16 Jun Just You Wait
While looking for a new mop at Target, I stood near a pregnant woman who was carefully examining the selection of dish scrubbing brushes. Another woman turned her cart into the aisle. Her two small children sat side by side in the front of the cart, singing and pointing to colorful items lining the shelves. Just then, the small hand of the toddler reached out and pulled a mop off the hook, bringing a clearance sign down with it and sending the hook clattering on the floor. The toddler laughed in delight. The mom looked tired and rubbed her forehead. As she reached down to pick up the sign, she glanced at the pregnant woman. She shook her head and said, “Just you wait…”
I recognized these words of caution. I heard them so many times myself before the girls were born. People love to offer unsolicited warnings to mothers-to-be. “Just you wait…” they begin.
Until you forget what a full night’s sleep felt like.
Until you rarely get any alone time.
Until your child screams about taking a nap.
Until your little one asks for cheese and then screams because it’s the wrong color.
Until your once-clean car is full of graham cracker crumbs and stale Goldfish crackers.
Until you are the one picking up mops and signs and hooks from the floor of Target.
It’s hard to be a parent. Like so many things, there are ups and downs. But here’s what I wish I would have said to the mom-to-be picking out the dish scrubber.
“Just you wait…”
Until you see them smile a gummy grin for the first time.
Until you hear their small voice say “I love you” back.
Until they snuggle up to you in the middle of the night.
Until their little hand wraps around your finger and squeezes it tight.
Until you hear them giggling when you read a story together.
Until you watch them sleep and think you can’t love anyone more.
Just you wait. Because there absolutely will be the time they knock the mop and the sign and the hook off the wall at Target and you pick it up with a sigh. And then you will go home and feed them first the wrong-colored cheese and then the right-colored cheese and read them the book that makes them giggle extra hard. And then your little one will snuggle up to you and you will hear their sleepy little voice say, “I love you.” And you will watch them sleep. And as you look into your child’s face, you will smile and think about how much you love the wonderful chaos of it all.
“I can’t wait for you to experience all that,” I would tell the woman as she chooses the green scrub brush and gently rubs her belly.
Just you wait.