For now, I’m just Mama—the keeper of all your favorite treats: cookies, chips, and waffles. I try, largely without success, to conceal nutrition underneath piles of cheese or in sauces and muffins. Week after week, I tarnish our countertops with my efforts: chop, mince, puree, chop, mince, puree. I perform these rituals with frantic energy as if the urgency with which I cook is directly correlated with how healthy you will become. 

My attempts to shield your delicate eyes from anything offensively green are done out of love. I shred zucchini carefully to avoid cutting myself against the cold, sharp steel of the cheese grater and chop carrots precisely into minuscule building blocks until they bear no resemblance to anyone’s idea of a vegetable. All the while, I imagine a deceptively nutritious Bolognese smeared across your grinning face. 

For now, I’m just Mama, doing what I can to keep you nourished and growing.

For now, I’m just Mama, accepting every crooked-smiled “Read book” offer you extend. I always welcome the rhyming monkey and playful pup-themed books even when the stale repetition has exhausted me. As the words transport you to other worlds, ones in which animals talk, and doing the right thing always leads to an eternal happy ending, I find myself coming along for the ride.

RELATED: Being Your Mom is the Best Part

I read in spontaneous voices: some high-pitched, others low, some stern, and others whimsical. My creativity emerges in unsolicited waves as I try with every page to amuse you. For now, I’m just Mama, bringing life to the friends from your books in service of pleasing you.

For now, I’m just Mama, letting you lead our playtime in keeping with the advice of the experts. I sit back and watch you, glad to catch a glimpse of the world through your eyes as the banana becomes a phone and the colorful stacking rings become a birthday cake. I marvel at how you put marker to paper with neither rhyme nor reason.

And I hope you never part with this daring, free, unencumbered part of yourself.

Your manic giggle when you open and close the bedroom doors upstairs, your electrified gallop when running outside, and your pure smile when those darn monkeys fall off the bed again.

I want you to know that, presumably, the activities will change, but those feelingsdelight and exuberancethey are parts of you that deserve to be cherished and prioritized. It is brave to do what brings you joy.

Maybe I will tell you this one day, but for now, I’m just Mama, happy to sit back and watch you in your glee.

For now, I’m just Mama, folding endless piles of tiny clothes, satisfied only when they stand taller than you on my bed. I mop up mud stains and smeared blueberries until my arms hurt and pick up scattered toys until the ache in my back no longer feels foreign. Containing the chaos you unleash on our home could be a full-time job, but I promise myself that it will never truly be mine. For now, I’m just Mama, performing this domestic dance quickly while you nap so there is time enough to steal for my own sustenance and sanity.   

For now, I’m just Mama, and this is enough.

Your tiny hand in mine, your squeaky voice requesting hugs and kisses, and your angelic sleeping face all promise me so. For now, I am the biggest part of your world, but only for now. You have already begun the journey that will separate you from mefirst, in baby steps and later, in leaps and bounds. Soon enough, you will go on adventures, find love and endure heartbreak, recognize injustices that make you want to save the world, and meet friends that make you glad to live in it.

RELATED: Motherhood is Hard, But Loving You is the Easiest Thing I’ve Ever Done

Maybe one day, if I am lucky, I will tell you about my own journey: the stories, the triumphs, the joys, and the pain that make me more than your mama. Maybe one day, we will talk like friends; you can share your wild and beautiful dreams, and I can tell you about my own, the ones too big for this house to contain.

But for now, I’m just Mama, and that is enough. More than enough.

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now
So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Rhea Filipczak

Rhea Filipczak is a Pittsburgh-based writer and mom. She spent years working in the busy NYC marketplace and is grateful to have slowed her life down and discovered the best job of all: mom-chef-teacher-entertainer-writer-dog-walker . . . and the list goes on. She hopes her writing inspires others (especially new moms) to find beauty in everyday simplicity. 

You Were Made for Motherhood

In: Motherhood
Mother cuddling baby

As a mother of four precious little men, I just witnessed something that often puts me in instant inward RAGE. I feel my blood pressure climbing when I hear what I’m about to share. I try to have grace for these types of scenarios because I am hoping it is out of sheer ignorance someone would say these words. When I was little, my grandpa taught me the difference between stupidity and ignorance. Stupid is usually a choice of wrongdoing, and there’s little hope for stupid. But ignorance isn’t the person’s fault. They simply just haven’t learned. I am going...

Keep Reading

Lord, Please Don’t Let Me Forget

In: Baby, Kids, Motherhood

Lord, please don’t let me forget the way it felt to have them growing inside me. Help me remember the way the flutters turned into kicks and the feeling of pure joy and amazement with each tiny jab. Please don’t let me forget how it felt when the doctor laid them on my chest for the first time. Keep clear in my mind that overwhelming feeling of happiness, fear, excitement, and unconditional love all wrapped up in one. Lord, please don’t let me forget the sleepless nights that turned into tired days. Help me remember those sleepy snuggles as my...

Keep Reading

At the End of Your Life, This is What Will Matter to Your Children

In: Marriage
At the End of Your Life, This is What Will Matter to Your Children www.herviewfromhome.com

The death of George HW Bush has caused me to reflect on what really matters to my children and others at the end of life. As I was watching the eulogy given by his son George W Bush, I made a mental note of what actually mattered to George W at the end of his father’s life and what things had made him a better, well-adjusted adult. His father played games with them, had fun with them, had family dinners with them, and showed them integrity and love for others. But the thing that seemed to leave the biggest impression...

Keep Reading