Inspired Motherhood

I am on a very important mission. What, you ask? Ok, I'll share it with you.

To truly know, celebrate, and invite others into the joy of motherhood. I believe that motherhood is beautiful, inspiring, delightful, purposeful, fulfilling... if you deem it so.

Consider this. Being a mother allows us to step into the land of creativity. We invent the structures for our children, we engage them in games, learning and play, we get messy, we make it up as we go.

Day 1 with Amelia: I sat on the couch with Joe, and said something of the sort, "Seriously, how can they leave us with a newborn and expect us to know what we don't know?!" (This, by the way, coming from the couple who checked themselves out of the hospital 12 hours after Amelia's birth because we wanted to be home. I planned a homebirth and was intent on recovering, and discovering her, in our home.)

It is the greatest challenge and the greatest blessing of motherhood - this concept that we create our own structure, we design what motherhood looks like for us.

And here is where we get hung up, right? We scour books, try to decipher society's messages, ask our doctors what we should do. We get really hung up on getting it right, being perfect (or figuring out what that even means), and being seen as a competent mother.

There is apparently a book called The Feminine Mistake out there. I have not yet read it. I am a feminist. I believe in the progressiveness of women's rights. But, I believe the feminine mistake is foresaking our hearts, giving power to outside forces (whether it is blindly following parenting philosophies or creating rules that become our mazes), and losing ourselves rather than finding ourselves in motherhood.

I will not pretend that motherhood is always easy or enchanting. And yet, I know from experience that an ordinary day can be beautiful and purposeful, rather than exhausting and confusing, when we shift our focus and take care of ourselves.

That is my personal mission. To know the power that lies within myself, and other women, to create, to enjoy, to transform the ordinary into the extraordinary. And to be responsible for ourselves, our gifts, and our longings along the way.