And then you are a mother for one year
I thought I would never be able to do it and I've been doing it for a year now. I am a mother. For 365 days.
Time is and remains beautiful: every day seems to last very long, but a year has suddenly flown by. The mornings have been busy, full, chaotic for 365 days. Bottles, pacifiers, crawling, getting dressed, diapers, lost socks, forgotten fruit snacks. The afternoons have been filled with playing, throwing balls, and walking for 365 days, the evenings with eating, the wheels of the bus go round and round and reading stories. Sleeping bags on, a little rocking and cuddling, tiptoeing out of the room and… You have 1.5 hours for yourself. Another day gone. You think: there’s no end to all this hard work. And then suddenly, whoosh, they are one year old. Bodi and Daaf, my cutest boys. Toddlers, no longer babies. And I have been a mother for 365 days.
I no longer remember what life was like without my children, but some things as a mother of young children remain difficult.
The hardest parts of motherhood for me?
1. Little sleep
2. No sleep
3. Less time for yourself
4. Less easy to spontaneously meet others
5. Less often meeting others
6. Being home a lot
7. Doing four hundred six loads of laundry a week and still finding dirty ones at the bottom of the stroller
Fortunately, there are also so many nice aspects of being a mom.
1. A very sweet loud laugh from your toddler
2. The moment after the bath in the evening, clean in pajamas, on mom's lap
3. When my two babble to each other. BA! KA! WRWA BAKA MA!
4. When they are sick and only want to sleep with mom
5. When they sleep next to me and I hear a little snore
6. When they ‘pet’ my face with their little finger’
7. When they are there, every day again. Because being together is the best thing in the world
Being a mother for a year makes me different. Nothing matters to me much anymore, except my children. And that they are healthy and happy is bizarre, because you always think you won't become such an exaggerated type of mother. But honestly: priorities shift. A drink here or there, well, I skip it more easily than before. I want to be home more. I like that besides motherhood I still work AND that I am busy with my own big project, but further I lovingly spend my energy on Bodi and Daaf.
In those 365 days, I have mainly learned: you are not doing it wrong as a mother. I also sometimes stand crying with a star lamp in a dark room at four in the morning because I can't find the batteries ^#@&^@$&7* again. I also sigh sometimes when they sit up in bed for the sixteenth time and don't want to sleep. I also find it tough to combine work with mothering, which goes on 24 hours a day. It is more than a full-time job. You are more a mother than you are yourself. The day revolves around the children. But I know: I am not doing it wrong, I am doing it my way.
So don't make it harder on yourself than it is, whether you have been a mom for one year, one week, or eight years. We do our best. All of us. And we can do this. Go for it. The wheels of the bus always go round and round – just don't forget to hop on the most beautiful ride of your life.
