By Kelly Grettler
For some it begins as they stand in the bathroom staring in disbelief at those two pink lines. Others might feel it hit when they find themselves pulling their waistbands up to their chests when they’re pregnant, bloated, and sore. For you- it may have begun with that first, trusting grasp around your finger, and for me? It was the moment I heard that unbelievably, indescribable first cry.
For millions, I’d guess it might have been the day they found themselves trading in their beloved cars for minivans…
The delicate combination of power and charm that is Motherhood, without doubt, becomes crystal clear in all of us when we discover our innate ability to curse out our husbands and then proceed to tell a random anesthesiologist that we love him within a few minutes, sometimes seconds, from one another.
Motherhood. Webster sums it up in one simple statement: “To watch over, nourish and protect.”
What Webster neglected to mention, however, is how Motherhood is being able to curl up reading books with your two year old while simultaneously nursing your infant. Or how you’re the last to sit down at the dinner table and the first to get up if somebody needs something.
Motherhood is carefully sewing up a stuffed animal’s face, for the fifth time, because you know exactly how intensely it is loved. Or it’s in the way your child can stumble, and from across a crowded room, backyard, or park, yours are the eyes he locks onto for reassurance that he is ok.
It’s driving two hours to go to a monster truck rally, or saving for years to take that trip of a lifetime, not to Paris or the Galapogos, but to Disneyworld. It’s how nobody else, not even your husband, can decipher what your excited toddler is talking about, but you understand every. single. word.
It’s calling your own mother, to thank her, and tell her that now you understand.
Motherhood is a million little things and more adding up on a scale so grand that it can never really be measured.
Obviously, this Webster was a man.
Thank you, Kelly, for sharing your story submission with us! We are happy to share the stories of mothers on this journey!