I was squished between my sisters on the long gray couch in my moms tea room. It’s large enough for like 7 adult women, but with the babies also crawling around in our laps it felt especially tight.
We were chatting and goofing off when we were asked by a new friend if we spend most of our days together, drinking rosé and hanging out while our kids play.
The image in our minds was so preposterous—imagining us in some luxurious, duty-free day with children that were so well behaved and self sufficient they didn’t really need us. We had a good laugh.
But it got me thinking: I did used to view motherhood like that, in a way.
I’m not upset that someone might assume it’s all fun and easy, especially since we have each other for community.
I understand why others can’t comprehend the responsibilities. I don’t believe you really can know the challenges inside of motherhood, except for when you’re in them.
It seems, even on the other side of the most rigorous years raising children, it’s possible to forget.
Somehow, even being the oldest sister in family with eleven children, I completely missed seeing just how taxing being the primary caretaker for every physical, emotional, and spiritual need by a child would be.
Perhaps I had an especially sunny view because I was a big sister with a really good mom; because I had the fun of babies in my house, without the hardship of being primary caregiver.
I wasn’t attending to their physical demands and emotional needs; I could hold them and play with them and give them back when they cried, or I was bored, or I had anything else I wanted to do.
Until I had my own, I never understood just how many needs come with a child. How hard can it be to keep them alive? Just keep them entertained, fed, and put them to bed on time. Need a break? Take them to the pool. 😂
I had an imaginary version of myself with four young children, reading books without interruption, a home without fighting, enjoying meals at the table with everybody actually sitting on their bottoms— and that not being a total fight. Oh, and dishes that got done without always needing someone to do them. It was a great dream. 😜
For some reason I pictured motherhood as my childless life… with extra people. I missed that it was going to take my life and turn it upside down completely. The amount I underestimated the task is… incredible.
It definitely says something about my lack of awareness, but I actually believe it says something more about the invisibility of the many roles and the weight of motherhood and household care in general.
I asked for this role and I love it, it would be a lie though to say I was prepared for all the responsibility that is put on my shoulders alone, as the mom accountable to God for these children. I feel like it’s important to note here: I don’t believe hard things are the same as bad things.
When if feels like being up through the night or being needed by multiple little people every second is too much for me, I try get the larger picture of my life in view, it helps me see the romance and beauty in the midst of all the hard. In fact, actually looking at photos helps me with this. Seeing my boys in photographs, seeing how quickly our household is changing puts into perspective how fast this season is.
I still feel like that first time mom with a new baby, but I’m actually the mom with a 3.5 year old and 2 year old and almost 10 month old. When did that happen? The years are going by so quickly, though the days may feel slow.
I want to capture a full story of our life together. 75% of the time we spend with our kids in our lifetime will be spent by age 12. I already know that I’m living in my good old days. That I’m going to look back on this time and romanticize the years of being needed, holding littles, chasing toddlers, creating adventures in our home and on our land. I know I want to be able to look back and actually see, in visual stories, the life we created together.
It’s why I prioritize photographs. Not just quick or thoughtless snapshots, but storytelling in my iPhone photos. And it’s why I prioritize properly storing them so I can find them again in the future… a decade or more from now, when I know I’ll be wanting to relive this again. And I consistently print them so my kids can see themselves within the picture of our story now: see their belonging in our family in that special and meaningful way.
My days are full of mundane tasks, dishes and diapers and reading that book again for the 47th time, but it feels a little more important and beautiful when I can see it from the outside, and not just from the inside. I’m thankful I have a way to not only visualize our bigger story in my mind, but actually see it, in a real way, in photos.
My heart is drawn to stories and specifically stories in motherhood, both written and visual. I don’t really know how to help moms write better stories for their families, but I do know how to teach visual storytelling, and how to do it beautifully with iPhone. It’s why my heart was drawn to create the course Motherhood In Focus. I want to see other moms have the opportunity to tell beautiful visual stories in photographs of their own lives.
Photos that include them— even if they never have the money to hire a professional photographer, even if they never have the money to buy a fancy digital camera, or even if they do and never have the time to commit to learning it, or the time to pull it out in the middle of real life with children.
I have a lot to say about what’s to come, but instead of rambling on in my excitement, I’ll leave you with the words from a poem called The Last Time.
From the moment you hold your baby in your arms,
you will never be the same.
You might long for the person you were before,
When you have freedom and time,
And nothing in particular to worry about.
You will know tiredness like you never knew it before,
And days will run into days that are exactly the same,
Full of feedings and burping,
Nappy changes and crying,
Whining and fighting,
Naps or a lack of naps,
It might seem like a never-ending cycle.
But don’t forget …
There is a last time for everything.
There will come a time when you will feed
your baby for the very last time.
They will fall asleep on you after a long day
And it will be the last time you ever hold your sleeping child.
One day you will carry them on your hip then set them down,
And never pick them up that way again.
You will scrub their hair in the bath one night
And from that day on they will want to bathe alone.
They will hold your hand to cross the road,
Then never reach for it again.
They will creep into your room at midnight for cuddles,
And it will be the last night you ever wake to this.
One afternoon you will sing “the wheels on the bus”
and do all the actions,
Then never sing them that song again.
You will read a final bedtime story and wipe your last dirty face.
They will run to you with arms raised for the very last time.
The thing is, you won’t even know it’s the last time
Until there are no more times.
And even then, it will take you a while to realize.
So while you are living in these times,
remember there are only so many of them
and when they are gone, you will yearn for just one more day of them.
For one last time.