Troy and I were supposed to go to a wedding in Fort Lauderdale this weekend — our first weekend getaway sans kids in over a year. But our childcare plans fell through, so I cancelled my flight to stay home with the kids. I encouraged Troy to still go, since the wedding is for one of his best friends.It ended up being a good thing that we aren’t both out of town. Last night, Madelyn came down with a stomach bug that carried over into today. I got about two hours of sleep last night, between comforting Madelyn, bathing her after she threw up, changing two sets of sheets, and bathing myself.
A few minutes after I put Madelyn down for her midday nap today, Tucker woke up crying after an all-too-short nap. I had been planning to do laundry and dishes and make the bed while they both slept, but instead I rocked Tucker until he fell back asleep. I let him sleep on me, and for once told myself that the chores could wait.
As I think about how the weekend has panned out, I keep thinking about something that my Gramz, who helped raise me, used to say: “Your life is not your own when you have kids.” I never understood it and would always tell her she sounded like a Debbie Downer.
But now as a mom, I know there’s a whole lot of truth to that statement, and that for my grandma, it was rooted not in negativity but in a selfless reality. Her kids, my kids, come first. And sometimes, a lot of times, other stuff gets put on hold. Plans get cancelled, weddings get missed, the laundry and dishes pile up.
Parenthood is an exercise in letting go of the tendency to plan everything out, in learning when to say no, in realizing you can’t please everyone all the time. When you have little kids, plans are always written in pencil. Or washable crayon, depending on the day. The trick is knowing when to get out the erasers and being ok with some smudges.
Essays on motherhood 