May 13, 2007 | Mama Smith

the culprit

Two tiny infected ear drums = One unconsolable babe between 11pm and 6am. Two hours of scattered sleep. Two very tired, cranky parents.

No proposed sleeping-in for this mom today.

Instead the morning held an emergency trip to the doctor where the culprit was identified. Antibiotics were issued. And the unconsolable babe is now snoozing – finally – on my chest…for the first time since last night at 8pm.

Happy, happy mothers day.

Matthew proposed we try again next Saturday. Reschedule Mother’s Day. So I can enjoy the luxury of sleeping in and celebrating without the haze of lack of sleep fogging up my brain.

It was a long, hard night. One that makes me amazed that anyone survives motherhood. One that makes me want to send my mom a thousands roses for all the sleepless nights, loving care of sick kids, long days when the whining never seemed to end, and patience in the heat of what seemed like the most demanding endurance race ever.

I’m just two years into this journey of motherhood and some days I wonder if I really will make it to year 29 like my mom has. Thank goodness Christ never asked me to be a perfect mom, or anything near it. He just asks me to lean hard into Him as He loves my kiddos through me and my utter inability to “succeed” at motherhood.

To mom, thank you.

For the pigtails…

For the dribble castles…

For sharing California, your home. Wiffs of orange blossoms take me back in a heartbeat…

For the constant attempts to tame my thick mass of hair…

For allowing me to be the drama queen that I was…

For encouraging my creativity and goofiness…

For enduring the jealousy of the little-sister-hating years, that resulted in incessant whinyness and manipulative tendencies (oh, pesky fly)...

And for repenting often of your failures, pointing me to Christ who would mother me better than you would ever be able to. That is the greatest gift I could ever hope to give my boys. Through my daily failures, repentance and offering of love, revealing to them less of their need for me and more of their need for Christ, who will never fail them.

Thank you for your sacrifices that we, your kids, will never fully understand. Thank you for giving up so much of you, that we would be loved, challenged, and molded into the people we are today. Thank you for needing Christ more than you needed us to turn out perfect, or be hidden from inevitable pain in life, or so safe and protected that we’d fail to see our own need for a Savior…who was much bigger, more beautiful, and more captivating than our own mom.

I find myself wanting to be the biggest, most beautiful and captivating thing in my kids lives right now. To protect them from everything that’s painful and hard about living in this world. It took an ear infection to see again this morning that I’ll need to get out of the way much more often than I’d like to or that feels comfortable and let Christ, in His perfect mothering, move in.