I could be jinxing it, but I’ve realised recently how much I really do love my current life.
Sure, there are the moments when I’m called urgently into the playroom to find a minor flood on the table from where Hudson and Ivy were having a ‘dinner party’ with their full drink bottles, and the moments at bedtime when Eli suddenly flips from endearing to enraged when his ‘sheet is too rough’. The moments when all three are needing something from me at the one time and relentlessly pressing their requests upon me in desperate voices, when Ivy rolls around the rug in hysterical indignation that I dared to help her get dressed or put on her shoes, or when Hudson suddenly forgets how to use his limbs at the same point each day.
It may well be a stage, but it seems that all three are enjoying each other’s company more than they have before – the instances of being highly offended that a sibling is choosing to play in the other’s ‘space’ are lessening and they are ordering me out of the play room more and more. “We’ve got this, Mum”, they say, or “we don’t need you in here”. I suppose I should feel sad or disheartened in some part of myself, but actually my true reaction is one of satisfaction. I return to my still-warm breakfast and settle into a chair to drink my cup of coffee while listening with an indulgent smile to the imaginative games that are being created in the next room.
Everything is set to change as Eli ventures into his first year of school, but for now, our routine seems to enhance our enjoyment of the day as we repeat a cycle of meals, playtime, activities and rest time. I get a chance to be still on the yoga mat and catch up on reading, while Hudson and Eli descend deep into worlds of their own creation, enthusiastically emerging from their rooms when the buzzer sounds to signal the end of their siesta.
It isn’t often that this feeling of equilibrium visits me in the actual moment, but I’m learning more to appreciate the little things that make up a day in this perpetually dramatic life stage. To avoid suffering through events before they happen by catastrophising and to adjust more quickly to things that are outside my control.
I by no means have this motherhood thing figured out – there are so many moments of chaos, frustration, anger and irritation that seep out in the cracks, many times where I wonder what on earth I am doing and how I will get through another hour before Dave gets home. I know too that it only takes one to shift forward a little in their development and the whole balance will have to morph with it – but for now, I want to stop, take a breath and appreciate the special moments. See the good as it is rather than waiting to mourn it when it disappears.
It is in these times that I really want to find that ‘pause’ button.
(And let’s be honest – right now, I’m sitting in a warm, cosy cafe appreciating the craziness from a distance. That sure does help…. and let’s not think too hard about the fact that we are adding one more child into this mix… *Deep breath* back to the present…)
