You pray your head off for
God to give you babies. You hold your breath for nine months, avoiding all the
caffeine and sugar and any other remote possibility of anything that could keep
you from having a perfectly healthy, smart baby. God places your little miracle
in your arms, and they’re not just healthy and smart but beyond beautiful too.
Having crossed the finish line of getting them here safe and sound you now
embark on the next eighteen years of getting to a place that you never wanted
to be.
All that rocking and singing in the middle of
the night, the hugs and kisses and nuzzling turns into a toddler who is sooo
busy discovering, that they only stop by your leg for a quick hug every twenty
minutes or so. Then the stops get fewer and fewer and they go to things like ballet and
gymnastics and their bones grow strong cause you feed them all the good stuff .
You don’t take your eyes off of them for one second to avoid any broken bones
or scarred knees. You pray for their teachers and against any crazy people who
might abduct them or start shooting in their school. You plan your day around
the moment you can sit in the pick-up line. That’s when your day really starts,
cause all the stuff you did while they were at school was just so you could be
prepared to feed them the good stuff and be rested enough to help them (
hopefully patiently) with their homework. You cherish every moment of reading
to them and then every moment of them reading to you. Or maybe you spend a few
years homeschooling them. And altho it’s totally not your thing, and maybe its not
their’s either, at least you’re together. You think you’re losing your mind and
you eat a whole lot of end-of-a-hard-day ice cream, but you cherish that too.
You teach them to sit up straight and pretty and and to have the beautiful manners of a foreign Ambassador. Yes ma’m, No ma’m, thank
you ma’m are non-negotiable, especially to grown-ups other than yourself. Get those braces so that beautiful heart-melting smile is picture perfect. A
winter cold? Off to the Doctor you go, keep those babies protected in every way
you can. Pray hard every night. Pray with them and for them. Turn them over to
God every Morning for His protection and guidance and His will. And don’t
forget every morning to pray for those husbands that will come along and one
day and be your sons and the Daddy’s to your grandbabies. Save and sacrifice
and send them to the best schools so they’ll be educated and cultured and
conversational. Make sure they have plenty of friends to play and interact
with, even if you have to import them from other neighborhoods during the newly
hormonal years, when feelings are hurt every ten minutes. Agree to have all the sleep-overs at your
house, cause you’re probably one of the few Moms who listen in on the intercom
to make sure those curiosity years conversations don’t end up in some wrong
discoveries. Protect them. Put that lock on that computer. Protect them physically and emotionally and
every other way you can think of. Don’t watch the news cause its too scarey.
Buy just the right soaps and moisturizers and make-up so those beautiful
complexions are glowing. Dress them cute from day one so they’ll have a great
sense of style, to match they’re effervescent personality. Teach them how to do
their laundry and how to cook and clean so they’ll be great Mommies and great
wives. Put your whole heart and soul and then some into these precious gifts,
and then in one fell swoop, do something harder than all of that, all those
years, day and night, night and day put together…. Do the hardest thing of all,
do the last thing you’d ever want to do. With a hurricane in your stomach and
an anchor using its full weight to sink your Momma’s heart, do it. Go ahead. Do
it. ...LET THEM GO.
