17\52 | The difference a year makes

Mason - always the adventurer  

  Jettah - always the lover

This week i found my self looking back - looking at how far they have come. I admire them so much and i appreciate the way they allow me to see such vibrancy in the world. Mason with his vivacious lust for life and Jettah with his poised ability to see the beautiful in everything. They ground me and push me to new heights all at the same time. 

I hope one day they are able to read back on these moments and know how much i love them. How much they help me be the best i can be. I watch them grow and my heart aches, it aches for the hoe of time standing still, just long enough to fully breathe their scent, to trace the lines in their dimpled smiles and the shape their hands in mine. But time does not. It never will. It pounds ahead daring us to pick up speed and run along with it, in a dreamy haste to move forward and upward. 

Oh the difference a year makes. 

I wonder what lies ahead... i wonder what next year will bring.

Linking in with Jodie and the 52 project and the girls over at The Whole Hearted Journal

16/52 | Watch them grow

 

 

There are parts of motherhood that escape me. It's as if I have popped my head down, to rest for just a fraction of time. Yet, there is no rest for mothers and so when I raise my head, time has lapsed and there they are, my boys grown.

 

This was one of those weeks.

 

Watching Mason grow, everyday, is not hard. He is the eldest and I suppose there is a thrill that comes with watching them meet milestones, of uncovering new depths in their own little selves. The first time they sit, the first time they walk, the first word, the first stick figure, we celebrate the firsts for them, we reach for them and relish them as mothers do.

 

With the second, we ache. We hold on to them, because we know!

 

As mothers we know just how vicious the resting and the reaching can be for them as children, we know that they are not forever. That the dimples on their bottoms fade, their want for the breast, their reach for our hand.... it all fades. We rest less, we celebrate less, we mourn.

 

It is no less beautiful, it is no less a marvel to see our little miniature humans thrive the way we so hope they would!... Simply we know and respect what time takes from mothers.

 

When my eldest left for school last year, for his very first year - in uniform too big for him, in a  bag that hid him from the world filled mostly food and hope. I wasn't sad. I didn't cry like I thought I would. Because he was my first, he was my big boy... I was proud and I forgot about the rest, I forgot about time. I was simply proud of his aging and his moving forward.

 

This week however, my big boy lost a tooth. 

 

For the very first time, I took pause, I ached and I acknowledged that no attempt from me, no matter how big, will ever hold him back for me, will ever allow me to  keep them just so, with their tininess nuzzled in my neck. They will always grow, they will always reach. And as their mother truly, it is what I know and want for them.

 

But this week as the toothfairy made her round, she paused, she breathed in his sticky scent of dirt and sweetness and wiped the tear from my cheek.

 

He will grow, despite me, and I will love him every day for it!

 

 

Linking in with Jodie for the 52 Project and the mums over at The Whole Hearted Journal

15/52 | milton

I forget how big he is getting... always my baby



LOL - ever the dramatic. kissing the guns after winning a round of soccer with his brother whilst I watched on with my coffee

It can be hard finding balance, and with the holidays approaching and knowing I would be working every 'school'day of them, I decided I needed to yank the boys out of class for the day and go on an adventure. It was splendid! We ended up in Milton and Narawallee, beautiful areas. We found Lama's and old trees and even a bee hive in the rainforest walk!  Ahhh balance... I may have found you this week!

linking in with Jodie and the 52 project and the mums over at Wholehearted

14/52 | That Mothering Ache

     

Their love for each other overwhelms me to no end.

There is something about mothering that opens your eyes. I know that sounds tired and cliché. What I’m talking about is something a little different. As a young child, as an aspiring adult, our self-indulgence and somewhat narcissistic nature allow a certain haze to hang about us. We venture through our life never really acknowledging or caring for the lack of permanency it holds. Seldom do we stop to really see, the haze instead swirling through the rationality of our minds, never fully allowing us to embrace the fleeting beauty that is life. To awaken.

We live. We die.

And too often as humans we fight so hard for tomorrow, raging against the torrents of being here, there, doing this now, getting things done quick! We infrequently take pause. We disengage from being present.

I feel this change with mothering. Oh the beauty of mothering. Small fingers, small toes, dirty feet and aching cries, cries that tug at you, cries that warm your bosom as they flow from their eyes to your heart. We as mothers know a love that is greater in strength than any feat imaginable, though there is a paining payoff for the knowing of this love.

We live overwhelmed with the now. In vast contrast to our former selves we are ever present. We humbly nod our heads in recognition of the mortality of this life. We hold our babes closer; we commit their scent to memory and drown ourselves in them. For as mothers we are confronted with the possibility of it all escaping us, of being out of reach in moments. As mothers we ache.

Yesterday as I got ready for work, I had an ominous feeling take hold. It was nothing and for no real reason. Just an irksome itching in the deeper parts of myself that told me to hold my babes that little bit longer. To make sure they heard me say ‘I love you’, before I left them. Later that day a child passed away at work. It was enough to shake the darkest parts of me alive, enough to make me stop and think. Yes if the world, My world stopped today! In this moment, my children knew.

My love for them is big, it is huge. But we are small and not immune to the mortality of this world. And so for all the hugeness of my love, for all the greatness and centering mothering brings there is that pay off. So I ache, every day for my babies, that beautiful, raw mothering ache, which stops the world and pulls at your heart.

We live. We die.

Linking in with Jodie and the 52 Project, aswell as The Whole Hearted Journal, mothering as it is.