Buckets

I’ve been the mom of two kids for a whopping 9 weeks and I’ve already learned that children always operate by laws of multiplication. Twice the love, twice the mess, twice the stuff..and twice the guilt.

Any mother out there understands “mom guilt”. That feeling that somehow there’s always something more, something better that you should be doing. With Ella I’ve felt guilty for enjoying her newborn stage since I really didn’t with Judah. I feel bad also for not spending enough time interacting with her. Some days I feel like all I do is put her down except for feeding. And then I feel guilty that Judah spends a lot more time playing on his own. Nothing breaks my heart quite as much as him sweetly asking, “Mommy play with me?” and me having to say “Not right now.” Or I start to feel guilty because I slept during nap time instead of keeping the house cleaned up to my minimum standard.

Whenever it starts to get too bad, I remember something I heard in chapel at Gordon. Every summer, Gordon had a summer missions program where students would sign up to serve as missionaries in various places for eight to twelve weeks. Then, sometime in the fall, we’d have a “SMP” chapel and the teams would share some of their experiences. One of these teams worked at an orphanage in Mexico. They shared about how these children so desperately longed for love and affection that they would constantly crawl in laps and give hugs to these people who were, more or less, strangers. One of the guys mentioned talking to the director about this and asking, “Are we really doing anything good here? We’re here for only eight weeks and then we leave again.” And the director responded with something I will never forget – he said that the love and attention these teams bring are like drops in a bucket. These kids get a little love here, and a little love there and it doesn’t not count just because it’s not for long. It still fills their “bucket”.

This has been enormously helpful as I’m figuring out life with multiple children. It reminds me that the little things count. Playing cars for ten minutes with Judah puts drops in his bucket. Sitting Ella in my lap and talking for five minutes puts drops in her bucket. And that is why we are fortunate to be parents – we have their entire life to put in a little bit at a time until, when they are grown, we’ve filled them up.

Anyway, I just hope this can be encouraging to some other moms out there 🙂