Moments

Friday I had a plan. It was a five-days-in-the-making rant about how I'm either a horrible mother or Gracie is a horrible two year old or that we are somehow equal in our terribleness and not fit to call each other by our titles: mother and daughter.

It had been a rough week filled with tears (on both ends) and temper tantrums (on both ends). My whole hearted attempts to follow Matt's sage advice failed. To just slow down to her pace and if things take longer, then so be it. I was trying so hard, except nothing was changing except the fact that we were now adding over an hour onto our days. Which meant we ate a lot of frozen pizza for dinner last week.

But instead of writing a much more in depth account of the happenings of the week Friday morning, I mothered: I cleaned up puke and I changed more liquid diapers than should be allowed.

It is funny what a grounding and centering thing caring for a truly sick child is. I would take her pain and discomfort upon myself 100 times over to spare her the slightest pain, but it is in those pretense free moments at 3am that your remember your calling. And that she does indeed need you, wrapped in your arms in a search for comfort.

Then 24 hours later after doses of Tylenol, kiddie Pepto-Bismo and dozens of freeze pops with only 1/4 eaten before melting, she is fine. Happy. Giddy over the prospect of riding with daddy on the big choo choo train from Baltimore to DC for their 36 hour date.

And I am left to reflect on her new found health as I am curled into a ball, clutching my own stomach for a new 24 hour period and wondering how I am going to keep down food that I know her little sister needs me to eat.

Such is the life of a parent. Such is the life of a mother. And every moment is worth it.