11 Things I Loved About Mothering

Not a grandmama….yet!

I am still having a difficult time imagining myself as a grandmother.  Just this week I’ve cussed, threatened to kick some figurative ass, eaten candy, danced a little in the streets when I was running, and yelled, “HEY, BABY!” to a neighbor.  I don’t know any grannies like me.  Do you?

WHO ARE MY ROLE MODELS?!

With all my, um, colorful idiosyncrasies, I do think I made a good momma (you’d have to ask Boy what he thought, I suppose).  While I never thought I’d be a mom, and that was kinda OK with me, when I did become a mom, it was like blue on sky, graphite to pencil, but most of all, like marrow to bones; I was all in, baby.

This is me and Boy (whom I still occasionally call Bunny, even though he stands 6’3″) shooting skeet last summer.

I look at this picture and am filled with gratitude that motherhood was an unending joy for me.

To the list!

#1: Holding a chubby little hand in mine.  Fine, holding my son’s hand, no matter his age, in mine.  When he was about 15-years-old and asked me what I wanted for my birthday, I asked, ‘Would you hold my hand today?” He did and it’s still one of the best gifts he’s ever given me.

#2: Watching Boy grasp a complex concept for the first time. Multiplication tables, personification, throwing ingredients together to make something edible, time, persuasive arguing, wormholes, comedic-timing, knowing true love…It was like I could literally see a light being switched on while his beautiful neurons fired.

#3: Boy with his grandparents. Have mercy, they spoiled that child, all four of them.  He holds the title of the only grandson who never got a swat on the behind.  My grandmother was much adored and I had prayed Boy would love his as I had loved my sole grandparent.  Once, we found him packing his bag and we asked where he was headed.  “I’m running away.  Will you call Grandma?”  Heart = melt.

#4: Filling in the growth chart that I refused to paint over when we redecorated Boy’s childhood bedroom. As I was writing this, I stopped, got up from my desk and went and looked at the penciled in marks, tracing the years with my fingers and trying not to cry.  Maybe we’ll do FB’s chart right next to Daddy’s.

#5: Hearing my name in whatever form it took: Mommy, Mom, Mother, Woman! (ha!) It is still a great joy when he calls and starts with, “Hey, Mom…”

#6: Knowing when Boy was uneasy, unsure or hesitant to move forward, but he did anyway.  Maybe not in the way we would have liked him to, but forward in his way, which is what we wanted all along. Independence is a wonderful thing to behold in your child.

#7: Boy’s unexpected choices: Fencing, for sport. Civil Air Patrol, for civic duty.  Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, for first research paper.  Texas A&M, for college. English Literature, for a major. Computer IT guy, for a living.

#8: Boy’s joy of…cooking, love of photography and weird science, his mad skilz at one-on-one basketball with his father and being able to hang the Christmas lights from the house without a ladder, his unbridled belly laughs and the essential ability to laugh at himself.  His beloved friends who make up his extended family.  His smile that got him out of many a jam.  Those gleaming eyes.  All of his joys, well most of them, bring me happiness knowing they make him happy.

#9: Boy’s generosity.  He is happy to share and to give and to make others happy.

#10: Boy’s ability to be bribed with food.  I’d ask him to come shopping with me, to tag along for errands, and he’d balk.  I’d offer lunch, wherever he wanted to go, and suddenly he was in.

#11: Boy with his Daddy.  Be still my mommy/wifey heart. Is there any greater joy than watching silently, carefully tucking images away, the most cherished people in your lives simply loving each other?  To this day, when those two are together, no matter if they’re playing a video game and trash-talking the room blue or carefully and methodically hanging pictures in FB’s nursery ~swoon~ I find that the love between Boy’s father and Boy magical.

I could list 100’s of things that I loved about mothering, but lawsy, ain’t nobody got time for that!

If being a grandma is half as great as being a mom was, I’m anticipating I’ll be able to easily fill out a list about FB, when the time comes…

What did you love as a mom, or now love as a grandma?

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