually want to do something sports related on these trips and either bring your basketball with you, or run the bases at the baseball field that sits behind the playground.  Lauren, you're always happy to either do what Mara is doing, or do what Joshua is doing.  But you're always giggling.  I hope you won't remember that I'm sometimes grouchy about these trips when you are literally begging me to go, because I'm fighting a battle in my mind with my to do list.  I'm always battling between the things I SHOULD be doing (like the laundry or cleaning up around the house or doing a better job of keeping your drawers cleaned up and organized) and the things that I WANT to be doing.  How I pray that I will reconcile that guilt that I feel about figure out a way to always put you guys first on the list of things to do.  What a wonderful world it will be when giggling with you on the playground or in our backyard is always more important than folding socks or emptying a dishwasher.

You probably won't remember how bathtime was my favorite time of every day with you.  How we would sing silly songs and play little games and I would ask you questions and just soak up all of your answers about why things happen or what you think it will be like when you're a grown up.  You probably won't remember me teaching you how to wash your own hair and how I sometimes have to help you get the shampoo to all of the spots on your sweet little heads.  You won't remember what it was like to have to barter and bargain for the chance to bring eight million bath toys into the tub to play with or to get me to agree to let the water fill up "super duper high" so that only your shoulders were sticking out of the water.  You won't remember singing your ABC's with me while we got dressed and playing hide and seek underneath your hooded towel that was given to each of you as a baby gift from one of Daddy's clients.  But I will.

I don't know if you'll remember that I love to sing (goodness, I hope you will) and that I love your Daddy so very much because of how much he makes me laugh, and that I love to eat Mexican food and anything sweet.  I don't know if you'll know how much I adore your Nana and Pap, and how deep the connection is with everyone in our family in Lewistown because even all of that continues to change as the years go on.  Some, we have been forced to say goodbye to as they transition to their Heavenly home.  I hope we have done a good enough job sharing memories with you to so that you will remember then all. But you need to know that Pappy Fred kissed your foreheads (and mine) every time he saw you- adoring you always. And Pappy Ray never missed a chance to visit and talk sports with Josh.  

I hope you'll always remember how we prayed each night before you went to sleep, and how I would pray God's blessing onto each one of you.  Goodness, I hope you'll have that memory and it will feel like a warm hug from me when you're grown and need one and I'm too far away to let you run into my lap. 

And I guess that--- that right there--- is the reason that these words seemed to leak out of my heart today and needed to go somewhere that they could be kept forever.  So that, when the day comes that you find yourself wondering what I was like when you were little, that you'll have a glimpse of this me, and just a portion of the list of the things I absolutely cherished about being your mother.

I will say, that nothing has highlighted my imperfections like motherhood has. I truly believe that because I always want the very best for you in every situation, my humanness is ever so clear. All of my shortcomings, all of my less than stellar talents, all of the things I wished I had paid attention to so that I could do a better job for you. But in every situation, my inadequacies lead me to God, who loves you even more than I do, and He shows me how to provide or where the next step in our solution lies. So never be afraid of being inadequate in anything you do. God is a perfecting partner, and never have I understood that in the way I have since becoming a mother. 

Make no mistake-- there is nothing I have ever done or ever will do that will be more important to me than having the blessing of parenting you.  You have blessed me and changed me from the first second I layed my eyes on you...each one of you.  Because even though Joshua gets the designation of being the one to actually make me a Mommy for the first time, each one of you has changed me in unmeasurable ways, and all for the better.  If I do nothing right in my lifetime other than teaching you that you are loved and cherished and a treasure to God and your Daddy and I, I will consider my job well done.

I'll love you always.

Mommy