What My Children Have Taught Me— By Birth Order

Since it’s almost Mother’s Day, I started thinking about the rascals that made me a mom, and what each of them has brought to my life.

My oldest child taught me what parental love is, as they all do. Having him was like being broken open and put back together again. I used to not care that much how old lived to be, so long as I had some time on this earth to get a decent shot at my dreams. Living to 70 or some seemed like more than enough and would be a blessing considering that not everyone is as fortunate. After Ben was born, I wanted to live to be at least 90 so I could hopefully spend all those years watching the man he would become.

Of course, having a baby also introduced me to a new level of terror I had not known before. As a friend of mine from Nashville says, having a baby feels like the universe hands you the thing you will love more than anything and also says, “and by the way, everything can kill it.”

If the growth of love and terror after your first child’s birth could be shown on a graph, I’m pretty sure it would be the same overlapping vertical line.

For a while, I worried that I had passed along all of this love and all of this terror to my oldest.

He is anxious to do things — like swimming to the deep end of the pool or talking to new neighbors. However, at the end of the day, he still gives it a go. If I’ve asked him to try something new, he has never turned me down, and I tell him I want him to be proud of himself for doing things that challenge him.

Our small victory this week is that after two months of crying or general upset before nearly every swimming lesson, he told me he was looking forward to time in the pool, and “you don’t even have to give me a buck!” (I’ve been paying my kids a dollar to complete each swim lesson, and for some reason, my almost-eight-year-old insists on saying “bucks” when “dollars” would work just fine. Our concept of money is another story — we have a “store” at our house, and one toy costs a billion dollars because that’s all he would need to sell to make it. Because, “duh, Mom.”)

He is at an age where we argue more, I think because we’re at a time in his young life when he has to pull away from me on this journey to become more of himself. He isn’t as much a part of me anymore — physically or psychologically. He doesn’t insist on staying at my side, and he’s comfortable having opinions I don’t share. (The latter, unfortunately, includes a passionate desire to watch YouTube videos about creepy things caught on security cameras even though I’ve banned YouTube in the house.) As Natalie Maines sings, “you’re of me, not mine.”

The growing up and growing apart process has been a little painful for both of us. We argue more. There are occasions when he declares that I’m “the worst mom” or I’m “boring and old,” but he’ll still find me at the end of the day to tell me he loves me or that he feels bad about when we didn’t go where I wanted to eat because someone (ahem, middle child) was throwing a fit.

There’s more attitude and angst, but at the end of the day, he is still my sweet, brave boy. His curiosity and kindness are a gift, even when it means I have to answer the interminable, “would you rather be bitten 1,000 times by a scorpion or eaten by a shark” questions.

My middle child is painfully honest in everything that he does. He has no pretense, so to him, everything is just as wonderful or awful or weird as it seems.

When he saw his dad eating salad, he screamed, “Daddy, you’re eating leaves!” Nothing we said could convince him that eating leaves was a normal and good thing to do. (The fact that he was screaming about it could also indicate that we weren’t eating as healthy as we should have been during quarantine.)

When he saw me cleaning toilets for the first time, he asked why I would do that and declared, “It’s disgusting.” In fairness to him, cleaning toilets isn’t exactly not disgusting.

The older boys love to name an age and then ask how old they will be when their siblings reach a certain birthday.

“When I’m 10, how old will Ben be?”

“He’ll be 13,” I say. “Can you believe he’ll be a teenager when you’re 10?”

“That’s good,” Flip says, “because teenagers are faster than a chicken.”

I have no idea what it means either.

He said that when the babies turned six months old, “their prize was hugs.” And for his father’s upcoming birthday, he wants to “give him snuggles.”

Flip is not embarrassed or worried about his answers falling short or being judged. He is just completely himself.

This honesty translates to an adorable earnestness when he wants to do something. He is often telling me that he is “just so excited” for what comes next, whether that’s Christmas or Easter or a day at the lake.

This is the first season Flip has been able to play on a soccer team, and it’s a very big deal because it also means he will get his first award. He cannot wait to get the medal that is handed out at the end of the season. He calls it his “gold” and has already asked if he can take it to school the next day to show his friends, particularly his BFF. (I won’t use the name of his BFF because I’m not sure that friend’s mom knows I’m a blogger yet.)

When we were talking about his medal the other day in the car, his older brother had some words of wisdom. “You know,” he said, “it’s just a medal. It’s not a toy. You can’t play with it or do anything special.”

“I don’t care about that,” Flip said. “It’s just cool to have a medal, and then I’ll be cool.”

The open-hearted nature of his wants and needs also breaks my heart wide open before it gets put back together again, and the nights when he opens his arms up wide because he wants a cuddle before bed are times I will always treasure.

The babies are at an age where they are still pure joy. They smile at me and their father all the time. They love it when their older brothers pay attention to them or come near to play. They love friends and strangers.

“I just look their way and they smile,” the pediatrician said the other day during their check-up, and it’s true.

Maybe being born during a pandemic means they are that much more appreciative of times they can interact with people outside of our immediate family. Maybe they are just babies being babies.

They complete the family I always wanted, and there are still so many times I look at them and can’t believe that they are actually here. Identical twins? It’s not something I ever considered, but of course, now it seems like an embarrassment of riches.

They are all my dream.

I know Mother’s Day is painful for many, and I wish I could make that better. I’ll be spending my day making Perler beads — “because that’s one of your favorite things to do,” they say — and hanging out with my favorite dudes. I’ll aim for more presence and gratitude, and less worry because all of the kids have taught me that being seen for who you are is a true gift.