“You sure have your hands full.”
I was busy keeping my nearly 4 year old from pulling all of the Hot Wheels cars from the display rack next to the checkout and calming my overtired two year old.
“Every day, sir. Every single day.”
I barely glanced up at him, but it was long enough to catch the kindness in his face. I had missed it in his greeting. His gruff voice and deep wrinkles testified of a long life. He had likely had his own hands full at some point in the last 50 years.
I cannot tell you how many people have said that phrase to me. At first, I would sort of chuckle and agree. I would make some comment about how exhausted I was. Or I would make some comment about having two babies just over a year apart was the craziest thing I ever did.
But I noticed quickly that people weren’t exactly prepared for a counseling session as they shopped for toothpaste. So, eventually, I developed my one line response. I figured out fast that people weren’t really concerned with how I felt about having my hands full. They were simple making an observation. No more than if I had walked up to them and said, “You sure have brown shoes on today.”
I started taking the phrase personally, and it started to hurt. It was just another time in the course of my day that someone would look at me and not see me. Another time that someone would see what I do, but not care about how I was doing.
My response became robotic… Much like how I felt.
“Every day. Every single day.”
If only those kind faces had enough time to truly hear me out. If only the folks who felt like they needed to acknowledge that they saw me could have stopped to acknowledge that they really saw me.
We weren’t foolish enough to believe that when we became parents we would have it easy, or that our kids would always behave properly, or that anything would ever actually happen like we planned. We knew that the adventure of parenthood wasn’t for the faint of heart.
But, something I think we were all under prepared for was how much of yourself goes unspoken, unaddressed, or unnoticed after you become a parent.
There were a million things that the man with the strong wrinkles at the checkout counter could have said, but maybe his heart was deeper than his words. Maybe he was trying to say that he did see me. Maybe he looked back in time 50 years and saw his own tired bride.
Maybe he wanted to say to me what he would have said to her.
If only he had stopped and said,
“Hi. I’m sure your day has been nothing like mine. I don’t know if you stay at home with those precious babies all day, or if you put in a full day at an office before coming home to them, but in either case, I’m sure you’re exhausted. I thought someone might need to say hello to you. I know people look at your kids more than they look at you. (Unless your kids are acting up and then they want to know who is responsible for such terrible behavior.) But today, I want you to know that I see you. I want you to know that you’re going to make it, and judging by the few seconds that I have observed, you’re doing a fantastic job. Did you know that? You’re doing a GREAT job.
I cannot offer much advice. I cannot tell you it will get easier or better. You might be wishing for six months from now when your babies are a little bigger. But eventually, six months later will come. As a matter of fact, six months later always comes.
That’s the problem isn’t it?
I imagine it would be quite easy to wish away an entire childhood wishing for six months from now. To wish from one difficult stage to the next until they are all gone. To wish for a moment when it just gets easier.
I know it would be easier not to have to get up in the middle of the night to feed your precious baby.
I know that the spilled goldfish snacks and leaky juice boxes ruin your carpet and furniture.
I know that the endless teething, potty training, carrying tired toddlers back to their bed is exhausting.
I know you wish you wish they could do it themselves…
Tie their shoes
Make their own food
Drive themselves to school.
But something I’ve learned is that maybe it doesn’t get easier. Maybe one of the greatest blessings we can receive in parenthood happens the moment we stop wishing for easy and start dancing in the difficult.
And you, my dear, would be a beautiful dancer.”
The next time someone tells me that I have my hands full, I will try to remember what they should have said, perhaps what they wanted to say… And I will make a choice.
I will continue to dance.
