By Liz Gordon-Hancock
To everything, there is a season. And I'm not talking about the fall, winter, spring, summer... or even the Christmas season, but the seasons that come with motherhood. These seasons are typified by little things, like diapers or high chairs, soccer balls or pom poms.
If you have a teenager, you may be in the season of door-slamming and hormones. If you have a growing boy, you may be in the season of monthly shoe-shopping, as you try to keep up with your son's ever-growing feet.
For me personally, I'm in the season of diapers, sleep deprivation and a dancing chicken toy.
My two-year-old is capable of sleeping through the night; but that doesn't mean he consistently does... hence the sleep deprivation.
My toddler has the typical attention span of a two-and-a-half-year-old and needs constant input. If I want to get anything done, I need to be strategic about his input.
He can entertain himself with the tractor, or the GeoTrax (train set), but when he gets bored of that I need to have the next input lined up and ready. Otherwise, I'll end up having to drop whatever I'm doing to go throw the ball with my toddler for the next 20 minutes.
It's just easier to have something in your back pocket to hold up, like something shiny that attracts a raccoon or a magpie, to catch and hold the attention of my toddler. That's when the dancing chicken toy walked into my life.
Normally, I have a rule about toys that make noise. If it doesn't have an off button, or volume control, then it does not belong in my house. The dancing chicken was a random gift from a stranger, and originally was not viewed as an act of kindness. It has an on/off switch which is very hard to get to; it takes D cell batteries. When you press the button on its hand, it plays the "chicken dance" song and the chicken proceeds to step side-to-side in time to the music and wiggle its body... for the full length of the song.
One redeeming feature is if you push the button on the hand again, it stops/pauses the music.
My son loves this dancing chicken, and when I need a new input so I don't get interrupted from whatever I'm currently doing, I pull out the dancing chicken. By doing so, I've just been granted two more minutes of grace to complete my task, albeit to the tune of the chicken dance.
Said dancing chicken stays positioned in a corner of the kitchen, ready for use, when I need an extra minute of hands-free time. (But when the boss or a friend comes round, the chicken is temporarily hidden. There are some things just not worth explaining.)
But I recognize that this is only a season. Pretty soon, I'll be able to donate the dancing chicken to some other (unsuspecting) mother/child, who has need of a little more input.
My next season of motherhood, fast approaching, is not the holidays, but potty training. By some miracle, my two-and-a-half-year-old exhibits an aptitude for using a potty. I'm one of those mothers who prefers to wait until the child practically potty-trains themselves. I feel like he may be ready, but I am not.
I'm looking forward to no longer buying diapers, but I'm not ready to invest in a whole new routine of constantly checking and asking "Do you want to sit on the potty?" And that's before we consider any accidents.
But all this got me thinking about the many, variable and overlapping seasons of motherhood. Diapers is only a season. Sleep deprivation can't last forever, right? One day, there won't be any need for a high chair. Helping kids with homework is only a season, albeit a little longer one. Having kids living at home is just a season.
It may feel like I'm in the winter season, and there is no sunshine in my day, but summer sun always comes again.
Once I start down that track, I realize those trite, over-used sayings are actually true: "Time flies," and "Enjoy the time you have now."
I may be changing his diaper now, but I'm going to be waving good-bye to him as he drives off to college someday soon.
So, as 2019 is nearly over, I'm reminding myself to enjoy the time I have, in whatever season I find myself in.
Anyone want a dancing chicken?
A mother's musings column appears first and third Wednesday of the month, written by Liz Gordon-Hancock.
Gordon-Hancock, daughter of Bob and Deb Beer, graduated from BHS in 2000. She attended Ohio Northern University, and received her bachelor's in English Literature in 2004. She is a member of County Line Church of the Brethren.
As part of her studies, she spent her junior year in Wales, United Kingdom, at the University of Wales, Lampeter, where she met her future husband, Robert Gordon-Hancock.
After graduation, she married and moved to London, England. She could hear Big Ben chime the top of the hour from their studio apartment. She commuted on a red, double-decker bus, crossing the River Thames, every weekday for work.
But London was not ideal for raising children, so the Gordon-Hancocks bought a house in Witham, Essex, where they had two children (under free, national healthcare).
After 10 years in the UK, the Gordon-Hancocks moved back to Bluffton to raise their kids in small-town America. They now have three children, Alenah (age 7), Isla (age 6) and Elliot (age 2).
