Noticing what’s in front of us in motherhood
Last Sunday, while I was getting ready to go for a family lunch, I listened to my kids in the next room happily playing together for more than 5 minutes. And in that instant, I was taken back to the newborn days, when my oldest son was nearly 3 years old, slightly younger than my little one right now, and his brother had just been born. I remember the exhaustion from caring for a baby and a toddler, the lack of sleep, how breastfeeding felt like the energy was bing sucked out of me. The loneliness of being at home with two young children, because going out far beyond the 15 minute walk to the farm behind our house just felt too overwhelming. I remember looking forward - just like I had often during the baby phase of my kids - to them being older, for things to get easier.
It is true what they say, in a blink of an eye, newborns is not newborsn anymore. Suddenly they are holding their head, turning, crawling, eating solids, walking… All these milestones that felt unimaginable when we were in the thick of it have suddenly, three years later have been ticked in a blink of an eye.
Pause and savour
At that particular moment last Sunday morning in my bathroom, I took a moment to pause. To listen to my boys play together. To hear their imagination and creative play. To notice how they were playing together, looking out for each other, finding things to do that they both enjoyed. How often do we get caught up in life and we forget to enjoy the present moment? And how often to we get caught up and we miss out on the easier moments in life as they arrive.
This was the moment I was wishing for when I was juggling the (beautiful) chaos of life with a baby and a toddler. This was how I hoped my life would look like at some point. I was living the dream - a dream that didn’t look perfect because life with children is beautiful, unpredictable, chaotic and exhausting all at the same time. But so many things had gotten easier in the past three years, and it felt like it would’ve been so easy to just miss this moment, to go on with the daily challenges of life without seeing the beauty of the present moment and noticing that I had reached the point that I had been hoping for when the kids were smaller.
Because right now, with a 3 year old and a 6 year old, many things are different from three years ago.
They can actually play together for a while without fighting if they want to. Each kid can also play independently on their own for a little while.
I can use the bathroom on my own on a relatively regular basis - or at least I can use it when I need to, not when my baby wakes from their nap because I don’t want to risk bothering them.
We can go out without a stroller. This has advantages and disadvantages - the stroller is super convenient to put all our stuff and I enjoyed taking a daily walk outside at my own pace when my kids didn’t walk yet. But now it feels so much freer and lighter to go to the park next to our house, to move around in our town, even to travel in certain circumstances, if we don’t always need to take a stroller along. Depending on where we go, I can even take the train without a stroller - which means avoiding the detour / waiting time for the lift at train station as well as the challenge of getting a stroller up the stairs of the train.
They both can eat on their own. While meal times are chaotic at best, it still means that I actually do get to eat my food, because I am not busy feeding a baby. And they can eat what we eat, so we don’t need to prepare any special food for anyone and we can eat out all together if we’d like.
I can put them both to bed at the same time on my own as they now have a similar sleep rhythm. When the little one was a baby, the only way to put him to bed on the days I was alone in the evening was to let my toddler watch TV - which was for me not ideal in the evening, but at the same time the only possibility to actually put the baby down in a relatively short amount of time and then start the toddler’s bedtime routine.
Car rides have become easier. We regularly drive to Luxembourg to visit my parents, which means around 4.5h in the car for the kids. These days, they will nap for a bit, we’ll have a food / coffee break and they can occupy themselves by reading books, playing games, listening to music or stories they like. Not for the whole ride, but for a big part of it. This is definitely progress, as our little one absolutely hated the baby car seat up until we moved him to the toddler one and turned him forward. He would scream murder after 5 minutes at the most, so that the longest I could drive with the kids on my own anywhere was 30 minutes - anything beyond that and I got too overwhelmed by the crying to be able to drive safely.
They now have similar interests and similar activities and it’s fun to plan these together with them. Of course, my youngest wants to do everything that his big brother does. So for us it’s great that they can go to the same kids club at the family resort we’ve been going to the past few years, they can go on the same rides at theme parks, they both love playing with Legos and Magna Tiles.
So often we are just caught up in the day-to-day life - and as parents in our fast-paced society, it does feel like we are constantly meant to be doing something: looking after our kids, the endless list of household chores, meeting the demands of our employers, exercising to look after our bodies. It’s not always natural to stop, to take a moment to press pause, to do nothing, just be. And savour the season of life that we are in. We are now living the dream that we used to dream of when our children were babies. We’ve reached the stages of them being older, more independent.
The days are still chaotic - just a different kind of chaos. Sometimes I wonder how it’ll be like when both my kids are in primary school. When my youngest will also have his friends in the area and ask to play with them on the afternoons he is not in school. Will I then be able to stop and truly rest for a moment, knowing that I don’t need to be “on” all the time? That they are safe, independent, happy. I know for sure that I’ll miss those moments when they were small. The baby cuddles. Carrying them. The first smiles. The laughter. The fun moments of toddlerhood. Watching them sleep peacefully. Holding their hands as we are walking. The hugs when I come home in the evening. Those little things that feel easy to take for granted right now.
When you’ve finished reading this, take a moment to pause. Think about what you appreciate in this season of life with your children. The little joys. The moments of laughter. What do you particularly enjoy right now? What do you have right now, that you didn’t have a couple of years ago? Take a moment to notice, to be present, maybe to watch your children. Remember this moment - because some day soon, the kids will be in yet another season of their lives, your habits and routines will change once again.