A Lifetime of Drying My Baby's Tears

I have spent the past two hours rocking, humming soft lullabies, back rubbing, snot sucking and loving on my baby. Lucy is an excellent sleeper, so when I heard her start to fuss around 1:00 in the morning, unable to soothe herself back to sleep, I knew something was up. I went into her room and she almost immediately burst into tears, so happy to see her mama. 

You see, there are some things only a mama can do. Only a mama can have the patience of Job to wake up in the middle of the night and rock your baby for two hours. 

Only a mama can instinctively know that something is not right with their baby.

Only a mama can find true unadulterated joy in soothing a sick and sad baby.

I thought we were on the mend for miss Lucy girl, but as of tonight, I'm not so sure. Poor babe just could not breath and doesn't understand why. I tried the snot sucker with her, which she took surprisingly well. You know your child isn't feeling well when you're able to get a good snot sucker in her nose. I gave her a baby dose of Benadryl as well to hopefully clear her up a bit. I'm just ready to have my sweet baby back--100%.

But you know what I'm not sad about? I'm not sad about getting the chance to love on my girl, and make her feel better. She doesn't need me as much in the night as she used to. Of course she still needs me, but not like when she was a newborn. She's able to sleep 12-13 hours a night now. No problem. So when I heard my sweet pea was in need of some loving, I was ready for her.

You know what I was thinking about as I was wiping her tears away, rubbing her back, and kissing her head as I rocked her? This is just the beginning of a lifetime of drying her tears. For the past almost 11 months, I've dried tears due to hunger or sleepiness or even pain when she's gotten a good "bonk" on her head. Sometimes a mama's touch is all a baby needs to feel better. Tears, gone.

But I know that later on, she'll be crying a lot more due to pain once she's a toddler. There'll be a lot more head "bonks" in her future and lots of bumps and bruises along the way when she starts walking and testing her physical boundaries. Lucy girl, mama will be there to kiss every boo-boo and wipe away every tear.

A few years down the road, she'll be crying over not getting her way and testing her limits. Even then, I will be there to wipe those tears away and have a little teachable moment about sharing, being sweet, practicing patience, and so on. Teachable moments are a big part of this parenting thing.

Then, when she's a big girl in school, I am certain there will be tears. And these are the tears that will hurt mama the most. The tears that hurt on the inside. These are the tears caused by mean girls. By broken friendships. By ugly comments. By being left out. Oh Lucy. Those tears will unfortunately continue on throughout life, because sometimes friendships are just hard! And girls can be mean! People act ugly and say things that will hurt your feelings. But your mama will be there to tell you that you are perfectly and wonderfully made by our awesome Creator and that He loves you more than you will ever know. And your mama and daddy already love you so much it hurts! I promise to never be a mean girl to you.

And of course, there will be boys. Oh my dear, there will be boys who make you cry. They will hurt your heart and they might even break it. That's when I'll need to hold your daddy back because he'll want to kill them. That's also when I'll tell you what Nana Lana has told me my whole life--"men are pigs". We'll have a good laugh and then you'll probably cry some more. But then you'll meet your husband one fine day. And the only tears he'll give you are the happy tears. The tears of joy and love. Those are the best kind of tears. But until then, I'll be here for you whenever a boy makes you cry. And then I'll beat them :)

There may be tears of insecurity. And tears of not knowing who you are or your purpose in life. There might be tears of loss. Tears of anger and frustration. Tears of heartache and sorrow. Tears of confusion.

Lucy girl, let this be my forever promise to you--that I will be here until the day I die, wiping your tears away, loving on you, and even rocking you if you'll let me.

Allow me to do that for you. Know that if I could take all of your pain and illness and sadness away, I would. And I'd multiply it. That's just what a mama does for her baby. So here's to a lifetime of drying your sweet tears. I'm here for you, baby girl!

I love you, my sweet Lucy. Thank you for allowing me to be your mama.