When I became a Mom, I wish I would have known...

The post has been inspired by the State Department weekly Blog RoundUp theme for the week. I'm submitting this week because I like the idea that a writing topic has been suggested. It's an open ended suggestion which, I like even more. Since I write about what's on my mind, as most bloggers do, my post centralizes around my job. (and the more we live overseas the more I am delightfully discovering that Motherhood is essentially the same job around the world.)

When I became a Mom, I wish I would have known...

That I would spend an exorbitant about of time searching our house for the suddenly not-to-be-lived-without cowboy Lego man/orange pony/pink princess headband (insert any random toy that three seconds prior was just another random toy)

That I would carry more pacifiers in my pockets than ChapStick.

How often I would be negotiating number of bites for playtime/ice cream.

That I would have a never ending rotation of purple and yellow bruises on my legs from kneeling on/bumping into/getting jumped on.

How many times I would say things like "Get your hands/fingers/inanimate object out of your mouth/nose/ear/butt." (in any combination)

How little sleep a Mother needs to still be a functioning human being during the day.

How many times I would be praying for my children to sleep.

How excruciating it would be to listen to them cry or be in pain.

That I would never be able to take a pee alone again.

How front and center guilt would be in my psyche at all times.

I could go on and on, as all Moms could, about the things that became part of my daily life that I never, in a million years, ever thought I would be doing, prior to having children. Motherhood is on-the-job-training in the purest form.

In all honesty, there are a loads of things I "know now" but didn't know then (before my girls). And I'm glad I didn't know it all then. The "then" was wonderfully naive of all things Motherhood. Thank goodness. If women knew the guts and gore of Motherhood prior to having their children, possibly, we'd all say "no thank you" and simply choose to donate cash to the latest cloning research project.

No. I'm glad that most of Motherhood is a surprise. A magnificent surprise that I am unsurfacing layer by layer with my girls. How much fun would it have been to already know just how remarkable Motherhood is, or how much love I'd be filled with on a daily basis? About as much fun as unwrapping a gift that you sneaked a peak at prior to its wrapping. Not one bit of fun.

One thing I honestly wish I would have known prior to becoming a Mom is just how much time I would spend reflecting on my own Mother and our relationship through my childhood (good and bad). "I wonder if this is how Mom and I were/how she felt/would have done it?" goes through my head more often than I ever would have imagined. The understanding and connection that Motherhood surfaces between a daughter to her Mother shouldn't be surprising when I think about it. And yet, I had no idea that my own Mother would play such a large role in the way I raise my daughters and in the way I manage all the guts and gore of Motherhood.