Reapplying for the job...

Back in 2000 U2 released All that You Can't Leave Behind.

The album is brilliant but not really the point of this post.

When the band toured and did interviews and talked about "reapplying for the job" of greatest rock band in the world.

I've been thinking about that a lot.  The idea of reapplying for the job you already have.  The re-application of yourself to your own work.  However mundane or routine or hectic or predictable or frustrating or awesome it might be.

I've spent the past couple of weeks reapplying for the job of Mom.

I suppose because I've done it longer, I feel like I'm a better Wife than I am Mother.  But then, it's easier for me and Chris to stay in sync than it is for me and the Boy.  Some of that's just nature, he's constantly growing and changing and I'm grown.  I still change but it's much slower, so trying to keep up with him is exhausting in a number of ways.

But just because I'm tired doesn't mean I should succumb to apathy.

And I had.  Maybe it was the holidays, maybe it was the last growth spurt that drained me, I don't know.  But I was coasting.  Glazed over and going through the motions.

I've spent the past couple of weeks reapplying for the job of Mom, and you know the best part?  I can.  I can wake up in the morning, no matter how hard the previous day was, and decide that Today is going to be better.  I'm going to try harder, I'm going to be more patient, more engaged, more cognizant, more aware of what's going on around me.  We're going to have more fun, we're going to laugh and play, but we're also going to work and get something done.

And over the the past couple of weeks the one thing that has become perfectly clear is my absolute favorite part of the job.

It's this:

 

Teaching him to give Love.  To be Gentle.  To be Soft.  To be kind to others and to animals.

 

 

It melts me every single time I see it.  And I see it A LOT.  It's also got me thinking, when do we stop loving like that?  When do we become guarded and shy?  When do we start to hold back?  And I know that sometimes it's a good thing, but sometimes it's not.  And how on earth am I supposed to teach him how to tell the difference when I can't always tell myself?

He comes to me periodically through the day, just to lean up against me.  No matter what I'm doing, cleaning diapers, folding clothes, cooking dinner, yoga--he walks right up against my legs and leans heavily against them for 34 seconds and then he's off to play some more.  I love those moments.  I know they won't last forever so I'm enjoying them as they come.

I was talking to Chris the other day and I was saying how strange my days are lately.  Because I watch him run and play and climb and MESS and he's so Big.  And such a BOY.  And yet.  He comes to me when he's tired or frustrated and he climbs into my lap and leans over and looks at me and there is something in his small face that is still that baby that I held once upon a time.  I wonder if it's always like that.  I wonder if my mom looks at me and still sees some shadow of the baby I was once.  I wonder if it fades over time, if we forget and move on, if it's just a part of us like our eye color and the shape of our chins.