I often wonder where that level-headed pregnant woman who knew the solution to every imaginable mothering obstacle has gone.  Did she sneak out of the delivery room along with my once-toned abs?  Perhaps she made a fast break with the announcement of, “It’s a girl!” then “It’s a boy!”.  I’d love to ask her a few questions every now and then.  Yes, that level-headed pregnant woman was none other than yours truly.  I was completely confident in my ability to circumnavigate all mothering glitches with the greatest of ease.  I had the solution for crying babies, breastfeeding would be a breeze, pacifiers - I don’t think so, tantrums – bring them on, potty training, preschool and beyond.  The answer was obvious and brilliantly simple.  A mother’s love tossed with consistent discipline and, voila, the perfect child.  It was a sensible approach which required little effort and even less internal debate…or so I thought.

Then on a sweltering Tuesday morning in July of 2000 I became a blessed new mom, minus all the answers.  Abby was a breathtaking puzzle.  I became filled with a plethora of questions about crying babies, breastfeeding, and pacifiers…and that was just the beginning.  I fumbled my way through the next sixteen months and even became quite adept at handling a baby.  I still had questions and I occasionally second guessed myself, but I was doing it!  So I dragged this heap of competency and self-tested solutions back into the delivery room and plopped it down beside my massive midsection in the winter of 2001.  I was blessed with yet another amazing bundle, a precious little guy we named Bryce.  However, I have not seen my big heap of competency and self-tested solutions since.  In fact, the more on the job mommy experience I acquire, the more I become aware of how little I knew back then and how much I have yet to learn.  How could I have been so ill-prepared?   I researched all things baby on the internet with unrivaled intensity.  I bought magazines by the cartful.  I read all the books!  There was just one thing missing:  real life experience.    

I stumbled through Bryce’s first year of life as an exhausted shadow of the woman I once was.  Having two children just sixteen months apart forced me to mother from the trenches.  What seemed so simple for other moms felt like a battle for me.  I was trying to coordinate naptimes, potty train a spirited two-year-old while keeping an inquisitive twelve-month-old from dunking foreign objects into the toilet, make special time for both of my children and my husband.  By then, I had long since given up on dreams of effortless nursing, both of my children adored their pacifiers, many days I threw my hands up into the air because nothing would soothe a colicky baby Bryce, and that sweet chubby-cheeked little girl I had known as my beautifully behaved daughter entered the terrible two’s with ferocity…tantrums, you bet, sometimes by the minute.  There is nothing like a good dose of reality to knock a once-assured woman clear off of her pedestal.  

There were many days in which I doubted that I would find a lighthouse to beckon us toward calmer waters.  However, with the help of God and my precious family, I saw the light.  Each day I gradually allow my baby powder scented illusions of how motherhood should be to filter through my fingers like grains of illusory sand.  I embrace the fact that along with every other mother in history, I began with the best intentions…and a blank slate.  The questions far outweigh the answers and I have developed the sneaking suspicion that this may always be the case.  

I have accomplished many things since becoming a mom nearly eight years ago.  Soothing Bryce is no longer a mystery, pacifiers are a thing of our distant past, both of my children have mastered the precarious art of potty training, they have graduated pre-K only to burst forth through the double doors of their elementary school, my husband and I have hours each night to discuss all things grown-up.  This, however, is hardly the end of the story.  The line of questions which lie ahead is gradually weaving its way toward infinity.  Each day, I encounter at least one instance in which I do not know if I am handling things the right way.  At times I make noble quick thinking Mommy decisions which make me beam with pride; yet, the moments when I fall short and lose my perspective along with my sing-song rationalization as to why it is not polite to belch at the dinner table are always lurking just beyond my periphery.  However, just when I feel as though I am failing miserably at motherhood, my children reach down and grab me just before I hit the ground.  Whether it is Abby proclaiming me to be the “best Mom in the world”, or Bryce penning the words, “Mom, I love your heart.” on a piece of construction paper which is randomly shrouded by hearts that more closely resemble deformed cat heads, they always come through.  

I find it humbling to have discovered, through my children’s own enlightenment, that it is acceptable to make mistakes; to raise your voice when you should have calmly explained to your screaming toddler while standing in the middle of the mall that he should not pull his sister’s hair out by the roots …it’s just not nice!  My intentions, like most mothers’ intentions, have always been sincere when it comes to raising my children.  I’ve wrestled with guilt about not paying enough attention to one or the other, perhaps I should not have sent him or her to their room, has each decision I have made been the absolute best for both of them?  I may never know.  What I do know is that the more we let go of torturing ourselves by trying so desperately to be maternal perfection incarnate, the better off both we and our children will be.  As mothers, we will make mistakes and we may not always know the way; but our children will always love us endlessly, just as we love them endlessly.

Sarah Kelly is proud to be a stay at home mother of two rambunctious blessings, Abby Grace – seven years and Bryce Teagen – six years.  She has happily danced through ten years of wedded bliss with her high school sweetheart, Kevin.  Sarah’s love of all things literary began when she was a child growing up on Florida’s west coast beaches.  Today, she approaches her anecdotes and brutally-honest essays as a form of free therapy.  In her busy world where all four members of her family spin in different directions, she makes sense of the chaos of ordinary moments and mundane routines through her memoirs.