The Margin In Our Days: Math Does Not Apply to Motherhood

I was reminded these past two weeks of how little margin there are in our days. Everyone but Stewart came down with a cold or flu or something that had us slightly feverish and sniffling and coughing. It all started two Sundays ago and still, it lingers.

But cows still need to be milked and pigs fed and chickens watered. Seedlings and gardens still need watering and three meals a day had and sick days aren’t really a thing for parents… making the mercy in the Lord sustaining Stewart’s health all the more evident.

We’re all pretty much back to chasing cows and planting things now, even if a bit slower. And these children – I can’t even begin to describe how thankful I am for the help they give every single day. Making meals, washing dishes, irrigating potatoes – every single one of them has pitched in alongside their Daddy.

Something I’ve always wanted to tell Mamas, and something I didn’t ever really understand until recently, is that math does not apply to parenthood. Children are, for the most part, quite dependent up until the age of six or so, making those first five years of having multiple children under that age the most logistically challenging, though joyous and fulfilling to be sure.

But grow up they do, even as you wish they wouldn’t. And they learn how to do things when they work alongside of you, even things you never set out to teach them. And then one day your eleven year old is six inches shorter than you and those not-so-little ones are now doing all the jobs you thought would always be yours… and maybe even more with that boundless energy they seem to have.

So 2 + 3 does not equal five, in the way you imagine it to, young mama of two under two. Things change, as they always do, from the moment they begin to toddle away from you with your heart in their hands. But though they do laundry and wash dishes and take over morning chores, there is a sweetness in the unchanging nature of being Mama. You are still the only one who can kiss boo-boos and break up squabbles and struggle with them through long division and cry with them when they hurt and pray for them as only a mother can.

And I am finding that these things, though much has changed since those earlier years, are still enough to fill my days… and our home… and my heart.