As a mother of three daughters, now with children of their own, I resonate with your words- both for myself and for them. As hard as it often is to hear the theme running in and through and alongside the dissonance, oh, those sweet moments of resolution when you see what the piece can and surely will someday be. Sometimes the loveliest melodies emerge from the chaos. I love this wonderfully bizarre piece that is our family. And I love your writing. It speaks beautifully.
My three little ones are all grown and building their own families. As I started reading your post, I thought, “Oh, I hope she recognizes the fleeting nature of all that is good in this exhausting season.” And I kept reading and I breathed a sigh of relief because it’s clear that you do. This piece is truly beautiful. Thank you!
This is profoundly beautiful Annelise. You captured so well the simultaneous joy/grief, delight/exhaustion of parenting! It can be so hard when you *know* something is precious and fleeting, but aren't always able to bask in it. Thank you for sharing this.
I don’t feel prepared to leave a comment that will do this post justice (you know the days - husband is out of town, I’m up late doing the things, kids who usually sleep through the night now wake because their bodies are growing and hurt and they need a 2am massage, and the alarm clock doesn’t care), but I couldn’t leave this upwelling in me without attempting to put it into some form of written acknowledgment and thanks.
Just yesterday I was talking with my kids about playing instruments. While my experience was significantly less steeped in music than yours, I was a “band kid” and high school meant marching band, symphonic band, jazz band, and judged quartets. Because of how our school system worked, I was sharing with my kids that a quarter of my high school classes was literally spent in band - and then of course there were all the football games I attended for marching and playing in the stands, weekend trips for competitions, practice, and even Drum Major Academy. Almost all of my friends were in band - it held such a huge piece of my world.
Despite going to college for engineering, I participated in the bands: marching, symphonic, jazz, and even the pit orchestra for musicals (at an ENGINEERING school! It still has me a bit flabbergasted, but I love it!).
I had starry-eyed dreams of playing in a community orchestra after graduation, because I couldn’t imagine not having it in my life, but here I am nearly 20 years later, and while I think I’ve pulled out my instruments a handful of times to make sure they aren’t literally rotting away, I don’t remember the last time I played.
One child asked me, “Why are you crying, Mommy?” as I reminisced about those days of being immersed in a world of music making. It causes something different to well up in you as you sit with a group of others, finally performing something you’ve spent hours rehearsing, and it actually sounds beautiful despite the auspicious start.
Really, your post hit so many tender spots in me that those same tears returned. No, but the same ones - while music making was a beautiful part of my life that I do miss, this craziness of child rearing is a completely different world, and the strings that attach these small beings to my soul are not just extra pieces but perhaps in a way like loose threads from the Creator’s knit of who I am that were pulled, but that pulling, while causing me to be shaped differently, does not leave the fabric of who I am to look damaged but instead more lovely (though there are moments and days when I seem to work hard to prove that untrue). The days when I will look back on this time, these wonderful creatures - my magnum opus, despite them being truly His - will have tears that will far outweigh the ones that welled up yesterday, not necessarily in number, but in significance.
Thank you for again putting into words truths that float around in me, waiting to be recognized.
I've been thinking about this all day since I read it this morning. I think we place a lot of pressure on ourselves to enjoy things "the right way," whatever that means (but we don't need to know what it would mean to still feel bad about it). And sometimes that translates into, "If I loved this, I wouldn't have any mixed feelings about it"-- I don't know. Not sure how to phrase it, but I am becoming more and more convinced that loving our families has more to do with endurance than a perfect track record -- "I was there for it, even when I wasn't enjoying it," rather than, "I enjoyed every moment," because, goodness knows, I'm not going to be able to say the second one.
“we don’t need to know what it would mean to still feel bad about it” - yeppp. I think you’re right. I think maybe it’s not the enjoyment but the presence. The fact that we keep showing up, however imperfectly. Sometimes when I think about all the times I’ve been up nursing a baby in the middle of the night I realize I really don’t regret a single one. I have not enjoyed many of them, but I did my best to do what they needed and I’m proud of that. I keep thinking that I just don’t want to feel like I need to escape my own life all the time. And I want my kids to know that I love being their mom.
This ties in to Annelise’s footnote mentioning falling asleep in concerts; my son’s Suzuki teacher encouraged us to attend as many concerts as possible, but she assured him that they were still valuable even if he slept during them. Maybe the way falling asleep while nursing our babies doesn’t preclude great benefit to both parties.
Scrolling through comments.. this made so so much sense to me. I am here for all of it! It’s my number 1 goal in raising my 6. But I do feel guilty for not always enjoying it. Mixed emotions are ok, thanks for that.
❤❤ - mixed emotions are ok and totally to be expected when raising a family -- we're expecting our fifth (at any moment! Well, not quite. But soon. In a couple weeks, tops), and there is so much "mixed" in the day to day. I am so excited to hold this baby boy. But my body is very tired. Both/and.
What a beautiful essay. I was once a musician, too, so I felt this all deeply as it relates to my days at home with children, writing and organizing and cleaning and BEING. It's all so much, and it's all so good...the high notes and the low notes, too.
Hi Annalise! I came across you here via Tresta Payne’s comment section. This is beautiful -- human and inspiring -- and it makes me so glad to know you are not only mining for gold but crafting it into words. Much love to you and your dear family. ❤️
Ah!! Hello! So nice to “see” you here! I love Tresta’s writing :) Thanks so much for the encouragement. I hope you and yours are all doing well and the new home is treating you well!
Oops! I I just saw that I misspelled your name! Sorry about that! I’m happy to be a new subscriber and look forward to reading through your posts. 😁 We’d love to host your family if you’re ever out this way! Give Andrew a giant hug for me! ❤️
I both hated the years when my body was not my own and now dread the day that my son (now 12 and almost as tall as me) will no longer want to aggressively snuggle with me.
The sheer demand on a mother’s body… yeesh. It’s a whole thing. It catches me off guard every time. I feel like I’m at the peak of being needed with teething and non sleeping and it’s a lot (even just on a physiological level!), but how can you not melt with a smiling, laughing baby?
It’s a really lovely post. I love to connection to music, even though I’m not musical myself. It still resonated. You make me want to be a better writer.
You’re right, Annelise. The task is to stay present with as much love as you have in that moment. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but always with an awareness that this is a small moment in time. I think photos are a window into those extra-ordinary moments. Sometimes they illuminate what we can’t always see with our own eyes at the time. I love that you’re still using your gifts for creative expression (writing & photos) to savor this part of your life. The “music” you’re making is gorgeous.🎻
xo Ann, a former Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool mom with grown children.
Absolutely beautiful. I so appreciate you sharing this. I’m reading this at the end of a long day & finally(?) at the end of bedtime. It tugged on my heartstrings & reminded me why we do this thing called motherhood. It will stay with me for a long while 🧡
Such a beautiful and authentic reflection. I loved this especially: “As mothers our cooperation is required for the music of our children to be brought into existence at all. Our first steps in motherhood are about as tuneful as the squawking notes of a beginning violin. But what we lack in skill, we make up for in love.”
As a mother of three daughters, now with children of their own, I resonate with your words- both for myself and for them. As hard as it often is to hear the theme running in and through and alongside the dissonance, oh, those sweet moments of resolution when you see what the piece can and surely will someday be. Sometimes the loveliest melodies emerge from the chaos. I love this wonderfully bizarre piece that is our family. And I love your writing. It speaks beautifully.
Thanks so much, Vicky! And yes, just trying to keep the main melody in mind - what is the song we’re trying to play?
My three little ones are all grown and building their own families. As I started reading your post, I thought, “Oh, I hope she recognizes the fleeting nature of all that is good in this exhausting season.” And I kept reading and I breathed a sigh of relief because it’s clear that you do. This piece is truly beautiful. Thank you!
Thanks so much, Jana. It’s imperfect for sure, but I’m trying to enjoy every bit of the enjoyable (and know that the crazy bits will pass).
This is profoundly beautiful Annelise. You captured so well the simultaneous joy/grief, delight/exhaustion of parenting! It can be so hard when you *know* something is precious and fleeting, but aren't always able to bask in it. Thank you for sharing this.
Yes, exactly that! It’s such an impossible paradox - the both/and everywhere.
I don’t feel prepared to leave a comment that will do this post justice (you know the days - husband is out of town, I’m up late doing the things, kids who usually sleep through the night now wake because their bodies are growing and hurt and they need a 2am massage, and the alarm clock doesn’t care), but I couldn’t leave this upwelling in me without attempting to put it into some form of written acknowledgment and thanks.
Just yesterday I was talking with my kids about playing instruments. While my experience was significantly less steeped in music than yours, I was a “band kid” and high school meant marching band, symphonic band, jazz band, and judged quartets. Because of how our school system worked, I was sharing with my kids that a quarter of my high school classes was literally spent in band - and then of course there were all the football games I attended for marching and playing in the stands, weekend trips for competitions, practice, and even Drum Major Academy. Almost all of my friends were in band - it held such a huge piece of my world.
Despite going to college for engineering, I participated in the bands: marching, symphonic, jazz, and even the pit orchestra for musicals (at an ENGINEERING school! It still has me a bit flabbergasted, but I love it!).
I had starry-eyed dreams of playing in a community orchestra after graduation, because I couldn’t imagine not having it in my life, but here I am nearly 20 years later, and while I think I’ve pulled out my instruments a handful of times to make sure they aren’t literally rotting away, I don’t remember the last time I played.
One child asked me, “Why are you crying, Mommy?” as I reminisced about those days of being immersed in a world of music making. It causes something different to well up in you as you sit with a group of others, finally performing something you’ve spent hours rehearsing, and it actually sounds beautiful despite the auspicious start.
Really, your post hit so many tender spots in me that those same tears returned. No, but the same ones - while music making was a beautiful part of my life that I do miss, this craziness of child rearing is a completely different world, and the strings that attach these small beings to my soul are not just extra pieces but perhaps in a way like loose threads from the Creator’s knit of who I am that were pulled, but that pulling, while causing me to be shaped differently, does not leave the fabric of who I am to look damaged but instead more lovely (though there are moments and days when I seem to work hard to prove that untrue). The days when I will look back on this time, these wonderful creatures - my magnum opus, despite them being truly His - will have tears that will far outweigh the ones that welled up yesterday, not necessarily in number, but in significance.
Thank you for again putting into words truths that float around in me, waiting to be recognized.
❤️❤️❤️ right in it with you!
❤❤❤
I've been thinking about this all day since I read it this morning. I think we place a lot of pressure on ourselves to enjoy things "the right way," whatever that means (but we don't need to know what it would mean to still feel bad about it). And sometimes that translates into, "If I loved this, I wouldn't have any mixed feelings about it"-- I don't know. Not sure how to phrase it, but I am becoming more and more convinced that loving our families has more to do with endurance than a perfect track record -- "I was there for it, even when I wasn't enjoying it," rather than, "I enjoyed every moment," because, goodness knows, I'm not going to be able to say the second one.
“we don’t need to know what it would mean to still feel bad about it” - yeppp. I think you’re right. I think maybe it’s not the enjoyment but the presence. The fact that we keep showing up, however imperfectly. Sometimes when I think about all the times I’ve been up nursing a baby in the middle of the night I realize I really don’t regret a single one. I have not enjoyed many of them, but I did my best to do what they needed and I’m proud of that. I keep thinking that I just don’t want to feel like I need to escape my own life all the time. And I want my kids to know that I love being their mom.
This ties in to Annelise’s footnote mentioning falling asleep in concerts; my son’s Suzuki teacher encouraged us to attend as many concerts as possible, but she assured him that they were still valuable even if he slept during them. Maybe the way falling asleep while nursing our babies doesn’t preclude great benefit to both parties.
Scrolling through comments.. this made so so much sense to me. I am here for all of it! It’s my number 1 goal in raising my 6. But I do feel guilty for not always enjoying it. Mixed emotions are ok, thanks for that.
❤❤ - mixed emotions are ok and totally to be expected when raising a family -- we're expecting our fifth (at any moment! Well, not quite. But soon. In a couple weeks, tops), and there is so much "mixed" in the day to day. I am so excited to hold this baby boy. But my body is very tired. Both/and.
What a beautiful essay. I was once a musician, too, so I felt this all deeply as it relates to my days at home with children, writing and organizing and cleaning and BEING. It's all so much, and it's all so good...the high notes and the low notes, too.
“The high notes and the low notes” - yes, absolutely!
Oh, the truth in this! How can something be so draining and so life-giving, so beautiful and so hard. But hard does not = bad
Beautiful piece.
Hi Annalise! I came across you here via Tresta Payne’s comment section. This is beautiful -- human and inspiring -- and it makes me so glad to know you are not only mining for gold but crafting it into words. Much love to you and your dear family. ❤️
Ah!! Hello! So nice to “see” you here! I love Tresta’s writing :) Thanks so much for the encouragement. I hope you and yours are all doing well and the new home is treating you well!
Oops! I I just saw that I misspelled your name! Sorry about that! I’m happy to be a new subscriber and look forward to reading through your posts. 😁 We’d love to host your family if you’re ever out this way! Give Andrew a giant hug for me! ❤️
The similarities between playing an instrument and parenting is beautiful 😍
I both hated the years when my body was not my own and now dread the day that my son (now 12 and almost as tall as me) will no longer want to aggressively snuggle with me.
The sheer demand on a mother’s body… yeesh. It’s a whole thing. It catches me off guard every time. I feel like I’m at the peak of being needed with teething and non sleeping and it’s a lot (even just on a physiological level!), but how can you not melt with a smiling, laughing baby?
Truth 😂 But also loving the teen years, truly.
It’s a really lovely post. I love to connection to music, even though I’m not musical myself. It still resonated. You make me want to be a better writer.
The fact that it resonated, even as a non musician, is a lovely compliment! I really hope for people to feel seen as they read the stories here ❤️
“Our Hobbit cloaks are satin”: I love this SO MUCH. I was homeschooled myself so I can relate!
I may have drawn upon some childhood memories of friends for this line 😅😂
I would've gotten along with your friends then! I dressed up as Bilbo Baggins for Halloween one year. I really could've used a satin hobbit cloak :)
You’re right, Annelise. The task is to stay present with as much love as you have in that moment. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but always with an awareness that this is a small moment in time. I think photos are a window into those extra-ordinary moments. Sometimes they illuminate what we can’t always see with our own eyes at the time. I love that you’re still using your gifts for creative expression (writing & photos) to savor this part of your life. The “music” you’re making is gorgeous.🎻
xo Ann, a former Charlotte Mason-inspired homeschool mom with grown children.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Ann! I so appreciate the encouragement. “As much love as you have in that moment” is a good goal.
Absolutely beautiful. I so appreciate you sharing this. I’m reading this at the end of a long day & finally(?) at the end of bedtime. It tugged on my heartstrings & reminded me why we do this thing called motherhood. It will stay with me for a long while 🧡
I hear you on the long days! I’m in it too. I’m glad it encouraged you ❤️
Such a beautiful and authentic reflection. I loved this especially: “As mothers our cooperation is required for the music of our children to be brought into existence at all. Our first steps in motherhood are about as tuneful as the squawking notes of a beginning violin. But what we lack in skill, we make up for in love.”
Thank you, Megan! (And yes, some days I still feel like I’m screeching “fatter than a caterpillar” on the wrong string in my parenting…)