Dearest Kiddos,

I wanted to talk to you both about motherhood. And yes, O, I know that you won’t ever be a mother but I think that you need to understand this as much as your sister so that you can appreciate, not only what a beautiful gift motherhood is, but how you can be appreciative to mothers. You know, in general.

No one, thankfully, has ever asked me to explain how motherhood feels. And that is a good thing. Because there is no way to really describe it. But I’m about to try.

I think there are moments for every mother, when they feel like the world is crumbling. I think that we all, sometimes, feel like there is no possible way that we, as mere women, can make it through one more sleepless night. One more day of constant hysterics (on your parts and/or ours). One more day. Because motherhood, my babies, is hard work. It is the hardest, most beautiful work that can be done. And I don’t take it for granted. You work and you work. And you forget to eat and you can’t sleep because your babies are so small and defenseless and hungry or wet or…you know…whatever. But mommies: We are THERE. We are there at 4 AM, when we have just gone to bed at 3, thinking that if we just fell asleep RIGHT NOW, we would, at least, get to MAYBE sleep until dawn. We are there at 4PM when you should be napping but you are teething and you can’t seem to get comfortable enough to do so. We are just there. And it is HARD. But we love you. We love you because we grew you in our bodies.  And no one else can feel that for you. You just remember that. Because at the risk of being generic and weird, I felt your hearts beat first from INSIDE my body. And THAT, is a miracle. YOU are my miracles.

Tonight, neither of you wanted to go to sleep. You wanted to be held and cuddled and just loved. And sometimes, and I can’t lie here, I find myself irritated at the fact that I have been working to keep you both happy all day and I feel that, once you are both in bed, it is MY time. And sometimes, when you wake up and insist on being held or rocked or fed, it irritates me. Tonight, when you cried, I came to you and I held you, like I do every night. I felt a rush of something come over me. Maybe a rush of everything. Happiness that y0u are my babies. Sadness that someday you won’t be babies and I will not feel the softness of your forehead on my lips as you drift to sleep. You will not grasp my hair with your tiny fingers. I won’t hold you in my lap. You won’t need me to comfort you. You won’t NEED me at all. Because I will raise you to trust in yourselves. Because you should. You should believe in yourselves enough that I am not your everything. But then…I think about how lost I will be when I am no longer just that.

Motherhood is a joyous, heartbreaking thing.

I love you both until my heart overflows. And I struggle, every day, with a mixture of making you the happiest you can be, and dealing with the fact that some day, I will not be the source of that happiness at all.

I hope that you both know how much I love you. I hope that you know that every, single thing that I do is for you. I hope that you know that it will be so for the rest of my days. And I hope that you respect Motherhood. Because it is truly the best gift anyone can be given.

That is all.

To the moon and back,

Mommy