Good Days and Bad Days

By all accounts, today was a bad day. The boys were feisty, picking fights with each other and getting right down to my very last nerve. The loudness was ok, the picking and poking at each other was tolerable, but it was Bub's sprawled out fit on the kitchen floor that really put me over the edge. Those 3 year old fits, they are powerful, right to their core. And they dig right into my core with each thrash and scream.

On the good days, the warm and cuddly days, I really feel like a mother. But it is these bad days, the tantrum and time out days, that I really feel like a mother. It is on the bad days that test my patience that I can feel the physical toll that mothering takes on my body. My heart grows heavy and it creaks with the ache to make the right decisions for these babies, and that ache weighs down on my body like lead. My skin grows longer with the weight and ache, and I can feel the sagging everywhere. I can feel the stretching and the divots of sinking skin and I can see the darkness pooling in circles underneath my eyes. It is on these bad days that I really feel like a mother and I really feel like I am giving myself to these children with the hope that they will grow into big, wise, good people. It is on these bad days, these handing myself over days, that I feel frayed. Like a rope snapped in two; torn and twisted at the ends and frizzing out with the prickliness of wire in every direction.

On these days, I feel like a mother, laying my mama jacket down across the muddy puddle of life and letting my babies stomp across it. Only afterwards I have to put the muddy jacket back on. On the bad days that it was mothering feels like.

But even on the bad days, mothering still feels good.

In the midst of all of that bad when Bub is thrashing with tears in the backseat and I'm gritting down on my teeth and sucking in hard so I don't cry too, suddenly there is a swift silence and the tears stop and a bubbling babble starts from Bub:

"Look, there's a plane! There's a plane, it's so far away! Look, mommy! I think it's a bird. A bird. A bird. A bird! I think it's a bird. No, its a plane, It's so high. Look, mommy!"

And then another swift silence. And I smile, and Bub smiles, and the bad is over. Even on the bad days, mothering still feels so good. 

Yes, today was a bad day. But a few days ago, Monday, that was a good day.

We went to the Children's Museum, and my boys played.

One of my favorite things in the whole world, on good days or bad days, is watching my boys play.

Monday was a cold and wet day, and the perfect place to be was at the museum.

These last few weeks it seems like something has clicked between Bub and Teebs and their brotherly bond is growing. Where there was once two boys playing in the same room, now there are brothers playing together.

Brothers, boys, and friends. My Bub and Teebs are loving each other.

We ran around the 3 floors of the museum for the afternoon, racing up and down stairs to find the next adventure. 

 

We shopped:

We picked:

We peeked:

We peered:

We were held back by mommy's strong grip:

We dreamed:

Monday, it was a good day. Playing and dreaming and brotherly adventures. And today, it was a good day too. It was a good day, and a hard day. But mothering is like that. And at the end of any day my boys are just warm happy bundles in their beds, even on the bad days.

Even on the bad days, mothering still feels good.

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