I know this sounds goofy and far fetched but sometimes I think moms and Dori the fish from Nemo have a lot in common. Mainly FORGETFULNESS.
- Right off the bat there is the whole pregnancy and delivery. For a lot of women 9 months of pregnancy can be pretty unbearable and the delivery part/aftermath…well I don’t think I have to say much there. There has to be some sort of gene that makes us forget and want to or at least be willing to go through it multiple times. How many times did I say to my husband when I was pregnant with my second child that I was never going to be pregnant again? Hmmm…. he probably remembers it better than me. And as many of you know I did go through it again – two more times.
- I can have a really rough day or evening with my little humans where I am literally counting down the minutes until bedtime and so often I find that after they are finally asleep and the house is quiet I can’t always remember exactly why I was so stressed out. That being said the next morning I tend to forget those moments of zen I had the night before. This is when I use another of Dori’s techniques: chanting “just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”
- Having kids makes you downright forgetful in your daily life. I’ve always been somewhat of a forgetful person but now that I have 4 little voices buzzing around my head, its taken it to the next level. I go in a room and I forget what I went in there for. I turn on the computer to look up something and I can’t remember what it was. I go upstairs to get myself socks and end up bringing down a full laundry basket, a fresh diaper for the baby and a dirty sippy cup all while still in bare feet. I open the…. wait what was I talking about??? You get the picture.
- This next one I can only assume. I’m not a mom of a teenager/young adult yet but I’ve been a teenager/young adult. You aren’t always the sweetest version of yourself – I imagine at times it is something like toddlerhood times 10 for the mom. You can be a downright jerk at times and your mom never seems to waiver in their love for you. True that child might not be in their top 10 list of favorite people at the moment but they are always there for that child. I think that kind of forgiveness and unwavering love requires a level of forgetfulness in itself.
And I think that last sentence might be the key. I think God knew exactly what he was doing when he gave each of us moms a little bit of Dori. Unwavering love requires a just the right amount of forgetfulness.
As always thanks for listening to my rambling thoughts. And remember, “just keep swimming, just keep swimming…”
Beautiful Heather
Thank you Mary!