006/365

I remember a blog post a friend once wrote. It was about her dogs and how one of them, the puppy, was a real tyrant. Naturally, she asked her dad for advice.  He told her to do what he did when my friend was a tyrant toddler/kid/teenager:

Simply love the pup harder. 

I'm not sure if I was a mother when I initially read this post but it etched itself a permanent mark in my One Day folder. You know those pieces of advice that you hear that don't exactly apply to you at that moment but you know that you'd be an idiot to not save it for a rainy day? Well, this was that. That single piece of advice has been guiding me through the last year or so and I'll be honest, it's very much easier said than done.

When your kid is embarrassing the shit out of you by throwing an epic tantrum or making you question why you thought giving birth to another one of these miniature demon spawns was a good idea, the last thing you want to do is cuddle your flailing, surprisingly strong offspring. You'd rather pretend to not know them and put yourself in a time-out that involves a People magazine and a glass of rosé. (Amiright? No? That's just me, I guess...)

You want to yell back at the tiny human screaming at you even though you're only two feet away. You're tired of saying NO for the sake of saying NO. You're emotionally drained in a way that doesn't seem fair considering you are the one responsible for having given this little terd life. Don't they have any respect? No. Of course they don't-- they're THREE and the concept of respect probably won't make sense to them until they have a little curmudgeon of their own screaming at them in the supermarket because you won't buy the GMO and crack-laced Elmo crackers/puffs/thingys. (This is a hypothetical situation, obviously. My sweet, kind, and polite Mo would NEVER do something like that.) 

It took me months to realize this so consider this my gift to you but it turns out that yelling back at them doesn't actually work. They just yell louder and three octaves higher. Neither does bribery or threatening to take away their beloved iPad because they will learn to call your bluff because they know good and well that you can't survive without Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood any more than they can. 

You may have to reach somewhere deep inside of that maternal memory box, back to a time when they only needed the rise and fall of your chest to fall asleep instead of thirty-two renditions of The Itsy Bitsy Spider, three different cups of water (the first one didn't have ice, the second wasn't in the right Sophia The First cup, the third was just to fuck with you), and very light back tickles until the snoring begins. You will remember a time when they didn't talk back, when they laughed at everything you did, a time when you weren't "the yuckiest person ever", a time when pinching their little sister wasn't their most cherished hobby.  

You just love them harder.  

You love them harder on the days it feels hard to do so.

You love them harder when you don't really want to.

You love them harder when you don't like them very much. 

You love them harder when you feel like you couldn't possibly love them anymore than you already do.  

005/365

You know those moments when you look around and you know that it's your life but you can't believe that this is really your life? That's exactly how I feel when I look at this photo our good friend took of Joe and the girls while at a birthday party over the weekend. 

He makes fatherhood look good.

And easy.

And fun. 

And very sexy. 

004/365

I think my desire to host and feed people is the sixty-five year old southerner in me.

I can't remember ever stepping foot into either of my grandmothers' homes while growing up without being asked if I wanted something to eat. It didn't matter if I was hungry, dammit, I was gonna' be forced to eat. While it annoyed me then, I find the memories completely endearing and that particular quality to be one that I hope to carry on in my own home. I don't care if you just had dinner, you will eat these damn cookies and you will drink this glass of wine if you are in this house! 

Yesterday, I got to fulfill a small piece of my self-imposed destiny. We showered some of our best friends-- who are expecting a baby girl any day now!-- and I got to feed the people. I enjoyed every moment of it. I made my Memaw's BBQ bacon-wrapped water chestnuts and my own pimento cheese and bacon deviled eggs with chives in honor or my Nana plus a slew of other platters and plates. (For the record: bacon forevaah.) 

I didn't have to force feed anyone but I am fairly certain that I made them proud. 

003/365

I sat around my living room this afternoon with a bunch of eight babies and their mothers (plus one in the womb). As I regarded us mothering so naturally amidst the mayhem-- wiping noses and bums, cleaning up spills, managing meltdowns, feeding and soothing infants-- I had a hard time picturing myself and these same women as the girls who used to dance drunkenly on top of bars.

When I consider the particular season of life I shared with these women-- the shenanigans we willingly put ourselves through, the spontaneity our days and nights were full of, and the plethora of poor decisions we repeatedly made-- the reality that we are all doting mothers remains a real mind fuck.

It's not that I never pictured us being mothers at some point because I'm sure I could for some of us. A few had serious boyfriends and conversations of the future tended to happen after a few too many glasses of the cheapest wine we could afford. However, because I wasn't one of those friends who mentioned kids during our drunken conversations, I certainly never pictured sitting on creaky hardwood floors, arms full of baby and toddler, (still) drinking cheap white wine, and deciding that I like this version of me and my friends a whole lot more than the girls we once were. 

A lot of the time, I still feel like that twenty-one year old girl who has absolutely nothing figured out, the girl who tries and fails to keep her head above the water, only hoping by the grace of God that someone is there to throw her a line. In college, those girls I danced on bars with were that line to shore.

Today, as I sat on my floor surrounded by those same girls who are now, a decade later, wives and mothers and, yet, just as much fun, I realized that they are still that same lifeline.

The only difference is now, we're the ones getting thrown up on. 

002/365

It's on days like today I find it baffling how two tiny humans can be so unbelievably exhausting and the work of raising them can feel at times so grueling, unmanageable, and exasperating. 

These aren't the days I want to look back on and remember with blinding clarity-- I hope the rough days blend seamlessly into the landscape of my experience as a mother, along with potty training, postpartum depression, and Marlo's terrible two's. And three's. 

And, yet, I desperately want to remember days like today and just how much they teach me about not only being a good mother, but also about being a decent person. No one will ever test your patience like a stubborn three year old who asks the same question forty-seven times AFTER you've already given her an answer forty-six times. No one will ever throw your lack of patience in your face more forcefully like that same stubborn three year old. 

So, while I don't particularly appreciate the raging tantrums over not going to Target for the third time this week or because she found a dry marshmallow in her bowl of marshmallows (today was also chock-full of all-else-has-failed-bribes) or because Edie blinked too many times or because she simply had a quota to fill for the week, I must acknowledge how much these kinds of days push me to be better and to do better and to try harder.