Life after the postpartum

Oh the things waiting to be discovered in our own home! Last week it was the office I tidied which had been littered with a string of dustish hairballs in the space where I used to write. A couple days ago I gawked at the dirt under the couch pillows. Today it was the master bedroom that sounded the Jaws theme across my eyeballs.

The twins will be six months old in just a couple weeks. Despite all I had braced myself for, I just couldn't have imagined how hard I would fall for them. And really all of this motherly experience, this round the clock and no escaping it version.

Cooking. Reading books. Nursing bug-eyed sweet things. Answering questions about "uhmerica" and God and if he's correct and what kind of a cat is that.  Home is where my heart is. I've landed here full force and have been finding great joy in the work of motherhood.

But there's more to my story than motherhood. I wish I was all the things all the time but I haven't been and I guess I won't be. Bummer. The past six months has been a heavy hand of loving littles.  I knew there was more (and that the dust was collecting) but I figured it could wait.

So, yes, I've got some re-balancing to do. Some straightening up and catching up and finding a place to hang all of my priorities.  Not just singing poorly constructed songs to the tune of Somewhere Over the Rainbow at my babies all day long.

None of us do it all. We have trade offs and should sometimes admit so in light of encouraging each other.

 And that has me wondering about what I'm willing to let go and what I should intentionally pull closer to me.

Today, the master bedroom had its two cents to throw in. No, seriously, I found two pennies. And one dime. A quarter. And a few other things. Two airplane pillows, one lazily spilling out a small pool of its white beady filling under the bed. A print-out of some nutritional information. Three hair ties and two dozen thousand bobby pins. And my breast pump, tubes and all, sprawled out all pompous and proud of how effectively nursing two babies has taken over a pretty hefty slice of the pie these past six months

 I wiped off dust which layered the grooves on the backs of our doors.  I rubbed polish into the wood. A secondhand flower decoration, yellowed and stiff went in the trash. An empty potpourri container seemed a haunting echo of good intentions forgotten.

With each thing tidied, so also my heart. 

I climbed atop our bed, ever frowning at the clash of colors our room has happened to stay: happy yellow walls, a vibrant gold comforter, rich brown furniture. I pulled up the wooden blinds and light flooded the room, making the mess of unfinished work, laundry unsorted, vacuum parked, and a clutter of junk on a bed stand seem even worse than I feared.

Sometimes there's an itch in our heart. Sometimes we just know there's that place to be cleaned. That demon to tackle. That call to make. That stiff and yellowed thing to let go.

Today, I smiled at the days when it was just Paul and I and for the days when it will be just us again. I whispered my wedding vows into the white of the baseboards. I took in the lemon of the shining dresser and looked around at all the crap and thanked God that I have a husband that has given and given and waited and encouraged and let me be all the mom things: the zombie mom, the learning mom, the fresh cookies for my family mom, and the singing and dancing and laughing and glowing mom.

And today I smiled because I remembered. I'm me first and I'm wife next and after those two things I'm a mom. And on a good day and somewhere over the rainbow, I get to be a few more things too.