On Being a Mother

My mom asked me for one Mother's Day present: To post a blog describing my feelings on being a mother. Well, I feel like I am supposed to take a freight train sized load of jumbled up feelings and place them neatly in to the back seat of a sudan. But I am up for the challenge.

You may or may not have noticed that my photos have gone from edited, great lighting, toned up hues to straight snapshots via phone and calling it good. Well, this is indicative of my current priorities. My first priority is my family: love, nurture, parent, play, spend time in the outdoors, teach, tickle, laugh, and take a million photos a minute in my mind, hoping to somehow freeze these moments. I use my phone to take photos because I have it on my most of the time for that very reason, to capture as many moments as possible. I have come to discover that I can relish the memories created by photos, even when the catch light is not perfect, eyelashes don't look like tiny perfectly focused daggers, and they have not been through Adobe Lightroom.

I think motherhood is a unique experience for everyone. I found it difficult when I went back to work when Kayla was a baby but I have since learned that instead of stewing over the fact that I can't be with my kids 24/7 I choose to embace my own unique experience. When I look at my kids my heart smiles (excluding the moments when you want to escape the madness). I love my kids more than I ever thought I could love anyone. When I am away from them, I talk about them, think about them, tell patients about them, tell coworkers about them, I just can't help it. I feel that Heavenly Father has entrusted me with a task far too important. I sometimes wonder if I can carry out the task of bringing up my children in a world where evil and hate is far too prominent. How can I teach them to love? How can I teach them not to judge? How can I teach them to become confident adults? Unfortunately, they do not come with instruction manuals and I am again left guessing if what I am doing is enough. I love them, listen to them, and attempt to teach them. However, I am seeing more and more each day that my children are teaching me far more than I could have dreamed of teaching them. I love motherhood.

Greater frustration I will never know. But greater love I could never have imagined.