And Then…

I used to be the best mom. Literally the best. I knew exactly what to do to sleep train. I knew the best ways to get the babies on a schedule. I definitely knew how to balance motherhood and life. And of course, I knew the best products to buy. I just really knew everything. Until I had my own babies and became a mom. At that point, I got my ass handed to me…hard. There was no birth plan that prepared me for the absolute chaos that surrounds child birth. There was no “fake it till you make it” for the post-partum depression that enveloped me with my first. There was no swaddle or bounce that soothed a baby who cried most hours of the day. And all my knowledge didn’t include reality or the trials and tribulations of surviving some of the biggest transitions in life.

I learned hard and fast that I was far from the best. I learned how to empathize instead of judge. I learned how to be wrong for one and right for the other. I learned that music helped wake the minis up in the morning and also soothed them to bed at night. I learned that tantrums are a great way to humble yourself, especially when you are the one having it. I learned some days my absolute best was barely surviving and would have looked like a complete failure to my “best mom ever” ideal. I also learned how to love like I never knew possible. I learned that love doesn’t diminish on the hard days. I learned my heart never stops growing and with every stage I just loved bigger. I learned my minis are my best friends and the two people I look forward to the most.

I grew up with these two boys. I got to experience life with them and through them. They made me more confident as a person and as a mother. They gave me strength when I felt exhausted. They gave me late night talks when I needed to forget about my day. They forgave my failures and celebrated my successes. I was never better than the next person but I was the best for my two. We got to learn together. They got to teach me to be present. They got to teach me that there is no right or best, there is just us. No matter what we did it was ours. My successes weren’t book worthy, they were how we flowed together. My failures weren’t relatable, they were the moments we needed to listen more, connect better.

Motherhood has been the absolute best thing for me. I have never loved so big and grew so much. I loved our movie nights and Seattle adventures. I loved our nerf gun battles and lego building obsessions. I loved story time and dinner time. I loved showing them the world as much as I loved walking them home from school. These two boys know me better than anyone else. They watched me grow up and grow into the person I am. They snuggled me after a bad day and they laughed with me over my proud days.

Motherhood is also my biggest accomplishment. Not because I am so great but because there would be no me without them. I got to walk through life with two minis that were so different from each other and yet so perfect for me. I got to see my best reflections in them and also try to discipline them for horrible behavior that they one hundred percent got from me. Through this I got to see myself as much as I saw them. I learned how to fail and ask for forgiveness. I learned how to be bad at something but still keep going. I learned that parenting books are suggestions and not absolutes. I learned how to show up but not stand out. With all that learning, I shifted and changed. I became someone. I found strength where I was weak. I found confidence where I wanted to appease.

The boys and I have lived in our little home for more than 13 years. In these walls I have done most of my parenting. I raised them and they raised me. We grew up together, the three of us. We lived through heart ache and happiness. We watched the eclipse and celebrated Christmases. And now my nest is empty. At times I had wished for this, I couldn’t wait for this. Other times I dreaded this, and wanted them to stay little forever. But none of that prepared me for the emptiness that surrounds me. No one prepared me for the memories that are flooding every breath in my house. This feeling of wanting to be there and needing to leave at the same time. The busyness and the exhaustion that are competing with each other. My identity is confused. My grounding is off.

As my world shifts, I cherish our triangle. When the boys were really young I told them we were a triangle. When we were together, each angle gets to attach to each line. Since there were three of us, it meant we made the perfect triangle. When they would go to their dads house, even with one line gone, the angle they had would always be connected until we made a triangle again. I did this to pad their life when I couldn’t be with them. Now I am missing my angles, my lines. I feel like so much of this was to prepare them for the absence of me, but who am I with my missing pieces.

I have raised my two minis with the strength and confidence I hoped they would need to enter the world. So far they are soaring. They raised me to be patient and strong. They taught me to fight for what matters and let the other stuff go. And maybe when it all comes down to it, it wasn’t them that needed to fly. Maybe it was me who needed to grow into myself and spread my wings. Maybe they taught me how to be the best version of myself. Maybe I am a product of them and this whole mothering thing was about me being the student and them my teachers. There’s no way that I can write this story in a page or 1000 pages. This is my life and every day has been a memory worth holding onto. I am not quite ready to spread my wings but I am thankful I got the best teachers to push me to soar.