I am writing about this topic because it’s near and dear to my heart. I am going to rewind back to when my first two, Elijah and Priya were little, specifically the baby, toddler phase of life. How many moms look back to when their kids were that small and feel like it was a blur? Me! Most of what I remember was stress, not being able to sit down for a few minutes, being tired or in “zombie” mode, periodically just crying and “going through the motions” of being a stay-at-home mother. Waking up, tending right away to the baby that needed to be fed while trying to have my toddler sit for breakfast. Trying to do some kind of activity with my toddler while “wearing” my baby in the ergo so that my hands were free. Then all of a sudden its lunchtime and nap time and I try to time it so that both kids sleep at the same time. Now, its time to get dinner ready while my toddler is going through cabinets trying to pull everything out and my baby is screaming. What have I accomplished? Absolutely nothing, but my little ones are healthy, fed and getting loved in the meantime. Days, weeks, months and years went by and I wondered continually, “what have I accomplished”? And the answer was always, not much. I remember people asking me what my hobbies were and me continually thinking, whats a hobby?

Did I take moments to enjoy the “moment”? Yes, but certainly not as often as I should. I would just go through the motions of being a mother because I “had” to do these “tasks” of being a stay at home mom, cleaning, cooking, making lunches, nursing, etc. The list was never ending and I was never able to just sit for a few minutes without thinking what has to get done next. My biggest regret was that I rarely stopped to enjoy the moments that seemed to freeze. I remember rocking my baby for hours but sometimes too tired to enjoy the moment she dozed off because of my own fatigue. Or, my toddler falling and screaming, and just picking him up caring for him until he felt like he was ok. As my husband would say, you need to “stop and small the roses” sometimes.

There was deep pain I still had to get healed of from my childhood, but didn’t realize it until I got really sick with lyme disease, when all the hurt and pain made its way to the surface. After I was sick from lyme disease and went through a lot of emotional and physical healing my mindset shifted. Not only did God bless us with another child that we never thought we could have about 4 years after getting sick, but now I am pregnant again with a baby coming in August. Joshua was handled in a completely different way when he was born in 2020. I didn’t stress as much, I didn’t have him on a perfect feeding schedule, I enjoyed the snuggles and enjoyed him more in general. It wasn’t because he was my third, or I was more “laid back”, it was a different mindset. He wasn’t just my child and I was his mother. He was who God entrusted me to take care of and because He created me to nurture him, I cherished the moments more.

Do I wish I could rewind time and change the person I was back with my first two were born? Or course, but God has a way of redeeming everything and relationship with Him changes everything. He brings life to everything and apart from Him there is no life or purpose. Let’s take the time to “stop and smell the roses”, so that we can be everything God created us to be and have joy in it!