All I ever really wanted to be was a Mommy.
Looking back, some of the earliest memories I have are of playing with my baby dolls. I'd dress them up, wrap them up in blankets, tote them around on my hip, burp them, pretend to give them bottles, hug them, kiss them, tell them stories and love their plastic little hearts to pieces.
I always wanted to have two children. In my dreams and fantasies and every time I played 'house'...I was always the Mommy and I always had two children. And I always wanted a boy and a girl. Two blonde-haired, blue-eyed real-life babies that I could love for real.
As I grew up, I began to baby-sit other people's children.....and I was pretty good at it! I would volunteer to work in the nursery at church, just so I could rock the babies. They just smelled so good!!
And then....perhaps a bit before I had planned, I found myself expecting my first baby. I wasn't much more than a baby myself....18 years old and scared silly. Terrified really. Once it was a reality, I knew I wasn't ready. I wasn't prepared. I wasn't old enough, smart enough, or mature enough to be responsible for another human being. But from the very first time I felt her fluttering movements inside my tummy......my heart was lost forever. I dreamed of holding her...my arms ached to hold her.......9 months seemed an eternity to wait to meet her face to face. All the shame of getting pregnant before I was married, all the fears, all the pain......it was all completely worth it the second I saw her beautiful round face. And she was beautiful. Breath-takingly beautiful. And mine. My baby girl. Holding her to my chest and seeing her little heart-shaped lips and feeling her squirm and stretch in her sleep.......I fell in love with her more and more. She would curl her little fist around my finger and hold on tight......but she had an even tighter grip on my heart.
It wasn't all sunshine, glitter and rainbows.....she was colicky and cried a lot. I felt so inadequate to address her needs. I could feed her and change her and hold her and love her, but even then, my baby girl had a mind of her own. There were long, sleepless nights; nights spent cleaning vomit out of my hair and nights washing every sheet and towel we owned. Diaper rashes, a tight budget and we had to work long hours just to make ends meet. But it wasn't all bad....there were plenty of magical days filled with laughter, adventures and the endless delights of the insatiable learning of a toddler.
And she was so beautiful! My beautiful, beautiful baby girl. She loved dresses and she loved lace and pocketbooks and baby-dolls. She loved books and toys and learning. She loved her Mommy and Daddy and we were her entire world and she filled ours. She quickly developed her very own personality and sense of humor. She was the most delightful child! She was just as precocious as she was precious and strangers would often comment on how well-behaved she was.
We were so good at raising this beautiful daughter that we figured we needed to reproduce a second time. This time, it was planned down to the due-date. We did everything we could to make sure we would have a happy and healthy second child. From not touching caffeine to getting plenty of exercise and rest and everything in between. I read every pregnancy book. every magazine article and every chapter in my OB Nursing book at least twice. I knew about every possible disease process and neonatal distress known to man. And I worried a lot. I knew a little more this time.....this time, we knew that our first child was surviving and thriving because of God's grace and in spite of our ineptitude.
We wanted to make sure that our daughter understood that we loved her so much that we wanted another child! We wanted to explain things clinically and matter of factually to her.....no stories of storks or cabbage patches for us. This strategy resulted in our precious 4 year old daughter giving a rather specific and clinical lecture to her preschool Sunday School class on the nature of natural childbirth. In retrospect, we may have divulged too much clinical information, but we wanted her to be learned and understand.
We took her with us to the ultrasound appointment where we were going to learn the sex of the baby. She was DETERMINED that she was going to have a sister and she had already named her Emily Sarah. When the ultrasound tech proudly announced that our baby had a penis and that our daughter was indeed going to have a brother......our sweet and precious baby girl had a complete melt-down and screamed, "NO! NO! NO! It's a GIRL!!! Her name is EMILY SARAH!!!! You are WRONG!" And no amount of consoling or reasoning would make her change her mind. We bought blue paint and painted the nursery blue. We bought blue blankets and toy trucks and outfitted the nursery for a BOY and she kept saying that it was Emily Sarah's room. Even after he was born, she declared that it was NOT a boy, it was a girl and her name was Emily. Eventually, she came to accept that she had a "little brudder" but for the longest time, she wasn't too pleased. She declared that all he did was eat, sleep, poop and cry and she would pray at night when we put her to bed, "Jesus, I hate him. Take him back." Thankfully, that phase didn't last for very long.
Our son was SUCH a good baby! He never cried unless he was hungry or needed changing and he slept through the night almost from the very beginning! "Boy, we were GREAT at this baby-producing thing, weren't we?" we tricked ourselves into smugly thinking. THEN.......we taught him to walk and talk.
Our son had a mind of his own too. And it was a brilliant, but stubborn and defiant mind, determined to have his way or else. Almost from the moment he took his first steps and spoke his first words, he was at direct odds with what we wanted him to do and say. He seemed to enjoy getting into trouble and from the moment he started Pre-K at daycare, he was determined to make waves. He wanted attention. DEMANDED attention. Positive or negative - it didn't really matter. We lavished attention on him...spent hours reading to him, building leggo models with him, taking him places, showing him things, riding bikes, playing soccer, karate lessons.......you name it. It was never enough. He managed to become the terror of his day care and when he was four years old the first time he got kicked out of Vacation Bible School.........and then once he entered regular school, the real trouble began.
Kindergarten was a two year ordeal for him, as his teacher did not believe him "emotionally ready" to advance to first grade. Hours spent crying, "ABC's is STUPID!!!" and refusing to participate in classroom activities led to complete emotional melt-downs in the class room, resulting in him having to be picked up at school at numerous occasions. We became very well acquainted with the school principal's office. When we moved to North Carolina, we realized that he had very limited eyesight in his left eye and once he got glasses, his classroom performance improved vastly. Bless his heart - he couldn't see those "stupid ABC's" on the board for so long. Talk about feeling guilty!! What kind of parents didn't realize that their child couldn't see, for heaven's sakes!! After getting his glasses, he went from not being able to read a word to reading on a 10th grade level (while in the first grade) in a matter of months. He was given batteries of testing and it was determined that he was "intellectually gifted." he was placed in additional classes and and IEP was developed for him and he did better for a while. He liked the challenges of the gifted class, but he honestly thought that the "rules" of the classroom didn't apply to him. He was smart. Why should have have to do inane homework assignments to prove to the teacher that he knew the things that he so obviously already knew. It was all a waste of time and energy to him. As you can imagine, that didn't settle too well with his teachers.
Alyssa was gifted as well - we had two very bright and wondrously intelligent children! There were times that were an absolute JOY.....every evening, sitting at the dinner table, OH the conversations we had!! The laughter, the witty banter, the quick back-and-forth barbs, those are sweet and precious memories. When we would go on long car trips for vacation - those are some of my favorite memories!! The kids would be in the back seat and we would be in the front seat and we'd play word games........thinking up every word we could that rhymed......or thinking up all the different words there were for "boobies" or "bottom" or "poop" or "pee-pee"........laughing the miles away. Being astonished by the wisdom and intellect (and pure silliness) coming from that back seat!! I wish I could have bottled those days up and saved them for now!! Even a drop or two of those precious memories would work wonders for me on a dark and lonely afternoon.
High school proved to be difficult for both our kids on many levels. Being gifted meant being "different" and while they were both "different".........they expressed it in very different ways. Alyssa insulated herself by reading and immersing herself in the culture of Japan. She had a few very good friends....but mostly she spent her nights at home with her family, reading or going online to talk with other like-minded friends. She had a strong sense of who she was and who she wanted to be and I don't think it bothered her very much that she wasn't like some of the popular girls at her school. She seemed comfortable and satisfied to march to the beat of her own drum.
Jaron was another matter. I honestly believe that he's spent years "searching for himself".....he tried on different personas over the years: goth, emo, screamo, druggie, prep, and GQ Gent. He is so very musically talented......can play at least 12 different instruments and he excelled in band....but didn't like to follow the rules and got kicked out. He never quite seemed comfortable in his own skin.
Needless to say, both kids followed different paths than I would have chosen for them. As a parent, the ONLY thing you want is for your children to have a better life than you had. We wanted our kids to grow up in a stable home with two dedicated and loving parents. They did. We wanted them to have vacations and go places and see the outside world.....to broaden their horizons and increase their awareness of life outside of themselves. We wanted them to learn to be kind and loving. We wanted them to know right from wrong and to chose right every time. We wanted them to become independent and strong individuals. We wanted them to be happy.
Now, they are both adults. They have moved out and moved on with their lives.
Alyssa was the first to fly from the nest. She graduated from college and moved to Japan to live out her life-long dream of teaching English there. She seems to be happy and she is certainly independent. It kills me because she is so far away and we rarely even communicate any more. I spent the last 25 years of my life caring for her, meeting all of her needs and making sure she was safe and sound. Now, she is gone and doesn't need me at all. It was like cutting off a limb when she left. I cried for months on end. If I am truthful, it's been over 3 years now and I'm still crying about it. I miss her terribly. I feel cut off and cast off and unneeded and unwanted. We flew over to see her 2 years ago and stayed in Japan for 12 days. She almost seemed to resent us being there. She flew home this past Christmas for 9 days and seemed to be counting the days until she could leave again. She was distant and cold towards me....and while I understand that our relationship would change when my kids became an adult - I never realized that they wouldn't want to be around me. And it broke my heart into a thousand sharp shards that I'm still trying to piece back together. So much has changed. I don't even know her anymore. I feel like I have completely lost my baby girl and I barely recognize the person who replaced her.
Jaron moved out the day he turned 18. We begged him not to do it....didn't feel he was ready, but he was 18 and we couldn't stop him. He floundered for a few years...and even ended up in jail for several months. Talk about breaking your heart........when you have to go and visit your child and they are behind dirty Plexi-glass window and wearing an ugly orange jumpsuit, that's about as low as it gets. I've cried more tears over this child than I can even imagine. Buckets full. No.....Oceans full of tears. He's doing some better now; he has had a steady girlfriend for a year now and he has a management job at a restaurant. He still isn't making the best decisions for himself......but he's getting by. It still breaks my heart to watch him struggle and deal with the consequences of his decisions.
So....both of my children are adults now. I look back and wonder where I went wrong.....where I messed up with them. Was I the "perfect" mother? No, of course not. Did I love them as completely and perfectly as I could? Absolutely. I gave them everything I had to give and then some. I would still. I would give my very life for either one of them in a single heartbeat with out another thought. I love them more than life itself. I still only want the best for them.....and I still want them to thrive, be happy, do the right things and find love. I hope they both realize how very much they are loved.....by me and their dad.
Sometimes, I wonder how they see us. I wish I could see through their eyes and understand how they feel about us. I wonder if, sometime down the road they will realize that we're getting older and won't always be around. I wonder how our relationships will change with them over the years....because they surely will change. I hold out hope that we will become close once again....sharing laughs and hugs and jokes again.
Because all I ever wanted to be was a Mommy. I have been blessed to be a Mommy twice over and it has been the most excruciating, painful, amazingly awful, wonderful, most important thing I have ever done. I have struggled, I have been overjoyed, and overwhelmed; I have know the heights and the depths of motherhood. I love my children with every ounce of my being.......I hope they can understand at least that. If they only understand how much I love them.......how very much I love them....that's enough.
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