It’s Just a Season
I wrote this in our latest newsletter, and it resonated with a lot of folks, so thought I would repost it here:
Hey,
Today I went to get my nails done at a new place (you guys, I got TIPS for the first time in my life and I am feeling it!!) and it was in a neighborhood I rarely visit anymore but that I used to be able to walk to in my sleep (literally). One of my closest mom friends when my first born was a baby used to live in one of the buildings right by the nail salon. I remember the sometimes 30 minute walk to her apartment, pushing my Uppababy stroller uphill and against the wind on freezing days. It didn't matter that I couldn't feel my fingers, or that I was starving because I forgot to eat lunch, or that my baby had slept a total of three hours the night before. What mattered was the refuge of her company.
Her baby was also a terrible sleeper, absolutely awful. I can't even picture her baby (now aged 11) without thinking about the horror stories of her extreme distaste for sleep. If I tell you that my friend only got her toddler to sleep by leaving her in her room where she screamed until she passed out on the floor, you would know the desperation my friend had felt at the time. Both of our babies seemed to never be happy, which meant we were also unhappy, and so we had decided that at least we could be unhappy together. We'd have day old bagels on her couch while the kids banged blocks on each other's heads and drooled on the carpet.
On NSFMG, we have been talking on Stories about how hard it is to actually make plans with friends and follow through with them when you're a mom of littles. One mom wrote about how maybe this is a season, that maybe we need to lower our expectations and get comfortable with the fact that basically everything feels impossible when you have small children. In reply to this, another mom wrote acknowledging how hard it is to get together with mom friends, but that in just a few years those littles will be able to play together in a separate room while you and your friend have coffee (the dream!)
But it isn't just a dream! I want to tell you that where I currently sit as a mom of bigger kids, life is gooooood. My youngest is playing with some kids in the building and I have no idea where they are but I know they're fine. I can do hobbies uninterrupted, like practicing piano on my keyboard while my older kid gets his sibling a snack. I can SLEEP IN on weekends because my kids can pour their own cereal and turn on the tv themselves, and even walk our dog. And while it is still difficult to coordinate nights out with mom friends (one week it's Covid, another it's the flu, etc.), it isn't impossible. Our big kids don't give us moms grief about taking a night to ourselves -- they're happy chatting with their friends on Facetime, or getting uninterrupted gaming time. (Yes, I fully endorse screens as long as the kids spend a similar amount of time reading books.)
I know it can feel like this is forever away, because I felt that way too. And yet, here I am. Walking in a neighborhood I used to visit daily and remembering in my bones that feeling of being sucked dry from endless mothering and wondering when it would ever get better. I wish I could have told myself that one day this feeling will be a memory. That my life would be my own again.
Thank you, Mom Group for supporting one another so beautifully through these tough seasons. And for being good mom friends.
