Searching my mothering heart

It's been rough around here.

It seems like we have these phases, I'm sure all families do, where there just seems to be more crying and whining than laughing and loving.

I'm weary.

Weary of repeating myself (which I should not do), weary of disciplining, weary of tears, weary of validating my answers to my 5 year old (which I should not do).

Weary of being mommy.

Do you ever have those days, weeks?
Times when you just want it to be bedtime?
Times when you cut off the story that has no ending from your 5 year old?
Times when you say "you're okay" to your 3 year old and walk away when he is in tears for the millionth time that day?

I do not want to be this mommy.

All I have ever wanted to be was a mother.  I longed for 18 hard months to have the opportunity, shedding many tears when every month the test was negative.

Then more tears when it was finally positive.

And yet there are too many days when I find my voice is grating to my own ears!

How much more so it must sound to my children.

I do not want to be that mommy.

The boys and I went to the park today and you would not believe how many moms I saw sitting on the bench texting while their kids played.

Pushing a swing and looking at their phone.

Pulling a wagon, pushing a stroller and texting.

I do not want to be that mommy.

I long to give myself to my kids and yet constantly fight my own cravings for "my things" and "my time".

I have been falling in love with a blogger, Ann Voskamp, at Holy Experience.  If you have never read her blog, she is an excellent writer, farmer's wife and homeschooing mother to 6 kids.  She writes about her heart and pierces my own.  I was reading some old columns she used to write for Christian Women Online and came across this piece from April 2008.  Be patient and read it.

Houses may be bought, built, or borrowed. But homes can only be made, and that with ourselves. Or so the ducks told me.

They told me without a sound, just simply as they preened and nestled, oil on canvas. The children press in close too, for a better look at Alexander Max Koester’s painting Ducks, and I read aloud the caption below the brushes of color.

“Mother ducks pick feathers from their chests to line their nests.”

I pause and the children gaze thoughtfully at a clutch of plump white, blizzard of feathers fallen down. But it’s those words that mesmerize me: “pick feathers from their chests, to line their nests.”

Eyes fixed on a duck breast puffed, mother plunging beak in deep, I question wondering self: “How else did you think nests were lined?”

With leftovers. With the discarded, the molted, the not-so-necessary feathers. I thought mother ducks picked feathers up from what was laying about, scraps, lining nests with what simply could be mustered after the fact.

But no. (Is that only the way of other mothers?) No, a mother duck plucks each feather out from the heart of her bosom, warm and soft. She lines the nest with bits of herself. The best of her, from the deep spots. She cups her young in her sacrifice. 

Children pull at the corner of the page, anxious to see the next painting, and, reluctantly, I move on. But for weeks, part of me lives among Koester’s ducks. (Koester, captivated, painted dozens of duck paintings throughout the course of his life. I’ve come to understand.)

Days later, I am scrubbing out the arches of muffin tins after breakfast, the clock ticking insufferably loud in my ears. Children need books and learning, and I’m tuned for the expected chime of the doorbell, a service personnel’s scheduled visit. And the words rise near to the surface, “I don’t have time for this! No muffins tomorrow morning!”

Pluck.

The words sharply sink. And I, learning, line this nest with a feather. Not a leftover. But one decidedly plucked. The service man meets me with muffin tins still in the sink, and a circle of happy young. Whose tummies next morning fill with another batch of muffins.

The sun’s perfect globe of glow nears the horizon when boys, glint in eyes, recalibrate vacuum cleaner to fire socks. Weary, I have food to find, laundry awaiting escort, math sheets to mark. They fire.

And I Pluck.

Bellies jiggle, peals of giggles, as old mother chases after future men, wrestling them down, tying them up in tickles. We warm here in laughter. It feels good, wild and alive. So again they fire, and again I pluck, and we pile high, one atop the other, nesting down into sacrifice, soft and small.

Some feathers for this nest have hurt, pain of the plucking lingering long. But why speak of the details? And was it really sacrifice, or just this too-tender skin? It’s done, it was necessary, it was for something better. Some nights, when all sleep, I feel along the hidden bald patches.

There are times, too many, when they call, “Read me a story?”  “Wanna play a game with me?” “Can you come help me?”

And this mother refuses to pluck. Something, some task, someone (me?), rates as more pressing, more important. I deem the nest acceptable. Then comes the pecking, the scratching, the squawking. With lining wearing thin, the nest chafes hard. We hurt and cry. Nests need  feathers deep.

Someone must pluck.

When will I learn that down sacrificed settles and soothes? For scraps won’t suffice. Snippets of time, leftover me, a trinket, a diversion, tossed. Mother ducks don’t line nests with feathers, dirty and trampled, the molted and unnecessary. Why would I? Nests need feathers fresh, warm with mother’s life.   

Night descends and calls children to dreams. I lead them to their gate, arms and legs under quilts worn from the ride. I read stories, stroke hair, say prayers. Prayers to Him who plucked hard from His own heart. A sacrifice, staggering and true, for love of His very own. We learn love from His laid down.

Tired heads nestle into pillows, pillows of down.

On feathers plucked, we rest.

I cried.

I don't want to give my kids the scraps, but my sinful heart sometimes fights for the feathers from my "chest".   It hurts to give up what I want.  It hurts to stop doing something that I "need" to do (which will have to be done later) and play trains.

Yet I am sadly amazed at how my children light up when I just sit and play, and listen.  At how our home is so peaceful after a time of stories and playing and snuggling and listening.

This is what being a mother is about.

About making my home, not by cleaning the toilets splattered by little boys, not by mopping up the cloudy, dried milk stains on the floor.

Making a home means loving, molding, creating, instilling.

And tomorrow is always another day to ask God to help me do a little better at making my home.