Frriiyeep! I peered over the sloshing bowl of Cheerios at my son. The look on his face was unlike any I‘d seen before – a blend of extreme delight, pride, enormous respect, and shocked disbelief. Had his body emitted this glorious, odiferous, combination of disgusting sounds? The planets (and his internal workings) had aligned themselves so as to simultaneously and energetically burp and break wind in divine happenstance. It was quite simply his greatest accomplishment ever and he was savouring the moment. Far be it from me to destroy this reverie with my usual groans of “That’s disgusting!” and “Reeeally! Must you?!” His elder brother gazed in admiration. In the end, we both acknowledged his day has started in a most magnificent way.

Later, I escorted my son to his classroom and, after acknowledging zesty greetings from the knee-high set and their probing questions like, “was I an airline pilot ‘’cuz you’d look good in one of those hats!’”, I precariously perched on a Lilliputian chair and settled in to a voluntary task: cut 22 face masks as well as assorted pages of accessories (in 22’s) for post P.E. craft time. The children rambunctiously rambled gymward and I set to work.

I snip, snip, snipped. One page down. After only two pages, my fingers ached and were cramped from being forced into tiny tyke-friendly safety scissors. Other mommies do this regularly and profess to enjoy the experience. I was beginning to seethe as I noted the minutes marching swiftly by. After a few more minutes, and seriously low yield, I moved on to panic. I wasn’t going to finish this measly task! Those rosy-cheeked little faces were all going to be looking to me for craft-time and I had reams to go.

As my own face was beginning to flush and the perspiration was misting, another mom arrived. She sat down to help. I explained the mission. She began to work. And I stopped. And… I stared. She had instinctively stacked several pages together and was carefully cutting out masks in plural. In mere moments she had quintupled my entire output. I was in complete awe.

Do you think back to how you imagined motherhood before you actually were a mother? I seem to recall it was all about sweet milky baby breath and tiny fingers and happily chortling children making pretty crafts. In reality, these little creatures often stink, they have been known to relish showing off weird warts on grimy fingers at the most inopportune times, they brawl with jungle-worthy ferocity and craft times I’ve witnessed usually involve clean-up intimidating to even the most experienced HazMat team. But love motherhood, and them, I do.

With all the sermonising one does as a Mother, it is surprisingly often that I feel I am in fact the one doing the learning - that there is a greater plan at work and it isn’t necessarily my small boys who are being groomed into more evolved beings. It’s me.