Life in the Middle
“Hey Mom.”
When I heard those words from the mouth of my 11 year-old son, it took me a minute to answer because I wasn’t sure who my son was talking to. Up until now, my name was mommy. Who is mom? When did this start? With this one word I realized I had been traded to a new team. No longer was I on team mommy who huddled about things like breastfeeding, sleep schedules, and playdates. I had been given a new jersey. This new team, team mom, had bigger things to tackle like virtues and puberty. I joined the ranks of moms that said annoying things to young moms like, “Your gonna miss this when it’s gone,” and “I remember when my kids were that age.” I can’t bring myself to actually say this but I definitely think it every time I pass a young mom in the parking lot pushing a stroller and pulling a toddler along by one hand.
Like pretty much everything that has to do with the middle, being a tweenage mom is awkward. You know things are changing but you don’t know what’s happening. You can’t seem to find any sure footing because the landscape under your feet keeps shifting at a moments notice. I have realized that my 11 year-old son is capable of going from sweetheart to rage monster full of big, dramatic emotions in less than 5.2 seconds.
One minute he is begging you to snuggle with him at bedtime and the next you’re stealing a kiss in the car because he doesn’t want his friends to see. There are times were he is incredibly helpful and others where he flops his prepubescent body on the ground and wails in agony because I have asked him to pick up his socks. Then there is his impulsiveness, the way he kind of “ready, fire, aims” his way through life. Often on the heels of admiring his responsibility, I find myself shouting commands like, “Don’t light that on fire!” or “What made you think it would be a good idea to body slam your baby brother like John Cena?”
In my short time on team mom I am realizing you have to be ready for anything. There is a “both and” feel to this season. He is both my baby and growing into a little man. He is both compassionate and capable of being a punk. He is both confident and insecure. He wants independence and the security of his parents arms. I know this season feels just as weird to him as it does me. It’s the middle. It’s transition. From the ending of what was to the beginning of what will be.
In this season, on this team, I’m not sure there is any game-plan. I’m not sure I am even supposed to find my footing. Rather I think God wants me to find my knees and pray.
I pray I laugh with him more than I yell.
I pray I equip him more than I enable him.
I pray I love him well more than I wound him deep.
Mostly, I pray that God’s grace would fill in the gaps on any of my shortcomings as his mom. Team mom is hard. While it was a tiring season, I miss the simplicity of being on team mommy; small kids small problems, big kids big problems. Am I right?! But I am determined to pray often, embrace the awkward, and remember the words of Birdie Pruit from Hope Floats as she quotes her mother,
“Childhood is what you spend the rest of your life trying to overcome…beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the MIDDLE that counts the most.”