Medicating My Way Through Motherhood

I wonder how much ibuprofen a mother takes in her lifetime as a result of being a parent?  Today, while I was shopping at my friendly local Target, I was able to partake in one of my favorite pastimes, people watching.  Being that I was at Target, the comment worthy Walmart people were absent, but I did notice two mothers of toddlers talking.  They were clearly catching up after a prolonged absence in each others lives.  They were both quite animated shaking their heads and gesturing.  Both were fighting to share how hard and challenging things had become now that they were mothers.  It brought me back to that season of my life. The dreaded infant and toddler years.  These seem like dark years when you are in them, years full of sleeplessness, repetitive mundane tasks, the absence of reason & little to no makeup.  However, they are only the beginning.

The early years definitely have their trials and for some they are even noteworthy.  I personally have an entire journal full of brutal details that even now make me shudder just thinking of them.  But, the problem with the early years, is that they are just that.  You see there are many, many more years to come.  I now find myself in what is referred to, at least by me, as the middle years.  These years bring a different reason for pain medication.  They are the beginning of the heartbreak and worry stage.  Nothing can prepare a mom for the first time she sees or finds out her child has been rejected by their peers or when the healthy baby she once held so tightly in her arms is now a boy in the hospital unable to breathe on his own.  The body can't help but react in such a manner that a pain reliever washed down with a glass of wine is the only cure.  Now having once been a part of the early years that changed and moved on, I am very much aware that the late years are coming and will no doubt arrive with great force.

I can't write about the late years with any real insight, I haven't quite arrived yet.  I have witnessed and heard the cries of mothers as they express the hurt and pain they feel over the helplessness that has moved into their lives if not permanently, then at least with a long term lease.  I don't know, but am pretty sure if you were to do a study it would show that mothers of teens make up a huge chunk of recipients for prescription mood altering drugs.  Or, at the very least make up most of the numbers at drunken bunko nights.

Being a parent never ends. Once the late years have been brushed under the rug with a little therapy, the later years start.  These are the sideline years, where the problems get bigger and more profound, but you are no longer an active player in the game.  You just get to sit back and pray that they have been equipped with what they need to survive this thing called life.  This takes me back to those two moms at the Target, and what I want to say to them and myself is, "Don't make a big deal out of the small things, because soon enough there will be big things and you don't need your stomach messed up from previous ibuprofen overdosing."