Mom mode.
This week, I decide to name it. You know, those times when you can’t remember how you got from there to here, but you know you made it through and served a purpose. Pushing forward on adrenaline and a prayer. Full-blown Mom mode.
It happened early afternoon. Lunch went about as successful as usual – toddler begging for potato chips, baby covered himself in sweet potatoes and me in smooth, cold yogurt. Sticky hands, and crumbs on the floor.
Finally straightened up and ready to ease into nap time as the boys squeeze every last ounce of energy they can muster and make laps around the living room.
My oldest watching “Percy,” as he calls our mail truck, pass our driveway, and our youngest, a new walker, steps over to see outside for himself.
And bam.
It happens. Baby screams. Baby tears.
My 11 month old had tripped, forehead fallen face down into the window ledge.
Mom mode full-throttle.
I rushed over to scoop him up, yelled upstairs for my husband, and we examined the bruise together.
We have two sons, and it wasn’t our first pump knot, but it was large enough to hold my attention and me hold him a little tighter.
I called his doctor. Pulled on a long sweater. Got my bag and a blanket. Shoes. Jacket. Baby in car seat. Out the door.
I thank God the doctor’s appointment went well, and we were back in the car, with an all clear and a grin on his baby face.
I rest, and my heart rate returns to normal.
It’s not only in times of panic, it is present.
**
I watched her smile through wet tears as she spoke of her four children. I heard words like “food bank” and “hard times,” and my heart told me to tell her she is not alone, that she is strong. You can tell she loves her babies more than life, and she is strong.
A time to listen, so she can speak. A time to hear the voice of a mother and not try to talk up a solution I do not have. Only God does.
It may just be in listening; it may just be in you smiling. It’s what she needs, that mommy. I’m not sure I fully understood the listening and the smiling and the just being there that mommies need before I became one.
And so came my Mom mode.
It’s the function of my bony arms carrying a 30 pound toddler, along with three bags of groceries, while pushing a stroller, all because he wouldn’t hold my hand to walk across the parking lot.
It’s in the way I get to rock him back to sleep and snuggle on a Saturday, and I couldn’t be more comfortable.
It’s in the food splattered down my neck and dripping from my hands as I try and try and try again to get something down him. After 45 minutes and my own plate cold, I’m not giving up.
It’s in the way I can sense a fall coming, and even if I’m not fast enough to stop it, I am quick enough to sprint over and scoop him up to cover with kisses… and. go. from. there.
I am thankful for it.
I know I am not smart enough to do enough on my own. Yet, I know who is. I think He gave us mommies such a gift in preparing and putting a desire in our hearts so early to love, defend, protect those little ones whose hearts we once carried inside.
He set to music a love song that made us cry when we listened as the doctor located the thumping inside our growing bellies, and it makes us cry still when we watch those hearts hurt and heal our own.
And it doesn’t have an ON/OFF button. This Mom mode. This state of being.
Even when days get tough, the talk gets rougher, and the easy thing would be to run away. We do the hard thing.
It is in our blood. Because we are Moms.
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