Happy Mother's Day!

Last night, in the middle of the night, it would seem that the universe was torturing testing me.

The girls and I had a fun evening. Chris went out alone, and I let Emma and Molly stay up late, we had a "girls night", which meant watching a couple episodes of Fraggle Rock and eating potato chips. It was good. I spend a lot of time with them every day, obviously, but there are often so many other distractions around. Add to that the fact that I've had a hard time remaining present these past few months, and well....last night was a special night for all three of us.

I spent the rest of the evening relaxing by myself...watched a bad chick flick and then crawled into bed with a book. It was a good evening.

In the middle of the night, Emma came into our room, upset. Apparently she was having growing pains and her legs hurt terribly. She crawled into bed beside me for a little while, but the kicking and twitching and whimpering was really starting to get to me. Chris got up and got the stuff to make up a little bed beside ours on the floor, as we usually do for her. She tossed and turned and whined and got increasingly upset.

I could feel what little patience I have at 2:00 am dwindling away quickly. I could feel the irritation rise and the urge to snap at her to "just be quiet and go to sleep". And then for some reason, I remembered my second Mother's Day ever, the year that Emma had the worst ear infection I've ever known a child to have, and we spent the entire day in the hospital having tests run because the infection wasn't visible from a regular exam.

It occurred to me that terribly sick kids on mother's day, kissing boo-boos and middle of the night growing pains are what this mothering gig is really about. Sure, pretty much anyone can do a good job parenting when your kids are well rested, never have anything wrong with them, and always do what they're told. The real challenge in parenting comes in the middle of the night when all you desperately want is to be able to roll over and go back to sleep.

I slowly hauled my exhausted arse out of bed and got her some Advil. I don't know if it actually does help for middle of the night growing pains, but she seems to think it does, and that's all that's required. I crawled back into bed, leaned over the side and rubbed her legs while she settled down into bed. I gave her some soothing words, told her how much I loved her, and then was able to pass out once again.

This morning, for Mother's Day, I got lots of things - a sleep in, breakfast cooked for me, cards and presents. The best gift I got of all was when Emma gave me the world's biggest hug and told me that I was the best mommy in the world, and even if she could, she wouldn't change anything about me.

Ah, motherhood. The pain is definitely worth it.