renewal

A renewed respect, I wrote that I have a renewed respect for single parenting as I 'vacationed' alone with my children. It's renewed because I've always respected single parenting. At seventeen years old, I watched as my nineteen year old sister came home with this little baby, snuggled in her arms always, that was all hers. The father walked out after the pregnancy became too real and 'real life' became just too much.

I watched her bath this baby, feed this little being, cloth this tiny little boy all by herself. Though I was seventeen and wrapped up in my own world like only a seventeen year old could do, I took some notice. I could see that she loved it, she loved being a mother, it was written not only on her face, but her entire body oozed of new motherhood.

But she did it all alone. There was no one really to hand off her baby to when she desperately needed a break. No one to turn to in the middle of the night and whisper 'your turn' to when the baby woke in the wee hours of the morning. There is also no one that understands quite like your partner, your husband in sharing that little smile between the two of you as you recap the moments of the day that made you laugh out loud or in fact, scream out loud.

I've been thinking about this, as well as those moms that have husbands that work all of the time or husbands who travel for business often. I'm so lucky, I don't have that. I spent several night of this vacation wiping tears away from my four year old's eyes, getting ready for bed, as he again begged for Dad to be able to be there. Bedtime is their time, he and Dad reading books, folded into each other absorbing each other in that moment of that night. I love that he cherishes his father in a way that I can never replicate.

I'm lucky that I don't have to be a father, ever. I'm a mother. I may not be good at it some days, I may very much be this anti-supermom on those days when I give up trying to do it all but knowing that I do not have to 'do it all' all by myself renews love of my husband, my partner.