Being a mother is hard. I cannot believe I’m saying this but next Monday marks thirteen years of being a mother…. how is that possible?

I have been sure on more occasions than not that I have hit my breaking point…. but here I am… still going at it.

Fast forward to today, I now have four kiddos… an almost thirteen year old, a five year old, a three year old, and a six month old baby. I’m basically in all the stages of childhood all at once. It is wonderful and magical, and exhausting and frustrating all at the same time. I get my middle schooler out the door just in time to start the routine all over again with my kindergartner. After lunch is it time to rest? Nope I get my preschooler out the door, then go home to read a book… just kidding that is when my baby sleeps and while I could in theory do whatever I want it is time to tackle some stuff.  Then we start the afternoon of coming and going. Some days I feel like I’ve lived an entire week before dinner time. I look tired all the time… why? Because I am.

In my thirteen years of motherhood I have learned one very important lesson. No matter how close I feel like I am to breaking I will stretch and grow. Just think about how our journey into motherhood starts. If you carried your child your body stretched and grew to accommodate your baby.  You didn’t break, even though it often felt like you were going to.  If you adopted your child your heart stretched and grew to love this child you just met. We survive sleepless nights, toddler tantrums, far less than optimal nutrition. Is any of it good for our physical or mental health? No probably not. I could go on for hours about all the ways we could better support mothers because physical and mental health problems can be devastating to a mothers but that is a post for another day.

Somehow we adapt, somehow we grow. Give yourself some grace Mommas when you reach that point you feel like you are going to break. Step back, take a deep breath, and remember you’ve got this. I will not tell you that it ever gets any easier, there are ups and downs in every phase. People will try to be encouraging and say things like enjoy it while it lasts, and you will miss this… and while these statements are true I know that they do little to throw you a life preserver while you feel like you are drowning, in fact sometimes they feel more like throwing salt in the wound. Personally I’ve had these things said to me and I feel even more guilty that I’m not always enjoying every moment of it, sometimes I’m just trying to make it through the day.

But… each day my capacity grows, I am able to handle just a little more. At one point in my life I was intimated by taking out a seven year old and a newborn at the same time, and just a few weeks ago I took all four of my kids to the home improvement store by myself and didn’t think very much of it.

I can do hard things, and so can you.