Born second and third, these guys are our just right. They are the middles, the lovers, the fighters, the in-betweens.
They couldn’t get lost in the bunch, these two…which is great because that insistence quells my greatest fear as a mother.
I’ve always been afraid that the guys in between would drown in the crowd.
Four boys is a lot of noise, and my house has wood floors. The laughs bounce around the walls with more happiness than the cries, but not with any extra favor. Those cries, they echo, too. The cries to be heard, the cries to be held, the cries to have space.
And I’ll hold space for these boys, these boys who are my in-between. Never old enough to have all the eyes, nor young enough to have the privilege. These in-betweens are the guts of my mothering, where my ideals blend into reality. These in-between boys make me eat the words of the goals and the “never will I’s” I had when I was fresher at this whole thing.
The middle boys wring me out and test my patience, but I’ll hold space for my in-betweens.
I wrote this with the prompt “in between” for Lisa Jo’s Five Minute Friday link-up. It’s not something I do regularly, but Lisa Jo has gathered a really lovely little community of writers who can turn an incredible word in 5 minutes.
Also, did you catch my post this week about what I’d tell a new mom of a couple tiny kids? I hope you read it and hear the encouragement in my voice. A few friends spoke this truth to me 4 years ago, and now I want to speak it to YOU.