Now that I am a grandmother -twice over- I relate to motherhood differently.

When your baby is born you think: I will never love another creature so intensely.  If you are blessed with more children, you learn that the heart grows and expands for there is always room for more love. Then your children give you grandchildren and your heart stretches even more, and never in your wildest dreams did you imagine how much love, in all its iterations, was possible.

With your first baby you learn while running.  Running to get diapers, to get medicine, to get to work, to get to pick-up, and all the time learning to prioritize as you go. Learning while running. Just as you ‘get’ one baby stage another one arrives, and so you learn the new rules of engagement on the go, for truly, no baby book can fully prepare you for parenting.  Later still, with several children in different stages you learn that no two babies are alike.  You do it with passion, and you do it with love, and these really big emotions fuel all that running.

You feel that love carry you through. You do your best hoping they learn from their interactions with you and in watching you interact with the world around them.  It seems that babyhood passes in a flash. One day interactions become more ‘mature’, and some years later they shed their teenage chrysalis and emerge as adults. You look on with pride and love knowing that in doing your best you did great for look at how well they turned out.

Then, they give you the ultimate gift: grand-babies. This time you get to experience the baby stage and the following years in all their beauty minus all that running and prioritizing.  Those of you who have gone through empty nest syndrome know how still and sad it can seem when your babies no longer take up all that space in your daily routine. As a grandparent though, a fresh breeze blows through for this time you get to go through all those stages fully present.  The burp-ups, food messes, and meltdowns are stress free.  There is the added joy of watching your babies find their footing with their babies. Now you run, sure you do, you run to play dates with your grandkids, for is there a better feeling? A more pressing priority?

This Mother’s Day embrace your children for the babies they were, and your grandchildren for the babies they still are.  Then, take a moment (or a day) and savour the palace of memories you are still building out of love.   

From our family to yours Happy Mother’s and Grandmother’s Day to all