The Bewitching Hour

Hey Mamas, it's that time of day again.

Some of us have been chasing the day to get to right now. Some of us have been so busy having fun that it seems too early to end the day. And some of us just throw our hands up as today is just like every other day at this time...a challenge.

 Some people call it the "witching hour". (When I was single, I called this time "disco nap happy hour". Boy times have changed!) When you are a mama, whether it be to one baby or many, this is the time of day that can go either way, good or bad, very quickly.

Now that my son is not a tiny baby, I try to take this time and turn it into the "bewitching hour". I want this time of dinner, bath, and bedtime to be a precious time. When your kids are very little (mine is 19 months old now), it seems like the day was a marathon and this is right when you exhaustively cross the finish line. The days are long but the years are short. We've got this mamas. It can be a long day as a mom. As a stay at home mom, it's a 12 hour work day that has come to a close. As a working mom, you are just getting home and have a host of jobs still left to do for your little ones. As a single mom, you know there is no one to hand that little one over to for a few minutes, it's all on you. We all wish we had a moment to just BE.

 But I think we can just BE, with our little ones. My son is ON THE MOVE now, all day long. I take this time and turn it in to cuddle time and kisses time, a time filled with twilight and moonlight and magic. It can be very easy to forget that this time is fleeting and that in a few months, in a year, in 5 years, there will be no cuddling with this little one or ones in this way. They will be busy growing up, growing independent, growing away. When it seems like your child is a koala bear, attached to you at ALL TIMES, remember sooner rather than later, they won't want to be held or cuddled or kissed. They are going to want to be a big boy or girl. And that this moment, no matter how today went, is a gift.

It's ok, Mamas, we've got this. We can find a way to just take a moment to savor these wee ones, to find that pause in a hectic day. We can take this "bewitching hour" and let it cast its spell on us. We are all trying to do the best we can, juggling our obligations, tending to our marriage and relationships, and finding the balance in a very off-balance season of our lives. We are ok. Some days we are just managing. Some days we are exceeding expectations. And some days, we just get into bed as fast as we can and hit reset for tomorrow morning. But we are all ok.

Mamas, let's try to pat ourselves on the back and give ourselves some credit. Managing the lives of PEOPLE is not easy. We are the human resource department of our families. We carry the burden of integrating personalities with schedules, plans, events, activities and emotions at play. We have the demands of other people, of jobs, of financial restrictions and of our physical location to consider when planning our days.

Let's try to savor this moment, to either laugh or cry about, to either embrace or run from, to FEEL or to IGNORE without judgement. Let's acknowledge that it's a hard job raising human beings who feel and love and cry and rage. It's our time of day to take the "just" out of "Just a stay at home mom", "Just a working mom", "Just a single mom" when we describe ourselves. It's our time to embrace the "Bewitching Hour" in all its glory and make it our own.

Tonight, Friday night, I am taking the time to touch little fingers and toes, to make my little one giggle so I can giggle too, to honor the mother-child bond and to remember that the moments in the day that are hard are the contrast of how easy it is to just love my child. I've got this... and you do too.