A Mother's Goal...

I was 27 years old on that Halloween day when I took the test that told me I was going to be a mother in nine months' time. 

I was married...happily.  I was plenty healthy.  We both had good jobs.  A nice little three bedroom with a big yard in a small town. And I had said I wanted to be a mother...someday.  But I was shocked and scared. Terrified!  So much so that I cried quite a bit over the next couple of weeks.  

Darin was elated. Over the moon. 

One day not long after we found out, I broke down and cried and cried in front of him as I expressed my fears and doubts.  I didn't know if I had it in me to be a good mother.  I doubted myself because I knew how huge this was, how ginormously important a responsibility this was and how very much our lives would undoubtedly change the minute that baby took his first breath in the world. 

How do you ever really feel READY for something like that?  

He assured me that I would be a wonderful mother.  He just knew it.  So I dried my tears, put on my big girl panties (literally...I gained 50 pounds with that pregnancy!) and adopted a Yes, I can! attitude.  

I read all the books, What to Expect When You're Expecting (and every other pregnancy/parenting book that had ever been published) took all the Lamaze, Parenting and Baby CPR classes...Did everything I could think of to prepare myself for motherhood.  I was going to be the best mother anyone had ever seen and there would be no surprises because I would be fully educated and ready for whatever motherhood threw at me, darn it! 

I had always suspected God had a sense of humor and motherhood removed any doubt that still existed in my mind about it.  

I loved that baby boy more than I ever dreamed I would.  Just looking at him brought me to tears. He was so beautiful and precious and just...perfect.  Absolutely perfect. Heaven sent. 

But motherhood?  As beautiful as it is?  Is hard. Damn hard.  

The diaper changing/toddler days were tough...the lack of sleep, lack of showering, lack of going to the bathroom alone time, lack of so many everyday things we take for granted.  But my God, their precious little faces when they smile at us and put their little hands in ours, fall asleep on our chests, or look at us with big blue eyes and say, "I love you, mommy" with their sweet, melodic, angelic voices...

Life just doesn't get any better than that.  Those are the moments that make it worth living.  

We wipe away their tears when they cry, put band-aids on their boo boos, rock away their fears and disappointments, and soothe them to a peaceful sleep with a bedtime story and a lullaby at the end of each day.  

Motherhood is Love defined.  

The only greater one I know is that of Christ's Love for us.  

And it never changes. Never falters...No matter what they do or say or how much they disappoint.  It doesn't change when they become defiant, challenging adolescents who test our patience, sanity and all around good graces on a daily basis, week after week after week.  

Being a parent is not for the weak or faint of heart.  It takes strength, persistence, determination and a relentless spirit to raise a child up in the world.  And sometimes it feels like nothing we do or say or try is right, is getting through to those stubborn, strong-willed minds.  

We may feel like throwing in the towel and saying, "Do whatever you want to do! It's your life, not mine, and I'm tired, darn it!"

But it's not that easy or that simple. God gave us a job to do.  Perhaps the single, most important one anyone has ever been asked to do. Because He knew we had that extra special something within us that could get the job done.

And one day, not so far away, those little people we were entrusted  with will be big people who will, hopefully and God-willing, look at us with great love and respect and say (or at least just think) something like this...

"Thanks, Mom. Thanks for teaching me right from wrong and for never giving up on me during those years when I was a little pain in the ass. Because although I thought I already knew everything there was to know about life back then, I really didn't know much at all. I can see that now...Thank you for helping me see and for raising me with love and perseverance. I needed it more than I knew."  

That is the goal we must never give up on attaining as we trudge through these often stormy waters of this difficult, challenging, amazing, life-altering, beautiful thing called motherhood.  

I Wooed Them With My Sweet Tooth

One of Mama Kat's writing prompts for this week is to tell about what it was like to meet our in-laws for the first time.  As many of you know, I have a bit of a unique situation when it comes to in-laws/extended family.  I still have Darin's extended family in addition to Charlie's extended family.  

I will never forget the first time I met Darin's mother, grandmother and sister-in-law.  We had only recently started dating, meeting on my 23rd birthday, set up by his cousin and a friend of mine, Dana, who were dating at the time.  I was currently in an off stage of a longtime on-again/off-again relationship and Darin...well, he actually had a longtime girlfriend (though I didn't know that when I agreed to meet him) but he reluctantly agreed to meeting me because he knew that his relationship was on its way down the drain anyway.  

We hit it off big time and both immediately cut all ties with our Mr. and Ms. Wrongs.  

My birthday was April 19th (the night we met) and this was Mother's Day weekend so just a couple of weeks later...

He had not yet gotten around to telling his parents he had a new girlfriend and I knew that.  But Dana, who was dating his cousin, asked me to go to a mother/daughter banquet with her and her boyfriend's (Darin's cousin...did you get that?) mother at their church which just so happened to be Darin's and his parents' church. It's a small southern town so you get the idea.

Darin's mother, his sister-in-law and his grandmother were all at this banquet as well but of course they didn't know me from Eve and I wasn't about to introduce myself to them before Darin had even gotten the chance to tell them I existed. 

We had finished our meal and had gone to the dessert table where I loaded my plate down with a little bit of everything (Oh, what I would give to be able to eat like that and stay that skinny still today!).  As we were walking back to our table, we paused at their table and Dana said, "This is my friend, Diane. She's Darin's new girlfriend!"  

Ohhh....Sh*t.  Girl, no you di'int.   

Well of course that got their attention real fast since none of them even knew he'd broken up with his other girlfriend. They all three turned their heads in unison and began giving me the once over with their astonished faces. 

His grandmother (Momaw) said, "Well, I didn't even know Darin had a new girlfriend!"  

And I, the painfully shy introvert, wanted to die.  I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me and my plate full of cake too. 

I don't recall what Pat, my now mother-in-law (who I love to pieces, by the way) said, if anything, but I remember my sister-in-law, Debbie, who is married to Darin's brother, said, "I see she likes to eat!  That's good!"

And we walked back to our table on that note where I probably had a WTH? conversation with Dana (who I still love to pieces, by the way).  

Fast forward thirteen years to 2007...

Charlie and I had been dating for a few months.  I had met his teenage daughter (the youngest of his three children) but had not yet met any of his other family. 

He decided it was time to rectify that by having a cookout at his house that would include me and the boys, his children (at least the two who lived in the state...one of them did not at the time), his mother and her husband, his dad and his wife, his uncle, his sister and her husband and a cousin, I think.  

And I agreed to it! 

When the time came near though I began to wonder what in the world I could have possibly been thinking to take on all that at once because I was a bit of a nervous wreck inside.  

His mother and I were in the kitchen shortly after everyone began arriving and she was looking for condiments. She asked me if I had any idea if Chuck (they all call him Chuck) had thought to buy any condiments.  I said I was pretty sure he had but did not know where they were.  

And I won't ever forget what she said to me next because we still bring it up frequently.  She said, "You know...Chuck doesn't think about details...He's a big picture guy...He's an entrepreneur... And those entrepreneurs just don't think like the rest of us! All Chuck knows is he's got a grill!"

She was right but I still love him to pieces.  And he did buy the condiments.  

The cookout turned out to be a success.  I think it was the homemade banana split ice cream I made from a recipe that I got from Pat and Debbie...  

I'm not sure if it's entirely true that a way to a man's heart is through his stomach but it certainly does seem to be true of his family!

My mom, Me, and my Mothers-in-law, Pat and Linda

I'm Really Not As Dangerous As I Look

I had to go to the Justice Center yesterday because the Register of Deeds office is located inside there and Devin is, yet again, being required to submit his birth certificate for a traveling baseball team. I used to have two or three copies of it but apparently I never got the last one back or I put it somewhere really, really weird because I tore the house apart looking for it last Saturday. To no avail.  


So I walked my happy butt into the front door of the main building, wearing my blue jeans, pink and white floral scarf, pink rain jacket, Converse sneakers, and totin' my cute little Vera Bradley bag.  You know?  Looking like a serious threat to public safety and national security.  


Apparently.


Because as I approached the little glass booth with the security guard in it, he walked outta there with his hands all gloved up in latex, and without so much as hinting to crack a smile said, "Come on up."  I put my Vera Bradley down on the table that he immediately unzipped and started pawing through as he looked up at me and said (all exhausted like), "Come on through, you idiot."  Okay, so he didn't really say 'idiot' but I swear he implied it.  


After I walked through the little security gate and he continued to paw through my belongings, he was dead serious when he looked at me and asked, "You don't have any guns, knives, hand grenades or anything like that in here, do you?"  


And it took every ounce of strength in my body to keep the sarcasm queen locked up because she was practically cutting flips and karate chopping at the door to get out as she shouted her witty comebacks at me.  This guy didn't seem like the type who would appreciate her humor though so I took a deep breath, smiled at him, shook my head no and kinda snickered as I replied, "I don't think so."  


And for one split second I thought I saw the corner of his mouth begin to hint at a smile but he stopped it dead in its tracks, zipped my bag back up and said, "Good. Register of Deeds is to your left."


I don't know what it is about me but I swear every.single.time I have to go through a security checkpoint, it's almost as if I'm flying a  freak flag and wearing a sticker that says, "Hello, My name is Psycho and I have a bomb in my bag."  


Back in August when Charlie and I flew to Maine, I wore a long maxi dress which is apparently a big no-no because the gloved, uniformed female officer stopped me, told me to stand "over there" and wait until she could get another female officer to come pat me down.  


Charlie was already through and looking back at me as if to say WTH? and I gave him my I have no idea...WTH? look back. She finally told me that the reason I had to be patted down was because of my long dress, they couldn't see if I had anything underneath (as in between my legs).  She said, "Maybe you don't, but maybe you do...I just don't know, do I?!" 


Seriously. 


I don't even own a gun.  


And I'm always careful to leave my hand grenades in the car before entering a high security area.