Mothering

When I was a little girl I thought about being a Mom when I grew up. I loved to play dolls and had an extensive collection of babies and all the paraphernalia that went along with them. I have countless pictures of me posing for a photo with a doll in my arms or inside my shirt with it heads sticking out the top because I thought it was easier to carry them that way. I dreamed about growing up and having children of my own. It seemed like a pretty regular thing for a little girl to do.

I am mother. But it turns out that sometimes our dreams become reality in ways we were not expecting.

Two years ago today a judge asked P and I if we would be parents to 2 little boys we were growing to love. Two little boys who desperately needed a family to love them unconditionally. Two little boys who deserved so much and yet had received so little.

I did not know when I was a little girl that I would become a mother through adoption from foster care.

I did not know that my journey to being a mother would be hard, frequently arduous in fact.

I did not know how to be a therapeutic parent

I did not know how to safely calm a raging child.

I did not know how keep loving even when no one seems to want to love you back.

I did not know how much being parent a would change who I am.

I know now.

I know how to calm my raging son just like a mother knows how best to soothe her crying infant.

I know how to take time to take care of myself because this is a difficult path to walk.

I know how to parent my children in ways that work for them even though others tell me I am doing it wrong.

I know that what triggers their fears and how to make them giggle in delight.

I know how to love them even though they tell me that they do not want me to.

I know that I am not the mother I thought I would be when I was a little girl

and I am grateful for that because

becoming a mother to my sons has made me a better person.

My children challenge me to be more patient, more empathetic, more loving and more understanding.

They challenge me to be a better mother than I may of been if they had been born to me.

They challenge me to learn and grow and change to meet their needs.

They challenge me to educate others about the needs of kids like them.

I may never know what it is like to parent a child that once grew inside me. I may never be the only mother a child ever had. But I am grateful that I have the privilege of mothering my sons, of helping them heal and grow into the fine men that they are destined to be. I am not the parent I dreamed I would be when I was a little girl, it is different, it is hard but it is wonderful to be their mother.