An open letter to Mamas who get told “Enjoy them while they are young they grow up so fast,”

Is it an undisclosed club? 

Who initiated this tag line? 

How does one join?

….The, “Enjoy Them While They are Young,” club? 

As I observe these women they have this faraway glisten in their eyes every time they say the phrase…while sporting a few wrinkle lines.  Some, remnants from their smiles while others give away struggles of the past.  

How do you get in?

…I used to wonder. They are the ladies shopping; unhurried…who stared ever intentionally at me…looking at me and my full cart of groceries and babies, and body of depleted energy.  They looked at me; and yet through me as if they were looking past me… 

As if I were a mirror into a past reflection of themselves.  

Of who they used to be.  

I didn’t see it then but I see it now.  

The club, with that mysterious phrase 

“Enjoy them while they are young they grow up so fast.” 

It was said everywhere…The library…church…the grocery store…the mall..the park…the medical clinic…by my mother’s friends…neighbors…strangers in gas stations…restaurants….on vacation…the logistics and settings had no bounds for the women of this highly secret society to show up in my life and throw out their catch phrase slogan to their elite and mysterious club…

”Enjoy them while they are young they grow up so fast.”  

What is this and what does it mean?
Is it code for something? What are they saying without saying it??
I wish they would just say it because I am sleep deprived, a human kleenex box, my daily dealings consist mostly of snot...

slobber, and poop.  I am trying to eek out enough energy to get to the gym to remove the last few pounds my last “enjoy them while they are young.” left as he made his entrance into the world.  

Could you please help me out here ladies, cuz I am struggling with your sweet little phrase, thoughtful smile, and pleading eyes.  

Yet not a one of them explains..and I continue my diaper days while giving these women ever slipping into my life a reassuring hurried smile as I push my cart…stroller..bike with training wheels on by them…

And daily time slips so quickly through my hands, while “gym” and I rarely if ever seem to get an opportunity to be together.
I am adult human interaction deprived.
I have sung Barney and Veggie Tales one too many times…I speak preschoolinese, toddlerish, and babycoo, proficiently.
To squeeze in a a 10 minute conversation with a close friend is like the Caribbean!

And life rolls through its moments, seasons, without stopping for anyone…

And years later here I am… we are in the middle of my first born’s senior picture shoot.  We are about to finish up and stop to order some hometown BBQ at the local hot spot in town.  I go in and order while said son is out back posing against the vintage brick wall to put the mark of time on his life ending high school days.  

I wait to pay and look across the room…it all collides. 

A newly embarking family with a highchair bound member and a baby carrier packed full of the newest offspring…while the senior booster seat wiggler as the lead attempt to share a meal in the middle of the BBQ hot spot.  I see the hopefully weary trying mama and dada in a furry of attempting to get proper nutrition down their little shared DNA tribe, while juggling the art of teaching manners while at the same time modeling their “inside voices.”  They give each other a quick glance that says help along with a quick ache of remember when it was just you and me and bbq and a beer? And jump right back into the thick of it, with middle high chair bound getting antsy, and the food only half eaten, while whimpers begin to protrude out of highchairs sweet little lips.  

And then a member of the club enters the scene.  

You know not in a hurry, looking past you as a mirror into her own self, mysterious; yet friendly “Enjoy them while they are young,” representers. 

And she says it…that darn phrase…

”Enjoy them while they are young they grow up so fast"…

And in that moment I get it! 

My ducts well up with tears as I am asked to take my sacks of BBQ. I want to get the attention of the entire room ..because my once highchair bound is out back around the corner having his senior pictures taken, I used to pick him up and now he picks me up, I get it and I realize I am about to begin the initiation process to join the organization.  

But do they know what a rowdy member I will be? 

I will blow their cover, the flawless tagline and blast it up with the authenticity of the passions that lie within my soul and leave it bleeding on the ground in a pile of here is what it means ladies…young poop wiping, snot picking, slobber dabber mommies.. 

I CRACKED THE CODE!!!

You can’t see it when your knee deep in diapers, and Dr, Suess books.  It is so invisible when your consistently living on 6 hours of sleep and days filled with, “why mommy,” questions. Oh sure, it may eek out here and there when you take one tip toe ordained moment back into your littles room and your heart fills up to burst with love mode as you watch them sleep, when they have been away from you for a time and come running from across the room because you are the safe place in their world…it may spark a knowing when the first day of kindergarten comes and your throat swells along with your eyes behind those, thank God, big rimmed sunglasses as your lined up with all the other braving it out mommies, sure when its the middle of the night and you are rocking roasting little bodies filled with fever it presents it self in the moment… yet the full knowing is foggy, vague, and you are daily surviving as a tall queen while your tiny little kingdom citizens dance and prance exhausting circles around you growing in each second unseen.

You can’t see it as you manage to sort through grown out of clothing and shop for the proper fitting attire, school registrations, soccer registrations, piano lessons, memorizing AWANA verses, bedtime prayers, nightmare scares, well-baby check ups, month and year marker photo shoots, pumping, nursing, bottle-feeding, taking out the trash, figuring up the cash, meal planning, shopping, and prepping, lessons on manners and strangers and all of life dangers, kissing pinched fingers and icing stubbed toes, administering yet another time out, and laughing hysterically with your face turned as peas are shot of of your littles mouth and all over the kitchen floor, its isn’t visible then when your helping to phonetically sound out letters and assisting forming the said letter on paper, talking about colors and numbers and teaching feelings and answering all of the 100’s of why questions that curiosity brings forward everyday in your little growing home.  

It’s not in view when you are swaddling, and strolling, and buckling up, and learning to sit still. It’s the unseen presence in the room when giving the lesson of proper instructions to inside voices and why it is important to use it and doing your darn best to model it and failing miserably yourself and then having the lesson taught back to you with a preschool presenter.  You don’t understand as you weekly attend story time and sit with your toddler in chairs that can only house one butt cheek, explain away how the dentist office isn’t scary and prove yourself right to the ones who are in full dependance of you when they get to open the treasure chest before they leave the dental chair.  You can’t possibly grasp what this well meaning club means when you are in the surgical waiting room while your precious offspring is in for yet another set of tubes in the ears.  As you deal with sore throats, vomit, diarrhea, and chicken pox.

It is hidden while you wash the grass stains off of football uniforms, help tear down the pillow and blanket fort in the living room so guests can get in, when your social life moves to bleacher but agendas and magazine reading at orthodontists offices, when your calendar fills up with band concerts, and chorus concerts and parent teacher conferences.  

Sure you love them big and bold and there is a lot of laughter, and dancing, and twirling that you are glad no one but you and them will ever see.  Cheers and high fives and clapping when first steps, no cavities, toys get picked up, and the letters make sense sounded out, and they didn’t choose to hit their brother as was so often chose before, when they stay in their bed all the way through the night, and sleep…all the way through the night, and don't stay out all the way through the night...and help set the table and feed the dog even though most of the food landed outside of the bowl.

You love this weary, exhausted, non-human feeling-much-of-the-time-life; and as imperfect as it is…

It is yours, and they are yours and you do it day in and day out until through the years it almost becomes second nature this mothering task.  

Automatic. 

Not that you ever gain pro status, because just when you feel pro, the littles grow out of that stage and into the next unknown territory of childhood…adolescence and you begin your weary self again to jump all in and muddle through together with them as best as you know how, and you would think that if you did it for one the up and comings would be a breeze… They are not because times have changed and personalities are different and  you have lived and learned and then a new situation presents itself and you are pioneering this wearing amazing mama job once again.

But life stops for nothing and no one…through every stage and every season the clock ticks unaware, you watch the calendar flip, the fresh paint becomes old outdated paint, the new furniture becomes old stained furniture…and soon you have a senior son with a photographer snapping pictures of him while you watch the mama in the BBQ hot spot and your world spins.  Because you were that mama and you didn’t know then what you know now, what that elite members only club motto means….

ENJOY THEM WHILE THEY ARE YOUNG THEY GROW UP SO FAST.

I’m giving it away as best as I know how.  It means that whole time as your slobber stained and sleep deprived, and dancing with the toddling legs, and rocking the heated torsos, and sore from bleacher butt…the whole time you are slightly letting go…teaching and training them to leave, to not need you, to be able to create their own home, and move to their own space, where they may join with that one person who will share cells and the Divine will ordain another moment to breathe in and create life, and do this hard messy love dance, filled with exhaustion and snot and smiles, and inside jokes, and snuggling on the couch falling asleep to the one adult movie you hoped to watch, you are training them so they can hear the club phrase from random strangers as the life which is a part of them now walks outside of them too.  

So mamas of littles.. I may get kicked out of the club… I’ve counted the cost and I am OK with that… I just want you to have in your foggy headed state a little understanding that your time here with their little moldable hearts is a fleeting moment.

You are living in the simple times that may seem not so simple right now and they are rushing by, whirlwind mode...Don't blink...Stare....Sit...Savor....Stay...Be awake...Watch...Don't miss this....

Oh and mama, what you say matters, what you do matters, especially when it’s hard to say, and you don’t want to say it or do it…

After the Creator himself and the opportunity of salvation their is no greater force in life than family and the power that it has or the power that it removes from a life.  

So mama, all of your unnoticed moments that are not shared over Facebook...

Conversations that are not Twitter savvy 

Moments that are not picturesque Instagram photo worthy; matter...

Every second that no one would ever pin on Pinterest...

Or brag about in the yearly Christmas letter matters...

The moments count and they are going quickly…

so put down your phone, delete your twitter app, leave the house a mess, because you are teaching them to take flight,

and when they do…

you would give anything somedays when that house becomes clean and quiet to have the chaos and the mess return in all of its furry… you would sit on the floor a little longer and read the extra bed time story and answer patiently the 97th why question without saying...

“Because I said so.”

In this open letter mamas, I am a fellow mama, a pre-empty nester who now is getting a view because to all of my of my littles… 

I am now little to them and some are in other states pursing their dreams or courting their love and my back yard is filled with a pile of snow that will not be a fort…not this winter…My winters no longer consist of 20 minute bundle up sessions for three little bodies to play outside for 10 minutes and strip the wet clothes into piles to be dried only to start the process all over again after lunch and again after naps.

As my heart is proud of the grown men now before me, 

I still would do anything to go back to simple long summer days of poolside where it was…

“Mama watch me jump!”

“Mama did you see that?”

"Mama see who can swim across faster…”

“Mama go down the slide with us, PLEASE!”

…just one more time…

because it echoes...
memories of those little voices in my quiet house…

and I recall with sweet tears and see now how
eternal… 

priceless… 

precious...
that messy exhausting chaos was, the privilege to be a mama. 

To birth the lives that would forever change mine…

The lives that would expand my heart to a place of borderless adoring no mater how ugly life might get between us…

I want you young mamas to know that what you are doing RIGHT NOW matters.  It matters more than you can ever dream.  You are investing in the bank of your children’s live; the future generation… you are planting and sowing whatever it is you are doing in this moment and it will grow…there will be weeds and pruning and lots of dry seasons…and parched as you will be the the rains will come again. You will make mistakes and you will miss moments and it will be there that your little will learn forgiveness and the need to need Jesus the perfect parent.

And then you too will find your place; your day, when you get a call that your little that once shared life inside of yours will find a love of his own and the biggest letting go will become your most bitter sweet season. 

Because it just happened and here I am selfishly wanting to gather up all those moments and resources and seasons and state my case to him and say…” Look what we have here; me and you, you know,”… and then I see that sparkle in his eye; that crazy reckless abandonment in his actions to love, I here it clearly in his voice, and he is choosing to risk; to be vulnerable and love…

Because its’ been hard and risk has shown loss and that little boy has weathered some storms and watched me weather some of my own that loving brings. And it is there that you tell him the timeless phrase that becomes true for you both… that, “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” (C.S.Lewis)…and he pursues her and it is love…and soon there is a picture of that boy’s hand, who's tiny fingers used to wrap around yours; now large and strong and with a small hand wrapped around his… with a ring on it. 

And this then becomes your finest moment....Bittersweet excitement…Colliding pride and grief….swirled smiles and tears….anticipation and remembrance…

Mamas know it happens in a fleeting minute, your baby girls to ladies, your sons to men…and soon, you too… will be the newest pinned member of the club scanning the Target isles, and stopping your cart as you watch her… the 20 something reflection of yourself and you will walk up to her with meaningful joy and sadness and say... 

“Enjoy them while they are young they grow up so fast.”

Be Ever Present,

The 40 Something Kicked out of the Club Mama