This morning I was awakened by a screaming toddler at 6am. To some of you, that’s about normal, but to this family that is way too early. Jase usually sleeps until at least 8am, so I was not too happy to roll over and see it was only six in the morning. I laid there listening trying to see if he would stop in a couple minutes, maybe he just dropped his pacifier, or was trying to get comfortable again. My husband rolls over and looks at his phone and then gets out of bed. A minute or so later I hear Jase say, “uh-oh” through his cries, so I roll out of bed with my eyes barely open half wondering why my husband didn’t go in and check on him. I turn the corner to discover my husband is in the room and he’s changing Jase’s diaper, I walk in getting ready to ask why he had gotten him up so early, and my husband anticipating my question points to the crib. I look down to see puke all over the place…the sheets, the bumpers, the blankets, the pacifiers, the railings….it…is…everywhere. Not only did my son manage to puke everywhere, he exploded poop out of his diaper everywhere as well. I tell my husband I will run the bath water so we can just stick him in the tub, so he brings the screaming toddler to me and I start wiping him down thinking to myself as I am half asleep still what a wonderful morning we are having. As I finish cleaning up Jase, get him out, lotioned up, dressed, and rock him to calm him down my rock star husband tears the bed apart, gets everything in the wash, and sanitizes everything down. It really was a terrible great start to the morning….before morning was even supposed to happen.

When all that was finally done, and the little man was calm again, I laid him back down to rest his tired eyes and I thought to myself, motherhood sure is messy. This is the part of motherhood you know you are going to have to deal with, the dirty diapers, the puke, the scraped knees, the blood, the day spent in the emergency room, you know it’s coming. You wonder before your child ever breathes their first breath of air exactly how you are going to make it through various aspects of the messy motherhood. You see the posts going around on social media about the poop explosions and the never ending throw up when the flu hits. You see the almost comical posts that go around saying all that only a mom has to deal with or only a mom will understand. But I don’t think you hear enough…I don’t think it’s said enough…and I don’t think you will ever truly understand until you live it that it’s the beauty amidst the messy that kind of makes the messy beautiful.

Sure it’s not pretty to wake up to your child and his entire crib covered in puke, but it is beautiful to rock a still sleepy toddler and let him know that mama is here to make what she can better. Especially when toddlerhood years leave less and less time of rocking a still child. I think it is almost too easy to look at these posts, and these comical things you can find on social media and agree and chant that only moms will ever understand. Only a mother will ever understand how messy this motherhood things gets, only a mother will understand how we don’t get sick days, only a mother will understand what it’s like to wake to poop and puke and it not be her own, only a mother knows just how hard this is. But only a mother has the opportunity to look past the messy and look for the beautiful. It’s seeing that which is beautiful that we can survive through what’s messy. And it’s in all the mess that we can truly appreciate the beautiful.