I am a Mother!
I have 3 wonderful daughters and 3 angels watching over our family. My third pregnancy was a miscarriage at 20 weeks. When I found out I was pregnant again for the 4th time, I was happy yet still very scared. I was so grateful that this pregnancy went full term and we welcomed our youngest daughter who is now nearly 3. Zoe is a constant reminder to me of the gift and vibrancy of life, she carries that even in her name. This little one is constantly on the go, but then will have random moments of peace and quiet. As the youngest and the so called “third wheel” I often become her playmate and buddy as her older sisters are off playing with each other.
During my day there are so many things that call out to be to be started and finished. I hardly ever get to them all. But it never fails that at least 3 times a day my youngest will come up to me and pull me on the arm and say, “Rock me, Mom.” Many times she wants me to do this when I am right in the middle of a project. I try to get her distracted so I can finish what I am doing, but she is a persistent little girl and ends up pulling me into the family room to sit down on the rocking chair and hold her as we rock.
Most of the time I am impatiently thinking of what I need to go do after I finish rocking her. Recently though, I had a realization about living in the present moment. My daughter is giving me a gift everyday, many times a day, to stop. To be present in the moment with her. To just rock back and forth holding a precious gift of life and feeling one of the highest and best feelings anyone can ever feel, LOVE. It becomes an opportunity to let every care in the world melt away, to not be thinking about the dishes in the sink or the exercises that I haven’t do yet that day or the bills that want me to worry over them. I get to hold my life in my arms and live my life in that very moment of rocking in the rocking chair. It is easy to become bothered by the little things of life that seemingly take us away from what we think we need to be doing. I would suggest that those little things are opportunities for us to live our life in love and to feel love. So go find your rocking chair and rock away.
Mother, oh Mother, come shake out your cloth
Empty the dustpan, poison the moth,
Hang out the washing and butter the bread,
Sew on a button and make up a bed.
Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?
She’s up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.
Oh, I’ve grown shiftless as Little Boy Blue
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, Lullaby loo).
Dishes are waiting and bills are past due
(pat-a-cake, darling, and peek-peek-a-boo).
The shopping is not done and there’s nothing for stew
And out in the yard there is a hullabaloo.
But I’m playing “Kanga” and this is my “Roo.”
Look! Aren’t his eyes the most wonderful hue?
(lullaby, rock-a-bye, lullaby loo).
The cleaning and scrubbing will wait till tomorrow,
For children grow up, as I’ve learned to my sorrow.
So quiet down cobwebs. Dust go to sleep.
I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.
Ruth Hulburt Hamilton, 1958
What a beautiful reminder Tamarah. I think I’ll get off my computer now and go sing to my kids.