Sometimes I want to travel back in time to those days when I had a colicky newborn weighing down my 2 a.m. arms.  When I had three children under the age of four in my midst, tangling up my hours and knotting up my days.  When I had a 38 week belly and stood heavily at the threshold of delivery wondering if I’d be able to handle the transition from four children to five.  All of those times seemed so impossibly hard at the moment.  All of those moments seemed so steeply insurmountable at the time.  But now, in the bright light of hindsight, those days seem so easy in comparison to the difficulties of today.

Always, in the midst of all the trying times were the wise, encouraging voices, “It’ll get easier,” “This won’t last forever,” “Just trust your instincts.”  Certainly truth ran through those rivers of advice; babies soothed and settled, needy toddlers grew less needy, a heart stretched bigger to accommodate one more.  The road of motherhood, potholed and precarious would suddenly open up to smooth pavement and open space.  At those moments I would roll down the windows, let the air hit my face and think, “At last I am enjoying the ride.”  It would be at that very moment, my eyes off the road, that I’d smash into a wall (more…)