For Molly's Mom

Molly comes home today. Remember the time we talked and I told you I wouldn't give you any advice?

I lied.

So here goes...

Nothing will prepare you for Mommyhood. No book or manual or parenting class. Though they have good intentions, even our own mothers cannot prepare us for Mommyhood.

Since the day we told them, "You are going to be a grandma!" they have been there for us. They listened to us complain about morning sickness and rejoice at the first fluttering feelings of life growing inside our tummies. They saw us get bigger, and bigger, and bigger... and may I just say, they could have kept those observations to themselves? Ahem.

But, that's what they do. They're mothers.

Mothers are there when we go into labor- whether it is on time or surprisingly early. They try to tell their daughters about the pain. But, Oh. Sweet. Mercy. No one on God's green earth can prepare you for that.

Let me take a moment, on behalf of you and myself, to thank the inventor of the blessing from the pharmacy- the Epidural. Bless you, Ye Great Inventor of Numbing Gold. Bless you.

Okay. So no one, hard as they tried, prepared us for labor, but, somehow we made it through. The pain. The tears. The fear.

Because no one can prepare you for the love. The love a mother feels when she sees that tiny life God has given her. It is a love that you never knew before. A sweetness. A mystery. A miracle.

Nothing will prepare you for the quiet moments in the soft light as you hold your tiny baby to your heart. Nothing prepares you for the days you spend watching her sleep or play. The laundry and the dishes pile up and amazingly, you just don't care.

No one can warn you about the dangers of the world. No one will explain the fear you will feel when she is so sick and you just don't know what to do. Nothing prepares you for the fever that just won't break, or the arm that did, for the drive to the emergency room in the middle of the night, or the long, tearful prayers for healing.

No one can prepare you for the days, the nights, the years ahead. Your baby girl will go to sleep tonight a tiny, fragile expression of God's Love. Before you know it, one morning she'll wake up a toddler, refusing to eat. One day she'll be on her way to Kindergarten, then First Grade, and so on.

And one day, our little girls will call us to say, "Mom, you're going to be a grandma!"

We'll try to give them advice and they'll ignore us. We'll try to prepare them for what is ahead. The pain. The fear. The love. We'll try to prepare them for Mommyhood, but we won't be able to.

That's Okay. That's what we'll do. We're Mothers.

Just remind me not to tell them how big they're getting.

:>)