I will celebrate my first Mother’s Day as a mom this coming Sunday. Words really escape me when it comes to describing, in its entirety, what being a mom now means to me. However, I will try to elaborate, in what will be a two-part Mother’s Day series of blogs. My next post, next Monday, will be about the Moms in my life, and it’ll be good, so stick with me.
The first thing I had to learn about being a mom was that it is no longer about me. Some people might hear that and run the other direction, because who wants to fully die to themselves and exist to wait hand and foot on someone else?
I’m not sure if anyone else has ever looked at their own mom and just marveled at how selfless and sacrificial their love is, but I have asked myself many times, why are moms the way they are? Not only do they serve others without ceasing, but they really seem to love it.
This is one of the things I have learned. It started when I first learned I was pregnant. I began to make decisions, based on what would be best for the tiny life growing inside me, that I wouldn’t have made before.
Silas made his presence known with 15 weeks of nausea, which meant nothing about how I did things daily was the same anymore. I stopped drinking coffee because I didn’t want caffeine to be a factor in his first trimester of growth. I couldn’t go a full day without a nap due to how exhausted I was—note my previous statement, coffee would have been super helpful.
I was learning early-on, that this was no longer just about me. It was about us, and what surprised me was I wanted it to be that way. It’s not like I’ve completely forgotten about myself as an individual or ceased to exist outside of my life as a mom—I would advise against that actually.
What I mean is that I finally understand the answer to my question—why are moms the way that they are?
There is nothing I love more these days than spending time with my little family. I’ve said no to more social gatherings with friends than I ever have. I am admittedly an extrovert who loves to be where the people are for the most part, but since having Silas, there is no place I would rather be than sitting on our living room floor watching him explore, or feeding him pasta and listening to him smack his little gums. What may look mundane to others brings me huge amounts of joy.
I know I will continue to learn more and more why moms are the way they are for the rest of my life, but I feel like the short answer to that question is because of joy.
Being with Silas, serving Silas, seeing Silas happy, seeing him grow and learn new things, even watching him sleep—everything about my sweet boy brings me joy. I can’t help but think if I can have this much joy watching my son grow, how Mary must have felt when she gave birth to and raised Jesus, the Savior of the world.
It was no longer about her, she was now a part of a much bigger picture—which is something I think all moms can say they feel when it comes to being a mom—we’re all now part of a much bigger picture than ourselves.