When the kids were young there were a few things I did full tilt because they made me feel like I was a good mom.
For example, I knit.
It seems crazy to me now. I wove together with precision strings of yarn to make little hats and scarves. We lived in Minnesota so it felt cutesy, but necessary too. Nothing I made was anything to put on Pinterest. I tried a sweater once but it didn’t go well. The sleeves were unintentionally 3/4 sleeves and the bottom was inexplicably (and significantly) shorter in the back, in no way a trend.
I also did the whole cloth diaper thing. I made my own solution and used old, cut up, flannel blankets for wipes. I rinsed poopy diapers in a laundry sink, threw them in the wash, and did a load every day, sometimes two. This was an even shorter phase than the homemade hats. (My eye started twitching thinking about it.)
I thoughtfully hodge podged nurseries together at Goodwill. I puréed baby food. I made up rambling princess and dragon stories to hasten them to sleep.
I wasn’t particularly good at any of these things, but they made me feel like the lion share of my time was used on what I loved the very, very most. And that felt… nice. Peaceful. Balanced. A full heart translated to loving action felt right and just. Was I a little…bored? Maybe. (I certainly was not idle.) But none of those things were anything I was necessarily passionate about. They just brought a certain harmony to my life and I liked it. My wholehearted love was working itself out with some devoted action, and it was how I was living out… nurture.
And that was all well and good.
But I’ve been defining nurture a little differently these days.
Because now? You want to know what makes me feel like a good mom?
Making dinner makes me feel like a good mom. This is not hyperbole. If there’s a hot protein and a vegetable besides ketchup on the table, I want balloons. I want shots. I want shots and balloons. These days I’m not searching for ideas or looking for creative ways to show my kids how much I care because the bad back from the bleachers, the house full of friends, my claw marks on the dash board and getting the last minute poster board are demonstration enough, thankyouverymuch. Will they remember it that way? I don’t know. But there’s certainly no time to create tasks I never enjoyed for the sake of finding a place for all this love to settle in. Love has settled in alright. It’s in herniated discs and cobbled together dinners.
It’s also in wild laughter.
We nurture each other differently now. And it seems that in some ways laughter has replaced those tender moments. Sharing a hilarious meme on the family group chat that brings tears to all of our eyes feels similar (somehow!) to singing a baby to sleep while tracing their satin curls. How can that even be? I don’t know.
Laughter is a balm. A bad day, a bad grade, a bad game, a tough practice, an inpatient parent, a rigid teacher, an annoying sibling, an unbending rule— whatever it is, when we laugh, it seems to loosen something locked. Can you be mad and laugh at the same time? There are a lot of things that hold our family together— routines, traditions, shared shows, commitment— but there’s something about laughter that feels like glue. There’s a bond between us when we chuckle the same direction.
Speaking of a chuckle.
Lately I have been waking up to this little $&)?! … sucker. We’ve been calling it ‘Chucky in the Chair.’ Every night he finds a different chair in the house courtesy of my teenagers who now go to bed much later than I do. I wake up and round the corner to get coffee each morning and near piss myself due to the surprise Chucky sighting.
And.
It reminded me of something…
One of my favorite ways I nurtured my kids when they were little was with this little $&!)? … flipping elf. It was a pain but the kids would wake up and squeal with whatever shenanigans he found himself in over night— the messes he made, the secrets he spilled, the lessons he told. He was a catalyst to many great discussions including some sex education when we added a wife and some babies to the mix. We loved this little guy. So much so that we actually (myself included) grieved when we learned it was all just for fun.
We used to do Elf on the Shelf. Now we do Chucky in the Chair. And somehow it’s just the same.
In the daily hustle and bustle of family life, love comes out a little … sideways now. It’s not as straightforward as it used to be. I might not be puréing, I might be microwaving. I might not be singing, I might be belly laughing (or peeing my pants). Because it might not be a mischievous elf anymore with a lesson to share, it might be a creepy doll with a mom to scare the beejeezus out of.
These days I’m not covered in yogurt, hanging out in a baby pool, finding the perfect princess dress, or dispensing goldfish. Instead I’m doing the bare minimum of getting food on the table and trying my best to bi-locate. (If I figure it out, I’ll be sure to let you know.) Regardless of era, or season, or how we’re spending our time, I’m proud that no matter how chaotic our house can be, we laugh in it more than we do anything else.
Back then I sacrificed my body and time and talent to grow these people who will live and sin and bless and give and seek independence and undoubtedly break my heart a million times over just put it back together stronger, livelier, holier than before, and today it feels like all that attention to detail back then might be paying off.
It’s not perfect. Please don’t ever get it twisted. I worry. I pray. I fear the worst. I try my best to manage my desires to meddle or control or strong arm. I try to breathe myself through my impulses to use shame or fear to manipulate. They seek their independence, I seek my peace, and the love we share often looks like an argument or a lecture or a stomp up the stairs. A grunt, a sigh, a door shut with conviction.
Love doesn’t look like a Nickelodeon closing scene. It looks more like my kids using me as a safe place to work out their frustration, or confusion, or rejection with their outburst, their eyeroll, or their silence. The proof of the love we share is the comfort our kids feel to… feel.
But, our love also looks like a sincere apology or… a good prank to bring us all back together again. Chucky in just the right spot. A shared laugh.
Some days, when I can’t control their choices, and they’ve insisted on learning something the hard way, when they’ve made some mistake or acted outside of their character, I look back on that time in the baby pool and want to cheers my former self. I want to hug her. Partly, because I know how tired she is. But mostly, because those memories allow me the peace to tangibly know how hard I tried. I really tried! For better or worse. I can’t even imagine giving in that way now. Moms are a marvel.
I was and still am a mishmash of holy and hotmess, ill-tempered with good intentions, Corinthians and Cardi B. It’s a different era but my love is the same even if my nurture looks nothing like it used to and doesn’t include ill-fitting sweaters. We get by. Sometimes just barely. Usually with a laugh. And I pray they know they are loved.
