It wasn't until Mo and I were walking down the hallway to her new pre-k classroom after dropping Edie off in her class when the significance of this new season in motherhood hit me. My eyes hadn't even so much as watered until Mo grabbed my hand, looked up at me with her big green eyes and said with the utmost conviction, "You don't worry, Mama. I'll go check on Edie in a little bit and make sure she's having so much fun with the other babies. And I'll hug her if she's crying so don't worry. I'll look after her. Okay?"
Immediately, I had to fight my typically defunct tear ducts to hold it together.
One thing that often weighs me down as I go through the day-to-day task of raising my two girls is the uncertainty of it all.
How will I know that I'm doing it right?
How will I know that I'm doing right by them?
How will I know that I'm not completely fucking them up?
The simple answer is that I won't. At least, not right now and maybe not for another twenty years or so. The far less simple answer is that, as parents, we have such very little control over who our children turn out to be no matter how much we want to believe otherwise. With all of its' uncertainty, parenthood can feel like we're being Punk'd, like we're oblivious participants in a rogue social experiment. While trying to blindly navigate its' manic ebbs and flows, I've come to believe that trying our best is not only good enough, trying our best is simply all that we can do.
Marlo, the golden girl who made me a mama, is becoming such a uniquely special little being. Her emotional intuitiveness and sincere desire to leave people better than she found them never fail to catch me off guard with yesterday morning at drop-off being no exception. While it's far too early to call it a job well done, Marlo is quickly serving as a glimpse of the very real possibility that I'm somewhere on or encroaching near the path to doing something very right.
Raising Mo and watching her blossom into the most radiant little human is my daily reminder that no matter how heavy the weight of this responsibility feels on my shoulders or how many times I'm bound to fuck up, motherhood is by far the most emotionally stimulating and personally gratifying adventure I've ever had the honor of embarking on.