I always thought I would have 3 or 4 children. I am particularly fond of odd numbers so thought 3 would be great. However, after having just one and experiencing all that is motherhood, I wasn't sure I would be able to do it again at all. Ever.
Eventually, we did decide to try for another one and were blessed with our daughter and again, many challenges so we had to make the decision that 2 was all the children we could handle. It wasn't hard to make the decision to get my hubby snipped, but rather it has been harder reconciling my expectations for myself as a mother. I know I can only mentally handle the 2 children I have. I know I just don't have the patience for a bunch of kids wheedling and whining at me.
While they are so many great things about having kids, and there really are, there is often a big old bridge between those sweet and beautiful moments and too many of those Holy crap I'm going to pull my own hair out moments. So it is for these 2 kids I already have that I had to realize that this is all I am capable of. To push myself further would be a great disservice to them, to my husband, and to myself. Any more children at this point in life would not allow me to give these kids the best of me. There are already lots of days that the best of me really isn't great.
All my sisters have at least 3 kids. I really figured I'd always have my own 3 as well. Why aren't I more capable of being a calm, creative, cleaning, laundering machine? I don't know. I only know that this is all I got.
I would even go against my sensible feelings if not for the road we traveled to get to being parents of 2. Before each of my children, I had 2 miscarriages, making a total of 4. Anyone who has experienced a miscarriage knows how much of a blow it can be. 4 is a lot of losses, becuz it truly does feel like a loss. You have this expectation of being a mother, or a mother again, and a cautious hope sprouts in your heart, only to be ripped to ribbons at the first signs of losing the pregnancy. There were times I thought I would never be a mother, and after my son, did not think I would have another, could not possibly physically have another child. So I realize how lucky I am with that part alone, being able to get past several losses and have 2 healthy kids.
Just that factor, all those stressful first months, sonogram appointments that changed horribly in an instant, coupled with children who simply aren't good sleepers, one with terrible colic, high maintenance both of them, awful postpartum depression, getting horrible infections after childbirth and not being the kind of person who does great at being pregnant - and my small patience with my kids, being penchant to wigging out way too much, all lead to my knowing that two kids was going to do it for me.
I wish sometimes that I were a different kind of mother. As someone who often doesn't care what people think in certain arenas of life, I certainly can't say I don't compare myself to other mothers. I know there are lots of ladies out there who can not only handle 2 kids, but 4 or 6 and do so with grace and patience, all while running loads of laundry, making a homemade casserole, fitting in exercise every day, and crafting with the children. I have to adjust my expectations and accept that this is simply not the kind of mother or woman I am. I will never make my own laundry detergent and my own bubbles for the kids. I don't want to. I want to buy bubbles and utilize Tide's talents to get my clothes clean. As much as I love seeing fun little ideas and recipes and ways to be the best mother on the earth and the like on Pinterest, I will never do 9/10th of those things. And why should I feel badly about it?
I like to color with my kids, I do really like to blow bubbles, I like to take them to the library, read to them at nite, make sure they have sippy cups and snacks in the car, and tell them definitions of words. I will never be the most fun or creative mother but I guess I also won't be the mother under the table after a bender either. So in the middle I will remain. But it's difficult sometimes realizing you don't and won't meet a certain expectation you had of yourself. You have to accept where you are but mostly who you are. It would be a futile waste of my time that I could utilize sitting on the ground reading while my kids play nearby. Becuz I am not the mom that wants to play all day with them, but I am the kind who is happy and content to sit right there with them if they need me. And that will just have to be enough.
