Decade #3--Mother

Fifty-nine days shy of my twentieth birthday, I became a Denton.

Seventeen and a half months later, I was a mother.  Heidi entered my world on the wings of angels, her live birth a miracle of modern technology.

Heidi--three months

 

Tucker Christian--six weeks

Seventeen and a half months later, Tucker came to our family, healthy and round and bald and sweet.

I was three months shy of my twenty-third birthday.

I wasn't one of those girls that dreamed about having a houseful of beautiful children, fresh bread baking in the oven. For as long as I could remember, I was going to be a lawyer--a UC Berkeley-educated lawyer. I was going to make a difference in this world by arguing before the best minds in America and swaying them to my opinion. I had plans.

Benjamin Andrew--seven months

Life never follows our plan. Life follows God's plan.

Shortly after Tucker was born, we packed our 1988 Toyota Camry and a moving van, and our little family headed off for a grand adventure--three years living in Hyde Park while Brad attended the University of Chicago Law School--Brad, but not me.

Funny how the Lord works. Instead of being bitter and jealous of Brad's opportunities, I fell in love with my new self--my mother self. I grew up during those three years, a time when I was completely out from under the wing of my mother or Brad's mother or my grandmother. I morphed from child to adult. I became a mother.

The mom.

I broke the pacifier habit and potty trained.

I read stories and sang lullabies.

I learned to budget and make do.

I explained honesty and the facts of life.

I graduated from full-time student with deadlines and exams to full-time mom with responsibility for nap time and chore charts.

Micah Thatcher--two months

Most of all, I fell in love with these little people God had entrusted to me. Somehow, through their complete dependence on me, I realized why my life was important and what I should be doing with my time. I found fulfillment in mothering that a career in the law could never have brought me.

Hyrum Kimball--seven weeks

Now, here I am, twenty-one years from the time I first became a mother, and I'm still breaking a pacifier habit and reading bedtime stories and teaching the facts of life. My time in the trenches of motherhood will be longer than most--with nineteen years separating my oldest and youngest daughters, I know forty years of hands-on mothering might look long on a calendar, but I'm already mourning the end I see just around the corner--the end of poopy diapers and naptime and snuggles and kisses before bed. The end of spelling lists and piano recitals and rugby matches.  No more planning prom dinners or carpools.

Eve Diana--six months

No courtroom in the world could fill my soul with the rewards that have come to me in my life.

I am making a difference in this world--living my life as Mom.

 Denton kids--November 2009

Their mom.