Ode to Mothers

Motherhood

My wife is an amazing mother. Anyone that knows her will agree. I’ve always thought this, but the events surrounding the birth of our last child cemented my appreciated for her in my mind. It was in the middle of the night, and Ashley started having contractions. As we timed contractions and waited for someone to come watch the kids, we realized we weren’t going to make it to the hospital. We didn’t even make it out of the house. Within 30 minutes of waking up, she was having this baby on the bathroom floor. With 911 on the phone, I prepared to deliver our little Sydney. The operator told me to be prepared to catch the baby because they are slippery. Fortunately I did without dropping her. It turns out it’s really easy to deliver babies, but not so easy to birth them. What I didn’t fully appreciate with our previous children was how amazing our wives/mothers are as creators of life. Being more involved in the process gave me a new appreciation for the role of motherhood. As hard as child birthing can be, raising them can be even harder. I feel like I’m very involved in my children’s lives, and I definitely get glimpses of what my wife deals with daily, but sometimes those turds can be hard to handle. Since I’m not a stay-at-home parent, I can only compare it to a work setting. What if you had an employee that didn’t listen to a word you said. Then maybe they partially do what you ask after you’ve begged them a million times. How long before you would fire that employee. Maybe like 2 seconds. What if you couldn’t fire them, you couldn’t leave your job, and you were around them almost 24/7. You would probably go insane. I think our kids are awesome, but I might have fired them already. Parenting is teaching me patience, and is trying to cure my selfishness. Fortunately those are 2 things that my wife has mastered. My own mother was the master at being selfless. She would do almost anything to help her family, friends, or even strangers. I remember she gave our neighbors, who were clearly taking advantage of her kindness, food and milk almost weekly. I didn’t appreciate it then, but her selflessness continues to be an inspiration to me. Mother’s Day is almost over, but hopefully we all continue to show our appreciation to them all year long.

Deep Thoughts by Dr. Swapp