…that life was made of moments.
I didn’t believe them.
I worked hard to be the good mom instead.
Scrubbing finger prints from windows and handprints from walls.
Wiping down faces and tucking in covers.
Drilling math facts and reading reading reading.
Worrying.
Much worrying.
Waking without sleep and brewing coffee.
Driving here and there and here and there.
Rocking babies.
Texting teens.
And then one day I realized that I was wrong.
The moments that I remembered weren’t the moments of outward victory.
They were the little simple things.
The first grader’s art project.
The look on the toddler’s sleeping face.
The smile from the teen.
The 20/20 on the math fact sheet.
The hum of the dishwasher and the island clean.
The hand holding in the grocery store.
The dinners pulled together at the last minute.
The worrying about being a good mom.
The sleeping and exhausted and giving.
And I realized that until one sees the simple beauty in motherhood there isn’t joy in the big.
So let me tell you.
Celebrate your normal.
The simple.
Because that?
That’s exactly what being a good mom is.
It only took me living life to figure it out that what someone told me was absolutely true.
~Rachel
4 comments
Thank you for sharing this. Yesterday was a rough day and left me dreading today a bit. Thank you for reminding me to find joy in the little stuff. I love, love, love your blog. Thanks for the encouragement!
Hi Rachel,
Thank you so much for writing this. I’m a first time mom and my son is only 1 year old yet I’m so overwhelmed because I feel like I have to be “good mom” who scores big at everything. I almost forgot the little things because I was so focused on my baby must hit all the milestones at the exact time like what those baby websites wrote or like my twin nieces (whose age is close to my son but their developments are slightly above him). I forgot how happy I am when I see him smile at me, when he babbles, when we sit together looking at cat videos. Thank you for reminding me that those moments are the ones who matter, the ones who I will miss the most when he is older. Much love from Indonesia.
Good reminder for us all!
Thank you for the reminder <3 It's the little things that matter and that go by too fast. Taking the moment to enjoy and appreciate them is what counts.