Mother’s Day Shared Wisdom

”Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” ~Elizabeth Stone

Nothing tugs at a mother’s heart more than when her baby(ies) start school.  Two weeks ago my identical twin boys started preschool. It truly was an emotional decision for me because they had been home with me since they were born. They will be 4 years old at the end of year and the decision to put in them preschool weighed heavily on me. I knew all the benefits they would receive by being in a structured classroom setting, interacting on a consistent basis with other children (that was not their older brother or twin brother), better vocabulary because they would not be always talking in their “twin language” with classmates, but I still struggled if I was doing the right thing.  Another fear was that the twins were going to be placed in separate classrooms and I worried about how they would adjust without each other.  They would be together for play, lunch, and recess but not during the learning day.  Being knowledgeable on many twins’ issues, I knew I lived in a state where parents (and not schools) get to choose whether multiples get to be placed in separate or same classrooms because of TwinsLaw.com.  I nervously anticipated that maybe the twins couldn’t get along without each other (and me).

When the day came for them to go to school, I held back my tears to be strong for them.  I was grateful that my parents and sister had been helping the day before and on the 1st day of preschool because I was a bag of nerves and emotion.  I kept waiting (and slightly hoping) that school would call me to say that the twins needed to come home because they missed their Mommy. I can (now) thankfully say the call never came. The twins were blessed with two wonderful teachers and the twins had a wonderful 1st day of preschool. 

As a mother of a teen boy, I have been through the 1st day of preschool before, but it never gets easier. I felt nervous, worried and scared with the twins starting preschool now just like had been 8 years ago when the teen started school. Motherhood, although wonderful and joyful, is never easy.

“It’s not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it.” ~The Golden Girls (I love this line said by Dorothy (Bea Arthur) in an episode of one of all my all-time favorite shows, The Golden Girls)

Just in time for Mother’s Day, a wonderful video from Hyland’s Homeopathic Medicines is a message of shared wisdom for parents. As an infant, my mother gave me all natural homeopathic teething tablets to help me during the sometimes uncomfortable teething phase. Based on her recommendation and experience, I gave all three of my children the Hyland’s teething tablets and gels during their teething period.  My entire family are users of the Hyland line from cold medicines to sleep aids.  I always found that Hyland’s products have a soothing calming effect on my children and helped to alleviate pain.  The video is a heartfelt dedication to being a Mother and parent.

Its wonderful to take time to celebrate the woman who gave you life, the woman who raised you, the woman who took care of you, the woman who has shown an endless supply of love and compassion.