Because Motherhood is Not "Unproductive"

I found this unpublished in my Drafts folder, written last Spring. The only time-sensitive matter is the age of that beautiful baby boy I was snuggling. Not much has changed since then. He's no longer 12 weeks, but 14 months. He still has those beautiful blue eyes and totally basks in any sort of adoring attention he can get from me. He still loves his momma snuggles. My house is still unpainted, unorganized and undecorated, and there are still no burlap bouquets on my table. I was glad to be reminded today to enjoy these fleeting moments of my children's lives. The house can stay the same, my little ones are growing up way too fast. 

Sitting on the couch with my cute, fat 12 week-old perched on my lap I felt a pang of guilt as I realized my one, sole accomplishment for the day was that I made granola. That's it. I didn't even have supper planned let alone started and it was a quarter-til six. Yet there I was, just sitting. Doing nothing. My mind torturing me with the meals I need to make, the laundry I need to fold, the closet I need to organize, the project I need to sew, the batch of photos I need to edit. Wishing my baby would be just as content to play on his mat as he is in my arms, I glanced down at my idle hands, clasping around ten of the cutest, yummiest little piggies you have ever seen.

And then I got mad.

There I was; soaking in a small moment of fleeting babyness, yet all I could think of was the running unending mental list of the things I wasn't doing. For what? I wondered. Why do I place the role of superamazingpower woman on myself even while God's greatest gift of a sweet baby is gracing my life--my very arms? What am I afraid of? That I will wake up one day and oh my gosh, there's nothing to clean?

It's a pinterest world out there, and it makes simple motherhood feel so... unproductive. I want light gray walls, and turquoise lamps, and white trim, and spray painted bottles, and chevron drapes, and lace patches on my jeans, and a striped romper for the baby, and a matching hoodie for the toddler, and thumb print pendant necklaces for the grandmas for mother's day,... All thrifted and homemade, of course. It's as if the axle of the earth will grind to a screeching halt if my dining room table does not have one of those bouquets of burlap blossoms.

The expectations to impress, the demands to achieve, it' all the flawed ideas that complicate motherhood. Pure, sweet motherhood--it's meeting the blue-eyed gaze of your infant as his little face melts into a sweet grin when he realizes that you're absolutely adoring him, it's taking the toddler outside to simply enjoy sunshine and receive gifts of dead flowers, a token of last year's summer, at his hand; it's wearing the same shirt and jeans you had on yesterday and feeling grateful that the husband doesn't mind leftovers for dinner again, it's about stopping every now and again and doing nothing but savor those little baby toes and the little butterball who loves you so much because you're holding him close.