Motherhood

BitchPhD has a post up tonight that asks readers to describe motherhood in a single sentence. I did, though I think my sentence is inadequate. The post got me thinking about the moments that stand out for me as the mother of these two beautiful girls, and this was one of the stories that came to mind:

I was getting ready to teach a yoga class at our health club and the girls were in kid-care. The kid-care ladies had moved the "big kids" (those who could walk without wobbling) into a racquetball court to play - it was pouring rain so they couldn't take them to the playground outside and the big kids were knocking over all the wobbly-walkers in the kid-care room. The racquetball court is next door to the yoga studio.

Anyway, I peeked in before my class and was just in time to see the baby, who was barely four at the time, get body-checked into a wall by a kid who was just a little too eager to get to a beach ball. She bounced off the wall, landed on her butt and started to cry. Her sister, who was playing with a bunch of girls at the front of the room, stopped, looked around, and realized that it was HER SISTER who was crying. She immediately stopped what she was doing and went to cuddle her sister. She plopped herself on the floor, pulled the baby into her lap and rocked with her until she stopped crying.

I stood there in the hallway, tears welling in my eyes, radiating love for these children.

It's the stuff that the kids do when they think I'm not looking that really gets to me - they hold hands on their way up the driveway after getting off the bus; they peek into each other's classrooms when they're walking by; their playdate's moms tell me how sweet and polite and lovely they are when they visit.

Do they drive me crazy? All the time. Do they piss me off? Occasionally - and I suspect that trend will continue as we approach adolescence. Do I love them to a degree that cannot be adequately described?

You bet.