27/365 easy

On the plane back from Colorado a young couple sat in the row over from us. They held hands and watched movies and scrolled on their phones. Meanwhile, for half the trip I sat holding a napping Polly while Tripp watched a movie. The second half of the trip Polly was awake and demanded all my attention. She fussed and wriggled and maybe flashed my boob to the passengers sitting behind us. She’s little though, and it isn’t her fault that her crazy parents loaded her up inside a flying metal tube and proceeded to get her stuck there for two hours. 

She got sleepy and cranky, again, because she’s little. She fought sleep for a really long time and finally when she refused to nurse I stood up and bounced her. Twice I hit my hand on the ceiling of the plane, knocked my ponytail loose and sending strands of hair poking out around my face while I shushed my fussing baby. From that vantage point I could perfectly see the couple, still holding hands, being perfectly unmoved and in their own worlds. It was then that I thought, ‘please don’t look at me. If you do you will never want kids.’

Let me make this clear: Polly is not the reason. She’s a normal baby doing normal baby things. She doesn’t know how to soothe herself, she doesn’t understand being quiet or why it bothers people when babies cry. Her actions are not the problem. 

But when I can’t calm her, when she won’t go to sleep or when she won’t sit still in church and I struggle with her my first thought is, ‘I don’t make this look easy.’ 

I don’t respond so well to her, I can’t always find the right thing to entertain her, I hope no one ever looks at me in those moments because I will make them not want kids because I just don’t know how to handle it. 

Those are my thoughts. 

When in fact, even though I may not make it look easy, she eventually always goes to sleep. She always stops crying, she at least sits through the song service at church before getting bored and wanting to go out. 

Furthermore, it’s not easy. Motherhood is a constant act of self sacrifice. It’s all consuming all of the time but it is also the most rewarding and beautiful thing I’ve ever done. In all of those moments my baby is never the problem. It’s a lack of confidence, a lack of trust in my own self and sometimes a desire to pause time so I can regroup myself for a few minutes in order to have the patience I need to wrestle the baby who thinks she needs to move instead of get her diaper changed or who wants to be awake and play when it’s actually bedtime. 

I tend to lose sight of the big picture so easily. She is only a baby for so long, then she’ll be walking and running and sleeping by herself without my help. These moments with her needing me are sacred and I shouldn’t be so hard on both of us. 

There’s nothing wrong with pausing, taking a deep breath and reminding myself that I, with God’s help, am perfectly capable of taking care of the life I have been entrusted with. 

Artist unknown, found via Pinterest.