My husband recently bought this cup for me. We were out on a date night and roaming through a shop after dinner. The second he laid eyes on it he grabbed it off the shell and proclaimed it mine.
“The moment you realize… This is my circus and these are my monkeys.”
When I read the cup, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud. I mean, we call our boys our monkeys. My oldest was “chunky monkey” from about two to twelve months old. It’s surprising he was able to learn his real name. But beyond the nicknames, my husband and I each realized what a perfect metaphor this was for our life with kids.
Where my mamas at? Parenting is a wild ride, isn’t it? It is full of the most awesome highs, yet nothing has the ability to bring you to your knees quicker. Well, maybe stepping on a lego, but that’s a different kind of hurt. Raising a child is full of good, uncertainty and so many surprises. I remember telling one of my best friends, in her first pregnancy at the time, that being a mom was the closest I could imagine to feeling bi-polar. One minute, you are anxiety riddled and sad because you have spent the last hour doing everything you can think of to calm your screaming infant. Nothing will calm them and your momma trick bag is empty. Then suddenly the fit stops and they are fast sleep. No rhyme or reason (you still have no idea why they were so upset and even less of a clue as to why they stopped) but you have never been happier to peer down at that sweet little face because all is right in the world again. You can’t imagine your life without them and you have already forgotten they spent the last 60 minutes screaming at you. It’s an emotional roller coaster to say the least. I had been a mom for about one full year, so of course I knew what I was talking about! Ha!
Motherhood is the hardest, most challenging and affecting experience I have ever had. It continues to be. Every new phase, heck sometimes every new day, is its own learning curve. And oh how these children love to throw curve balls at me!
Motherhood is the most stretched, stark and real I have ever felt. Real. Not perfect. Raising kids is hard. I will never sugarcoat that fact. Sometimes it’s just plain hard and others it’s a good hard. You grow and you change in ways that would not be possible if not for those kids. That being said, being a mom has also supplied some of the most hilarious moments and biggest laughs of my life. The things they do! The things they say! I am constantly in awe of the things they come up with.
I cherish these boys of mine. They are now an integral thread in the tapestry of my life. Each woven perfectly and at the exact right moment in time. They have taught me more about life, even more so about myself, than I could have imagined.
I may not have realized I was signing up as Ringleader, but it’s now a title I hold proudly.
