I’m pretty sure that in order to have an interest in pushing a baby out of your nether regions, you need to have some pretty positive ideas about how this whole thing is going to go. You go into motherhood knowing it’ll be tough, but hoping that there will be some redeeming value in all the long nights and toddler (or teenager) tantrums. You look forward to milestones, vacations, and other big moments in your child’s life. But there are a few sweetly unexpected things that I also love about being a mom.
Forming Our Own Traditions
Before my sons were born, I knew there were things I couldn’t wait to do with them. Bringing them to Disney World, having pizza night at our favorite place, trips to the library, and celebrating Christmas were a few things that my husband and I couldn’t wait to share with them. But parenthood has changed us, and our sons have their own personalities and preferences. So there have been new traditions and hobbies that are just as sweet. Bagels and snuggling on the couch on weekend mornings. Trips to Target (with a mandatory stop in the Lego aisle). Cuddling in mom and dad’s bed before lights out. Dance parties to my son’s crazy eclectic taste in music. And the best part is, we keep developing and honing these traditions. They change over the years as my boys grow, and each iteration is just as sweet as the one before. Even though the things I was excited about before their birth have turned out well overall, some of them don’t go as smoothly as I’d hoped. My favorite pizza place? My budding musician is so crazy distracted by the jukebox in the booth that he doesn’t eat a bite and we end up spending the whole meal reminding him to sit down in his seat. But the new traditions are tailored specifically to them, which makes them work perfectly (well, as perfectly as anything works with little ones).
Watching Them With Their Grandparents
I loved my grandparents, but I wasn’t particularly close with any of them. So although I knew my parents and in-laws were pumped to be grandparents, I wasn’t prepared for how amazing it would be to watch their relationship with my children develop as they took on this new role. In some ways, it’s changed them as much as being a mom has changed me. My mother, who would have sooner died than let a can of Play-Doh into her home when I was a kid, purchased her very own Play-Doh kit and uses it with my son AT HER HOME on a weekly basis. Carpets be darned, she’s playing with her grandson! I’m so impressed how this tiny human has changed everyone for the better. I literally have never seen my father-in-law so happy as when he sees his grandchildren. Usually pretty serious, he’s as bubbly as a cheerleader when those two little boys arrive at his house.
Watching the grandparents share things they love with my children is also such a joy. Each has their own interests and talents and my sons love exploring them all, from making pizza with Nonni to shooting hoops with Pa to doing puzzles with Gram. Watching them bond and enjoy things together is one of the sweetest things I’ve seen. And although I might feel a twinge of sadness when my son chooses to stay at their house a while longer instead of coming home, it means more to me than I ever would have guessed to have four people who make him feel as safe, loved, and comfortable in their homes as he feels in ours.
Seeing Things From Another Perspective
Although every child has their own unique personality from birth, they’re clean slates in terms of knowledge. So many concepts that I take for fact, my son has shown me are merely opinions. For instance, I thought that everyone loves to win. My son could not care less. He will gleefully exclaim, “you won Mom!” at the end of a board game with as much enthusiasm as he would if it was him crossing that finish line. He’s also thrilled to receive more than one of the same toy. He loves opening ‘blind bags’ with his dad, the kind of tiny toys (or total junk, whichever your perspective) that you buy without knowing what you’re getting. Most kids would be bummed if they got more than one of the same, but he just yells, ‘duplicate!’ with a huge smile on his face.
His positive outlook on life is seriously inspiring to his “glass half empty” kind of parents. Recently we had to cancel a much-anticipated family vacation less than 24 hours before we were due to leave. I was dreading telling him, but I explained that his brother was too sick to go and that we would go in a few months instead. “Oh, okay,” he replied, totally distracted by a piece of mail. And he hasn’t mentioned it since. As much as I’m sure that his confusion about the concept of time contributed to this reaction (‘tomorrow’ and ‘in a few months’ mean basically the same thing to him), his sunny outlook on life was also a factor here, and an amazing perspective for his father and I to witness.
As much as we moms complain about the rough parts of raising tiny humans, it really has some amazing redeeming factors. I love the ones I’ve discovered so far, and I’m looking forward to finding even more of them as my kids grow, change, and develop.
