I slid into the bathtub after a very long day of two kids having wisdom teeth extracted. You’re probably thinking: Why would anyone sign up for that kind of insanity? The answer is: I don’t know why, or who took over my body when I said yes to this.
But one thing was clear as 11pm rolled around: Mama filled with an exhaustion I hadn’t felt in quite some time.
As this decadent bucket of steaming hot water, infused with lavender oil, welcomed me, for the first time in EVER, I noticed my feet. And when I say “notice” I am not referring to their Sasquatch size, or my cracked heels, or even that I was in desperate need of a pedicure.
I mean: I recognized this pair of feet that had been Divinely created just for MY trip here, while I was being knit in my mother’s womb.
Immediately, I was transported back to the soccer field on a fall afternoon as a kid...lacing up my cleats, shin guards securely in place on my little 8 year old body, and those feet carrying me swiftly up and down the field, granting me the nickname: Boomer as I pummeled the ball from one side of the field to a teammate on the other. It was a superpower I had forgotten: until I slipped into the tub.
And what about my own daughter’s feet - 10 feet in all! Wondrous feet! As I changed them in and out of feety jammies, I would sing nonsensical songs, “These are the feet, the feet that walk in the street,” proceeding to smooch those feet up and down, while pumping their chubby legs back and forth.
These are the feet that now carry them as young women in the world.
And I think about my own Mom and how she probably sang me some stupid song about my feet, blessing my path before I ever knew that she was doing it. Because that is what motherhood is: a continuous chapter for our children of our loud silly singing, and quiet, unsaid prayers too.
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