Mother's Day

My children

My mother

It's about 4:30 on the morning of Mother's Day, and I've been awake for about an hour and a half now. Chris was up coughing and by the time I got him a drink and cough medicine and patted his leg while he went back to sleep, I was wide awake. It's an odd thing being a mother. While part of me bemoans my loss of sleep while peeling myself from my comfortable bed, the other part of me knows there's no one else I'd rather have comforting my child in the deep of night.

So here I am pondering Mother's Day and what it means to me. On the one hand, Mother's Day rocks. I get beautiful flowers, Brian takes care of all the household duties to give me an entire day off, the children give me homemade gifts (which I always love because it was their hands which made it), I get to listen to talks in church about how important mothers are, and as an extra bonus, the Elders Quorum are taking over Primary so I get to go to Relief Society like a normal person. What a peaceful, relaxing day I have ahead of me. And the fact that I'm up in the middle of the night isn't stressing me out because I'll just be able to sleep in while Brian takes care of the kids.

Then there's the other element of Mother's Day which goes beyond all that lovely surface stuff: self-evaluation. How am I doing as a mother? How are my children doing? Are their needs being met? What can I do to do better? In the end, will it be enough? Just how much counseling are my children going to need?

Honestly, it takes a lot of effort not to torture myself when I think about these things. And, honestly, I think about them a lot. I worry I'm not parenting my children in the way I should, or could. I worry these years are going to pass by and I'm going to have a long list of regrets and "I wish I would haves." I worry my children are going to have more "issues" than normal because I'm managing to screw them up. Does everyone feel like this? Sometimes I wish I could just push the pause button so I could get myself together and make sure I'm ready to give them everything they need. But would I ever feel ready?

I pray about this a lot. My feeling, more than anything, is to enjoy them, love them, encourage them, nurture them. I'm trying. And I'm trying to forgive myself when I fall short.