the harrowingly beautiful journey of motherhood

I had to snap this picture of my sister Charity the other night when we were walking through that fall wonderland up in Utah, twins in tow, her older boys running wild throwing the biggest rocks they could off of the side of the road in jubilant excitement:

Because to me it was such a beautiful depiction of motherhood.

I know, she probably wasn’t thinking it was quite so beautiful at the time (although maybe in a way she kind of was, she is rocking this motherhood thing I have to say).

But as we wrangled kids and tried to get some words in between the little kids needs (and all of our leaf exuberance), I couldn’t help but think about how my stage of motherhood feels the same sometimes, it’s just a bigger, less adorable version.

Ha! Ok, sometimes it’s still adorable.

I mean, look at this sweetness:

Oh man I love them all.

But having bigger kids is just a whole new terrain.

A blog reader a while back asked me to share some of the tricky parenting issues we’re going through around here with older kids.

(Because I sometimes make mention here and there on this blog that the struggle is real.) Do you sometimes feel like just when you quit worrying about one kid, another one has some sort of big burdens to share? Maybe I’m just a worrier and I carry things deep, often well after my kids have moved on.

But here’s the deal: it’s easy to share stuff like this when kids are little:

Not so easy when they are grown up.

But you still worry, and you still love (even more!).

And sometimes, although I can’t share as much now in this stage, I just want readers to know that life isn’t all butterflies and rainbows over here.

My mom always says when kids grow up the problems just get bigger and more expensive. Which I have learned is quite true.

Sometimes life is like this:

And other times it’s more like this:

And that’s ok.

Because we are learning so much around every curve.

I guess I’m just here to say, motherhood keeps fascinating me at every turn, even as the sun sets on childhood.

So, dear young mothers reading this post, I’m here to tell you the terrain will keep changing. And yes, the my wise mother is correct, the problems get bigger and more expensive as kids grow.

But the love grows its tentacles deeper and more entrenched than ever. Because you are a family, whatever shape or size or variation you may uniquely be. And there is some pretty amazing work that goes on in families, everyone so different. It’s continual progress, even if the “progress” is sometimes messy and sometimes includes going backwards for a while.

Motherhood: the grandest of adventures. So grateful for the ride.