Smiling Mom

Each and every time I go silent on this blog, it’s due to stress.  I find that when I am overwhel­med up to my eye­balls, I tend to walk around all day long making up witty posts in my head.  Howe­ver, by the time my kids are in bed, I’m to exhaus­ted and overwhel­med to write any of it down.

I’m not sure what I fear or why I won’t put my thoughts down on paper during these times.  Maybe it’s because I’m so at a loss that I fear I’ll sound angry or ugly.  I don’t want to be ugly.  Maybe it’s simply that I’m tired and the men­tal energy it takes to rehash life’s stres­ses is simply too much.

During the past few weeks, I’ve come to rea­lize how for­tu­nate I am to have star­ted this blog.  It brings so much to my life.  My family knows where my head is without ever having to ask.  Some friends that I’d since lost touch with are now back in my life full swing.  New friends have emer­ged.  I am truly blessed.

In my last post I spoke of my son’s sepa­ra­tion anxiety issues and how overwhel­med we’ve been with him at night­time.  Well, nights have got­ten bet­ter but life in gene­ral with him has become way worse.  As a res­ponse to my pre­vious blog post, a dear friend living on the oppo­site side of Ame­rica in part wrote me:

I don’t pre­tend to be a nature lover so bear with me on the accu­racy of these details. Pic­ture a baby bird. It is born in its nest, and the mother bird (much like us) pro­vi­des everything for her baby. She searches for its food, keeps it warm, fends off pre­da­tors, and as the baby bird begins to grow in size, strength, and inde­pen­dence, it begins to learn on its own. Over time, the baby bird relies on the mother less and less. She teaches her bird how to fly and together they look for food. Yet, at the end of the day, no mat­ter how much the baby bird has flown on its own, it returns to the nest. It is in the nest that the baby bird finds its warmth, secu­rity, and recon­nects with mom. While it couldn’t be hap­pier with its new found inde­pen­dence, there is still that need to get home to the safety of that nest.

With each pas­sing year, BC has grown more and more inde­pen­dent. He plays more inde­pen­dently now than ever, he is busy gro­wing and lear­ning at school, he is swim­ming like a fish and gai­ning confidence…all these things are let­ting him stretch his wings and grown. Maybe by the end of the day, he has exhaus­ted that inde­pen­dent energy and needs a few minu­tes to recon­nect and recharge in the nest with you. Isn’t his song, “You are my sunshine”? Perhaps he just needs a few minu­tes alone each night with you. It seems like that was all it took when you gave him the autho­rity to say when you could leave.

At this res­ponse, I cried.  She actually took time out of her busy day to check in on me and see how I am doing.  She spent time researching each pro­blem and con­cern I emai­led her.  She reached out to me from a place we’d never ima­gi­ned we’d recon­nect.  My blog.  Other blog­ging moms have also come to my aid offe­ring child­care, play-dates, drinks… I’m so grateful.

I’m never one to reach out and ask for help.  I gene­rally try to solve all life’s pro­blems by myself.  Moments like these make me eter­nally gra­te­ful to those who can read bet­ween my lines and see that at times I’m just a mom, nee­ding a good shoul­der to cry on.