THOUGHTS ON MOTHERHOOD

Thoughts on Motherhood… by Karen A. LechMotherhood, as Erma Bombeck once said, is the second oldest profession. I tend to disagree, as biblically there was no red light district in the Garden of Eden that I know of, or outside the gates thereof.I wonder what Eve thought when her belly began to bulge and she felt kicking around in there. Perhaps she wondered if she had eaten a live animal or something during the night, or some chimpanzee had crawled down her throat unaware. Adam probably watched in amazement, and perhaps concern that he too would develop this unusual change in his body. Motherhood is an extremely complicated condition. Once you come down with the symptoms, you never recover. Being a mother keeps you young, even though at age twenty- five with a few toddlers, you feel one hundred plus years old. Being a mother alters your mental status. I truly believe Attention Deficit Disorder is more common in the mothers of young children than the children we so easily give Ritalin to. I can remember starting to do breakfast dishes, an easy enough task to accomplish, only to find them still undone at three in afternoon. Once you fill up the sink with water, and get it all nice and sudsy and hot and start to soak the glasses and silverware, you hear a cry. “MOMMY!!!” That stops all productive cleaning in an instant. You then pursue the query and ask your child, WHAT?? The answer can be multiple choice times the one hundredth power. While checking on whatever problem was presented to you, such as the cat won’t come out of the toilet to I hurt my finger (only to find that the finger looks perfectly normal or someone was actually trying to give the kitten a bath in said toilet) the dishes are totally forgotten. And as soon as one dilemma is solved, another arises very quickly. Children are great helpers. They WANT to help. It is wise to give them chores, but you better be specific about it. I can remember a few times when my children were small that I found some rather interesting surprises. Both times were when I was putting laundry away. I know that at times I would get absent minded with so much on my mind, but greenpeppers in the underwear drawer? And then there was that time I, again, went into the underwear drawer of my second son only to find a miniature village all laid out in there, with mini people, streets drawn with crayons, tiny animals. It was literally a mini village all laid out so carefully. I stared in amazement. Me… the chatterbox…. Could not utter a word, I was so awed. I never did figure out where the underwear that was in there went. Next weekend he graduates from Columbia College in Chicago, with degrees in art and photojournalism. The greenpepper kid gets his doctorate the following weekend… in chemistry of course. See what happens when you show a kid baking soda and vinegar?? I won’t go into the experiments that led to buying a new microwave. When I heard sounds of snapping and see blue sparks and smoke coming out and cheerful comments of WOW and COOL! I knew I had heard the death knell of my microwave. Isn’t it odd, though, when say the kids turn 12 or 13, they hate to help? Motherhood makes you cry. I know I was crying while in labor…. Then the first day of kindergarten… then leaving the first one off at college… weddings…when they got hurt or were sick… Motherhood seems to trigger a leaking of the tear ducts, and somehow tears at your heart. Your heart is never ever the same. From near heart attacks when they climb a tree so high you have to call the rescue squad, to when older brothers lock their sisters in a suitcase (which of course I lost the key and had to cut open the suitcase with a knife so they would not suffocate) to watching their crestfallen faces when their own hearts break, the hearts that at one time beat just below mine as I carried their little bodies in my own. Sometimes you come down with hysterics too. Like hysterical laughter. You just can’t help it. My number three son has always been an inquisitive one. At age three it was always the question… what kind of? What kind of fish? What kind of dinner are you cooking? Non stop. What kind of this or what kind of that. One day, frazzled, I said to him, Teddy, you are driving me crazy! His reply was, “What kind of crazy am I driving you?” I looked at his sweet little face and burst out laughing, till tears gushed from my eyes and my stomach ached. I told him, when I could catch my breath… “the worst kind.” But in reality? It has been the best kind of crazy.They say time flies when you are having fun. I have been having a lot of it I guess, as my babies will soon be 17. My twins. Have you ever tried potty training twins? No home comes equipped with two toilets in the bathroom. I could have fled to public rest rooms to try it, but by the time we would get there it would, of course, be too late. Now I am contemplating how on earth driver’s ed will work, as I taught the boys beforehand how to drive. I bought them go karts to practice. If the way they drive them is any indication, my advice to you is stay off the roads for a while. These are just some thoughts, excerpts from a book I am working on entitled GREENPEPPERS IN THE UNDERWEAR DRAWER. But I think of all the thoughts I have on motherhood, one word encompasses them all… it has been a PRIVILEGE.