The beautiful (messy) moments of motherhood
Monday, Dec. 2, 2013
Written by Amanda Bedgood
Years ago Paul Harvey gave a moving speech to farmers about farmers - "So, God made a farmer." This holiday season I‘m paying homage to mothers with this version. This is for all of the mommies - young and old and in between - and each of those beautiful, impossible, heart cracking, soul filling moments in the journey of motherhood that only we know.
And on the 8th day, God looked down on his planned paradise and said, "I need a caretaker." So God made a mommy.
Photo by Mike Bedgood
God said, "I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, nurse babies, work all day in the office, nurse babies again, cook supper, reapply lip gloss, solve math problems and then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board." So God made a mommy.
"I need somebody with arms strong enough to rustle a 28-pound, 15-month-old with a dirty diaper on a fold-out changing table in the bathroom at Chili‘s and yet gentle enough to soothe fevered brows and mend broken hearts. Somebody to call hogwash‘ when the children say but, I can‘t ‘, tame cantankerous teenagers, come home hungry, have to skip dinner until her children are done eating, being bathed and swaddled, lulled to a sleep and whisper in their sleeping ear, Thank you, Lord‘ - and mean it." So God made a mommy.
God said, "I need somebody willing to sit up all night with a newborn full of colic or 103 fever or projectile puke. Or all of the above before a full day of working, board meetings, deadlines and tending to more children and a husband. Then rub her eyes and drink another coffee and say, Maybe tomorrow night I‘ll sleep.‘ I need somebody who can shape a man‘s spirit from a collection of words and endless days and nights of love and prayer, instill irreplaceable gumption and confidence in the heart of a young girl, create a science project from old tennis balls and a can of spray paint, who can make costumes out of coat hangers, Modge Podge and scraps of felt. And who, daytime and nighttime and every season, will finish her board presentation and class treats and clothes ironing by 2 a.m., then, pain‘n from rocking chair back put in another 20 minutes with that breast pump to provide milk for the baby." So God made a mommy.
God had to have somebody willing to ride the shoulder at double speed to get to Mother‘s Day Out ahead of the final pickup and yet stop in mid-sentence on the phone to threaten spankings and Xbox suspension and race to help with a casserole in tow when she sees the first weepy words from a fellow mommy on the verge of epic post partum blues. So God made a mommy.
God said, "I need somebody strong enough to bear the burdens of budding young souls and heave thrashing toddlers from grocery store floors, yet gentle enough to nourish those young souls with quiet goodness and wean babies and tend the oozy booboos, who will stop her cooking for an hour to sit in the floor and read The Shy Little Kitten Again. It had to be somebody who‘d talk straight yet kind and not cut corners. Somebody to seed, feed, read and rock and nurse and swaddle and kiss and tie the shoes and strain the pasta and replenish the juice boxes and finish a hard week‘s work with a five-mile drive to church.
"Somebody who‘d bale a family together with the soft strong bonds of sharing, who would laugh and then sigh, and then reply, with smiling eyes, when her daughter says she wants to spend her life doing what mommy does.‘" So God made a mommy.
Amanda Bedgood is IND Monthly‘s Style Editor and mother to 2-year-old Wilder. When she‘s not reading Cliff‘s Notes for The Strong Willed Child, she enjoys cooking, watching vintage Bubble Guppies and shopping for new hats.