#MemorizingMotherhood

April 23, 2019- 7:35pm

My baby is currently crying in the crib (early bedtime after a LONG day) while I'm hoping for an evening to veg out and watch TV (knowing I have Bible Study to catch up on and KNOWING that's what my soul really needs after today, but hoping Easter candy will take care of it...).  At least she's laying down...that means she has to fall asleep, right?  Better than stand...oh wait, she's standing...

We had a day.  Late wake up this morning (which is the only way I was able to get ready and get us out the door), but which also meant the one-and-a-half hour drive we took to the funeral of my great Aunt Juanita during naptime ended up not being naptime, but just an opportunity to let me know how upset she was at being in the car seat.

I knew she couldn't sit still during the funeral service and yet I took her anyway.  I got frustrated the moment she started making noise and left the church so she could run around outside.  And I left in such a hurry that I didn't take my sunglasses, my diaper bag, my phone, her sippy cup, nothing.  All of that was left sitting on the church pew and I was left trying to wrangle my little adventurer around the church grounds, silently fuming that I wasn't inside.  What was I thinking?  What 16-month-old could sit silently through a funeral?  My expectations were too much.  I got angry at myself for even trying to make it work...but see, I wanted to be there.  I wanted to see family.  The last time I saw most of these people was when she was less than 2 weeks old at our last family funeral.  I thought maybe her being there would bring some joy to those who were sinking in grief.  Being a stay-at-home-mom is sometimes very isolating and I didn't have the "excuse" of work...I needed to be there.  I wanted to be there.  For me.  For family.

So, after missing the entire service- we entered the vestibule at least three times to "listen" to the service which included me putting down a squirmy girl who decided to climb the stairs to the loft and stomp on the landing, rip the embroidered bottom out of the gold collection plate, pick up dead ladybugs from the hole in the stone floor where the church doors rest when locked, etc. - all resulting in me scooping her up and ushering her back outside to the 90 degree heat in her long sleeve dress (the only one we currently own).

After still feeling like the biggest interruption and beating myself up for being an embarrassment, we walked back into the sanctuary as the casket was being rolled down the main aisle and slid into the pew as the immediate family was leaving.  I grabbed our things and went out the side door and over to the church office building where we had been less than an hour before eating a small lunch before the service.  There we had a snack, a diaper and wardrobe change (which included her running around the tables in the fellowship hall and touching the table cloths, but not coming to me when I called)...attempted to nurse (which required that I unzip my dress and sit half naked in a wooden chair in the bathroom while she was busy playing with the exposed sink pipes under the countertop and pretending to wash her hands...too many distractions to actually eat milk).

We FINALLY made it outside where I tried for a very long time to get her to the car (outside is her favorite...I guess it's better than screen time, so maybe that's my one win). 

In the car she ate a pouch and then asked for milk, but was still too distracted to eat.  At this point, I realized she'd pooped.  I attempted to change a stubborn and wiggling child on the leather seat of the car squished in beside the car seat.  The cloth diaper slides off and the poop rolls out in the car as the diaper hits the ground.  In this moment, I decided that since we weren't in a parking lot or on a road and we were parked in pine straw, that I would just leave the poop on the ground right there.
After running back and forth from one side of the car to the other (I'm not sure why this was necessary or what I was doing) and yelling threatening things at her urging her to get in the car seat and getting really mad...which makes her cackle...which pisses me off, I FINALLY got her in the car seat.  And I'm holding her down to strap her in as she's screaming and I look down to see a wad of pine straw on the bottom of my shoe.  I've stepped in the poop.  Really?  Really?  Karma is, most certainly, a bitch!

An hour after everyone else has left the church to go to the mausoleum, we're just pulling out of the parking spot.  And the minute I put the car in reverse, she's passed out.  Duh.  She was exhausted and that's why she was being difficult.  And now I'm beating myself up again for losing my cool with her.  Why didn't I just carry her straight from the bathroom where I was half dressed and put her in the car seat so she could nap?  Why did I drag her an hour and a half from home to an event I knew she couldn't participate in?  Why?

Great news: she slept the whole way home.  Bad news: she needed a longer nap and was still a handful after she was awake.  After I unloaded the car and got us all settled inside at home, I took a pause to look at Instagram while she played.  A huge shoutout to a new-ish follow @jennaskitchen for her raw and real life mama-grams that are teaching me to memorize motherhood on the good days and the bad.  And @shan.tripp that Jenna said to follow (and I just followed for the first time today) who reminded me that motherhood is made up of moments and it's when we SEE those moments, that we find JOY.  That happiness can be anything fun, but joy is finding meaning in the small moments.  And that the only moment that's guaranteed is right now. (How appropriate leaving a funeral?)  We have to stop planning for the fun future moments and soak up the now moment.

I wish I could go back and see the grounds of that church like Coralie did, because she didn't mind missing what was happening inside...she was on a wild adventure outside.  Again, my phone was on the pew, so I didn't get to document any of it, but I can just see her running up and down the handicapped ramp leading to a side entrance of the sanctuary- holding onto the square black metal spindles with her hair blowing in the breeze and waving at me.  Or running up to the fountain base to grab a rock and carry it around with her, not dropping it even when I said, "throw it down, drop, drop."  Or dropping to her knees on the sidewalk and crawling as her dress stretched under her knees, on purpose??  I wish I had really been present with her.
But I WAS able to be present with her this evening, even though she was a handful.  I got in her playpen with her and she had the hiccups, so I kept yelling to scare her and she'd just laugh and laugh.

AND I just paused this novelette to go pick up my screaming lady and hold her tight as I sobbed into her hair (because today was hard) and she steadied her breathing to stop sobbing.  And I rocked her and let her faux feed until she passed out and got the angelic peace she gets when she's asleep in my arms.  Paper thin eyelids so white that they show every vein in her face, pulled down to the most beautiful long eyelashes and lips so comfortably pursed together.

And I memorized the sweaty, tear stained ringlets around her right ear and asked her to forgive me...

...and promised we'll both do better tomorrow.

This friends, is #memorizingmotherhood.