Motherhood Right Now

{At a cabin in Gimmelwald, Switzerland in August of 2015}

Being a mom is really fantastic these days. When I say fantastic, I mean the kind of crazy that in its deepest moments is nothing but awesome in the classical sense of the word. It’s the kind of fantastic that’s built from runny noses and wet diapers. It’s those transcendent moments when you’re overcome by a love so deep you swear it comes from the center of the earth. And while this feeling of the sublime is swelling within your being, you’re standing in the living room in a white robe with your greasy hair pulled back into a tight pony tail and there’s crumbs and dirt and hair all over the floor. Those crumbs drive you especially crazy and you’re wearing your Birkenstocks in the apartment because it’s absolutely disgusting to step on those gummy grains of rice. But the best part is that your smiley son, the one who’s grin is so big that you’re not sure how it fits on his face, is the soul responsible for throwing all those tiny, sticky rice kernels on the ground. That dirt is from your other baby, who rides his tricycle over to the potted plant and begins an intense operation of moving the potted soil from one side of the living room to the other. Unfortunately, you’re the only one to blame for the hair on the ground, and there’s not much cute about that. 

The sun is being filtered through the double door window, bouncing off the cheeks and noses of those babies as they laugh together. Actually, one of them is laughing hysterically and the other one is pulling out the craziest antics and the best funny faces he can imagine, playing the older brother part just right. In that moment you really wish the house were clean, or that you’d have had time to wash your hair that morning, and a part of you can’t wait until these boys are 5 and 6, but at the same time you just want to slow down time and eat their legs and kiss them till they squirm and wish this would never end. These days this is motherhood: an absolutely fantastic, emotional roller coaster with a lot of messy thrown in there.