Joyful Mama?

Well, Alexander is 6 weeks old and already, it is hard to recall life without him. It is an incredible thing to welcome a new baby into our family. Granted, we've done this a couple of times before but each time is different. For one, a baby obviously comes with his or her own unique personality, habits, and temperment. More than that, though, is the way one little baby changes the whole dynamic of a family. Big Brother becomes REALLY big brother, little sister becomes BIG sister, baby becomes middle child. As parents, we feel our time and attention being further divided, while our hearts and capabilities (hopefully) expand.

Things are certainly busy and we are a bit exhausted right now. An active 3-year old, very active 2-year old and a new baby are not a recipe for relaxation, as we well knew. However, despite the craziness, is is also pure FUN to look into the faces of these three sweet kids and remember how it all came to be. It was only five years ago that William and I met, fell in love, and got married in China. Those early days seem like ten lifetimes ago. A lot has happened since then--good and bad--but I feel incredibly blessed to have such a WONDERFUL husband and 3 PRECIOUS children. Not much else matters, actually, and I am focusing on that JOY.

Now, let me emphasize that although the big picture is joyful, certainly not every moment is. As an example, Friday morning I had two "precious" children screaming at the top of their lungs that they wanted MORE WAFFLES and MORE SYRUP as they PURPOSELY spilled chocolate milk and then "drew" in it. At this exact moment, I had my "precious" baby lying on the carpet for what I thought was a routine diaper change. I had even carefully covered him so that he didn't pee on me (something baby boys are known to do). Ironically, pee did not prove to be the problem.

At the exact moment that the screaming waffle duo hit their peak, my sweet baby proved that poop does, in fact, fly. It can fly all the way to the entertainment center. It can fly and land on Mom's pants, the carpet, and the floor. The phone was ringing, the laundry and dishes seemed to be mocking me, two kids' potties sat in the living room (one with contents that still needed to be disposed of), the baby poop was everywhere and sadly, continued to come, and I sat on the floor wondering where my life went.

After things had calmed down, I thought back to an incident we'd had at IKEA last month. We were having lunch and the kids were in the little play area nearby. A little boy had taken a toy away from Annabelle, she'd cried and was sitting on my lap. I looked up a moment later to see Abraham standing nearby, looking solemn, with his head down. I told him not to worry about Annabelle, that she was just tired, and to go back and play. He didn't move a muscle. Before I could tell him again to go play and not to worry about Annabelle, another Mom started talking to me.

She said, "Wait a minute...is he...not playing because his sister is SAD?" As if she wasn't even really asking me but the universe, she said it again and then looked at me in shock. Wide-eyed and genuine, she wanted to know :"How on earth did you teach your kids empathy?". All I could say was I didn't know. Certainly I'd never overtly taught them about empathy but the more I thought about, they learned it every time they had to say sorry to each other or share, or help or any of those "basic" things that parents help their kids to learn.

I'll have to admit that as I began cleaning up that mess Friday morning, my tears started to flow. The kids came over to me and Annabelle said, "What's wrong Mama?" I told her that I wasn't happy because there were a lot of messes I needed to clean up, that it was a hard day for Mom, but that I would be okay. She and Abraham seemed to go about their business playing but when I looked more closely I realized what they were doing. They had used their stools and gotten the paper towels down. Granted, they were wasting the ENTIRE roll but they were trying to clean up the chocolate milk. As Abraham caught my glance he said, "We're making you happy Mama!" and then gave the biggest smile I'd ever seen. Annabelle added, "Ya, we're working so hard!"

Somewhere, in between all the chaos, the squabbles, the fighting over toy trains, painting with chocolate milk, the endless potty-training, the tantrums, the melt-downs (theirs and mine), and the mess---something good is going on. They are learning about life and I guess I am too. So Friday morning even with a messy house, screaming kids, and poop-covered pants, all of a sudden I knew "where my life went". It went into THEM. And that realization, I guess, is joyful.