baby in balls

Sometimes in my mommying years I could be a bit of a bonehead.  I wasn’t very wise about self-care.  But I earnestly felt that my children were my primary mission field. I made that determination when I was pregnant with my first.  And when that pregnancy ended in the disappointment of a stillbirth, I was so desperate to be a mom that I saw no other activity as enticing as parenting. When Meredith was little, Dave would drag me out of maternity retirement long enough to do one play a year.  I was so blessed to have five church friends who eagerly took her into each of their homes one day a week, allowing me to rehearse and perform.  But I really wanted to be with my child all the time. 

When our son Court was three, we moved to California so that Dave could try his hand at television writing. He was gone long hours. Then a year after we arrived here, Meredith was diagnosed with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. Bedbound in the beginning, her limitations kept me tied pretty close to home.  Friends would invite me out, declaring that I needed to do something for myself.  My response was that ultimately everything I did was for myself….being the best mother I could be made me feel fulfilled, so it was more selfish than altruistic.  When I did hire a sitter for Meredith, my outing was usually to the local mall to buy books to stoke her insatiable reading habit or to the local IKEA where I could leave Court in the ball room for an hour while I went to pick up something small that I needed for the house. 

Finally, Meredith was able to go back to school part of each day.  Court was still in preschool and would come home and ask to go to IKEA to play. My first reaction was that I didn’t need anything at IKEA.  But then it dawned on me that I could have one uninterrupted hour in the cafeteria with an iced tea and a book while Court played happily in the sea of balls, supervised by IKEA staff.  Why was I saying, “No?” 

I was reminded of that first foray into doing something for myself on a recent Saturday when Meredith and I took her three boys to a mall and found a play place to sign them into. I particularly enjoyed watching her youngest Everett lose himself in the freedom to roam and explore, an experience he’d been denied during his first two years because of the pandemic.  Here this baby, who for much of his little life had lived in a quarantined bubble, reveled in a pile of bubble-like balls, sliding and burying himself in them over and over again.  And my heart was filled with gratitude for such simple treats that I can bestow on another generation of kiddoes now that mine are fully grown. 

Self-care may be overrated. It doesn’t hold a candle to watching little ones absorbed by unmitigated joy.

Love, Liz