We have a four bedroom house. There is an eat-in kitchen, dining room, living room, large basement, and one bathroom. It’s not huge. But still.. there are nine rooms. Nine. And do you know how many rooms are often in use? One. And more often than not, in one corner of one.
If I am cooking in the kitchen, I usually can’t make it from the stove to the fridge without tripping over little people. When I do laundry, everyone currently in the house often ends up in the laundry basket. When I clean up toys, suddenly everyone has to be playing with those exact toys. And if I sit on the couch, I have people crawling all over me.
We seriously need one of these.
One of the hard parts about having little kids is the feeling of being “touched out.” At the end of a long day of people constantly needing hugs and kisses and held hands and cuddles, sometimes you just want to put up a sign that says, “Do Not Touch The Mommy.”
It’s hard. When we have kids, one of the things we give up is the very notion of personal space.
And so this afternoon, when I went into the kitchen to have a snack, and I had three people join me, and then I went into the living room to sit down and write, and was met with two other people on the couch and one trying to climb up, I felt that feeling of claustrophobia.
But then I remembered that during times like these, it’s important to remember that what I am getting frustrated by is the feeling of being needed and wanted.
I used to pray to be needed. All I wanted was for someone to want me to be around and for someone to be better off because I was there. And then I gave birth three times, and there it was.
It’s tough to be needed. It requires a lot. But take a minute to think about that. As a mama, someone needs you. Like really, really needs you. If something were to happen to you, someone’s life would be irretreivably altered. Someone’s life is better because you are there. Someone really and honestly believes that your kiss makes owies better, and someone can find solace in your arms during a rough day at school. You are needed not so much for what you do but for who you are.
Perhaps that’s one of the greatest parts of being a mom — that as a mom, one of our biggest duties is to make things better. We help kids learn the things they don’t know. We help them solve arguments. We help them learn to share and to compromise and to act with compassion. We help them understand taunts, and we help teach them to stand up to them and for themselves. They need us to help them become who they were meant to become from the very beginning.
Our kids come into this world utterly defenseless. Left to their own devices, they wouldn’t make it more than mere hours. But they don’t have to. Because God gave them helpers on this journey, and those helpers are us. We are the needed ones.
And I don’t want to minimize things. It is really hard during those moments of being touched out when all you want to do is hide in a dark room and shut out any and all stimulation. But there is a flip side to that hardship, and that’s what I try to remember during those times.
Yes, I am sitting down typing, and I have irritated skin on my arm because someone is sitting so close to me that her ragged princess dress up dress scratches my arm every time I move my arm to type. But that’s only happening because she needs me and my presence and my closeness.
She needs me.
Some days I still can’t wrap my little head around that very big notion.
And I’m wanted. Me, specifically. I am wanted.
And I pray I never learn to take that for granted.
Have you checked out my Facebook page?