The beauty of social media
Tonight I write from home with a sick little boy. Not for real sick. Sick of the hand, foot and mouth variety. I do not write to complain on the health front. He's healthy. Dude is 3 and the world at this age is a germ soup. (Anyone have a 4T hazmat suit?)
And this is my life. This is our life oh mothers of children that leave the house. They get sick and then better and then you get sick and then you're all sick. And you're trapped. At home. In the rocking chair. On the couch. With a thermometer in one hand a sippy cup in the other trying every bribe in the ever loving momma handbook if your child will JUST TAKE THE MEDICINE FOR ALL THAT IS SACRED AND HOLY.
There are many things I needed to do tonight. From work to fun it was a full date on the calendar and instead I am here. I am home. Exactly where I should be. And that's okay.
The good news is I have this computer and I have this phone. I have these group texts and this Facebook and this Instagram. And so after the last bits of cleaning up are done I can do the thing that no mothers before this time were ever able to do when bedtime arrives - connect to the outside world.
I've seen too many posts lately lamenting how social media is making us less social. Maybe it's my age. Perhaps it's my approach to life. It couldn't be further from the truth. The internet and social media are like any tool we intelligent beings choose to use - controlled by us.
I understand the argument for taking a Facebook fast or a social media free weekend. All have great merit. Do what works for you. A time for all things.
I am 35 years old with friends and family near and far. I document what many people may think is far too much of my life. I don't ever feel that way.
Perhaps you will remember the sound of that 2-year-old voice that simply CANNOT pronounce the word apple in a way that gives you a tear now. Maybe you'll remember the way at 3 years old your son would cock his head just so when he was telling you something really serious. There is so much to remember. So many sweet faces and fun places. Life moves too fast to remember these moments.
The next month and the next year I treasure the little pics I took time to take at Bach lunch and the video of Wilder extracting a "witch" from my ear with his new doctor's kit. Maybe I got that from my momma. She did the no tech version of Instagram by printing pics and writing captions on the back. I love to look at them now - "Amanda on her horsey. She just loved to ride and make the horsey noise!"
For mothers social media can be the best of raising children and the worst. It can be the Mean Girls table in the cafeteria all over again with braggers extraordinaire and complainers supreme. But, that's what you call life and they made a "hide" button for that. (What if there was a hide button for real world? I digress.) What social media should be and is for mommas like me - connection. It's the place where people get to say "me, too! Me, too!" and there's power in that. There's truth in that.
So tonight as I scroll through the news feeds I will smile for my friends enjoying a night in peanut butter free clothes with lipstick on and adult conversation. And I will smile for my sweet friends that cannot find a tube of lipstick as I see the pics of their wild, silly, fun children grinning and their posts about the shenanigans or the struggles.
No mom is an island. When we get to leave the island I enjoy it to be sure. But, motherhood is a series of seasons - naps, 24-hour fever free periods and BRAT diets -and sometimes you just need a connection even if it comes digitally.
Raising a child takes a village and I love knowing the village is only a login or text message away.