Hey there! I’m Mikala—a family doctor, wife, mother of 5, well-being advocate, and author of the books Ordinary on Purpose and Everything I Wish I Could Tell You About Midlife. Each month my writing reaches millions of women, but I am thrilled to be connecting with YOU. I’m truly grateful to have you here!
All tagged #mylifeasmom
If you are the mother of a teenage boy, you need to hear this one.
She carries her children’s joy and sorrow. She carries their goodness and pain. And every night she casts ALL the things she’s carrying off to Jesus as she prays over her children’s souls.
It turns out, no one’s talking about the hardest stuff. The REAL stuff.
Motherhood is exhausting and scary and filled to the brim with beautiful, heart-stopping, tear-jerking, breathtaking moments. And you get to feel every single emotion!
I’m realizing now as my kids grow up into the unique people they are meant to be, they also grow a little bit AWAY from me. I’m not their center but orbiting somewhere in the periphery. And that’s okay. That’s where I’m SUPPOSED to be. Motherhood isn’t the only thing about me!
This is my third time watching a boy of mine slip into the whipping, swirling vortex of adolescence. And I know. I know they return—taller, leaner, deep-voiced, even more hilarious and fun, wiser, witty, a little more grown, and still absolutely amazing. But the letting go is hard.
No one told me just how amazing it is to watch this little person you met at his very first breath GROW UP—even way up over your own head—and I want you to know. Raising teens is hard, but it is so good, too! I promise.
None of it feels shiny! And it certainly isn’t perfect, but it IS beautiful. Life happens in the ordinary after all!
You should get up early every morning to pray and read and do morning yoga and somehow be thinner, prettier, healthier, younger, and more self-confident while volunteering, working outside your perfectly organized home, and putting your marriage first all while spending more one-on-one time with each child…whew. “The Shoulds” have got to go!
It’s sobering to know that before IV antibiotics were widely available, my daughter’s particular diagnosis had a blindness rate of 20% and with certain complications, a mortality rate >40%.
If you feel like you are failing your child, I have a story for you.
And showing up to this mess and noise through exhaustion (and sometimes tears) is part of raising a beautiful family!!
Your kids need a mom who laughs and cries and yells and dances and forgives and prays and hugs and loves. And LIVES!!
He’s practically grown. And yet, he’s the same boy I’ve always known.
This is the beautiful, bittersweet ache of motherhood—every day we hold on and we let go. And our hearts simply grow.
That’s what I’m supposed to say, but it’s not what I’m thinking as you begin kindergarten.
Keeping track of the ordinary little details of this family is the greatest privilege of my life. And if the tiny details of childhood matter to them, then they matter so much to me because that’s how they feel secure and loved.
