Ready or not

If mothers of an older and wiser brand read this, please be kind to my trembling soul.  A knowing smile will suffice, but today I sit here and at last, I’ve captured a few moments of breath and an entire lunch, because mothers need to eat too.

I’ve entered a new awareness and I must admit, it feels heavy.

As in, on several occasions I could be found blankly staring out the window, my mind escaping to a very far away and extremely wonderful place, a land that existed before now.

You see, my son just turned three and the little girl is a professional crawler with a keen sense for all of her brother’s most prized possessions, a baby Godzilla who seeks to destroy all train tracks and anything in her reach.  And age three has brought this perspective of all toys are my toys and you get none.  Then baby thinks, oh look at how fast I can get to all these fun things.  Do you see where I’m going?

And thirty minutes into the day, there I was, window staring and knowing, it was a new day. Time to embrace my most unwelcome role, the referee.

I’m positive it’s my new least favorite.

All the sweetness that abounds in him seems to vanish and her most passionate cries of injustice, oh, Harper the fierce.  Over and over and over again.  And that’s when you find me starring out the window, thinking about things like preschool, nay, boarding school.  Sounds divine.

And then my mom’s voice pops into my head with something about evidence of the sinful nature of man displayed in children and another voice muttering something along the lines of, one day you’ll miss this. I roll my eyes, literally and inside my head, so the voices can see too, and think that I probably won’t miss this exact part, thank you very much.  But, I can’t listen to these voices for long, because well, someone just found a train track and is destroying it, piece by piece.  Cue unhappy three year old.

I send my husband a text, is this my new forever, referee for life? and he responds with a stupid smiley face, because he probably doesn’t want to type,  yes, maybe.  Smart move.  BTW, I hate stupid smiley face texts.

I mean, it’s no wonder people seek out refuge in their vice of choice, lucky for you, mine brings me to the click-ety clack of computer keys, where I can write down a bunch of life and by the end, feel lighter and know that everything will be fine, probably.  Boiling water has just been poured into the French press and it is nap time, so, there’s the bright side.

I sit here and wonder what my mom felt like with five kids. five.  But lucky for her, I never started any sort of shenanigans with my siblings, so there’s that, for the record.  I can imagine a few of my best friends reading this and feeling validated in no longer wondering if their kid needs a sibling.

So, here I am, my resume just got longer and I get to admit once again, that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. 

Referee status, consider yourself acknowledged.

Olivia, lover of Jesus, wife, mom of two, artist, writer, coffee admirer, super fan of nap time, hater of stupid smiley face texts, window starer, and referee.

linking up with Just Write