Dear Mother Read online

  The magic of motherhood is how it manages to drain and fill you at once and always when you need it the most.

  In her first collection of poetry, Bunmi Laditan captures the honesty, rawness, sheer joy and total chaos of motherhood. With the compassion and wit that made her a social media sensation among mothers around the world, Laditan puts into evocative and relatable words what so many of us feel but can’t quite express. For mothers who love their children with a fiery fierceness but know what it is to feel crushed at the end of those long days, Dear Mother is like a warm hug that says, “I get it.”

  Bunmi Laditan is an award-winning, Webby-nominated writer from California who lives in Quebec, Canada, with her family. She’s contributed to the New York Times, Parenting magazine and the Huffington Post, and is best known for the satirical Twitter account The Honest Toddler, as well as her bestselling books Toddlers Are A**holes: It’s Not Your Fault and Confessions of a Domestic Failure, which immediately became must-reads for her thousands of fans and moms everywhere. Dear Mother is her first collection of poetry.

  www.BunmiLaditan.com

  DEAR

  MTHER

  Poems on the Hot Mess of Motherhood

  Bunmi Laditan

  to the One who loves me

  and knows me by name

  Contents

  Love

  Where Can You Find My Heart?

  The Audacity of a Child’s Demands for Love

  What Kind of Magic Enchants

  Most Days I Wake Up Tired

  Motherhood Has Taught Me

  When I Squeeze You

  What Does It Mean to Be a Mother?

  As You Grow into the Person You Were Meant to Be

  On Days I Don’t Feel Loved

  To Embrace My Child

  How Can It Be

  To Me There is Nothing More Beautiful

  I Know I May Forget This Day

  Motherhood Opened Up the Floodgates

  For Mother’s Day

  When I Tell a Man

  I Weave My Love Around You, Child

  An Angel Told Me That Love

  You Were Not Born of My Body

  Children Don’t Just Grow Up

  I Want You to Grow

  Laughter

  The Toddler

  Motherhood Requires More Sacrifice Than I Realized

  If Muffin Tops

  Dear Mother

  What You Lose in Sleep

  Showers Are Both

  They Say You Should Do One Thing

  Gift Ideas for Her

  What a Pity

  I’ve Never Scaled Everest

  You Don’t Know Frustration

  Dear Mother

  At Some Point

  If You Can Say

  Is It Even Dinner

  To Make a Two-Year-Old

  If My Laundry is Not Alive

  Dear Mother

  I’ve Done the Math

  Only Parents and Medical Professionals

  Dear Mother

  Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

  It’s My Opinion

  Dear Mother

  A Four-Year-Old is a Cross Between

  Modern Parents Don’t Ask Babysitters for References

  Dear Mother Waking Up Before the Sun Again

  Tears

  On the Nights That Are Too Much

  There’s No Such Thing As Strong Women

  It’s Always the Innocent Mothers

  It Feels Good to Cry Sometimes

  The Most Exhausting Part Of Being a Mom

  Dear Mother

  There’s No One

  Oh Mother

  Motherhood is a Madness I Only Wish to Sink Deeper Into

  Your Home is Enough

  Your Worth as a Mother

  Nothing’s Wrong, It’s Just Hard

  If You Can’t Figure Out

  I Never Realize How Tired I Am

  I Want to Say Sweet Things at Night

  Lie Down and Wait for Me

  I Don’t Hate You

  Dear Mother

  Sometimes We Give from the Heart

  The Hardest Task as a Mother

  Dear Mother

  These Days, I Prefer to Be Alone

  I Live with My Back Against a Bulging Door

  Dear Mother

  Depression Isn’t Sadness

  In Real Wars

  Anxiety Isn’t About Being Shy

  Dear Mother

  In a Mother’s Love

  Mothers with Invisible Children

  Dear Mother

  You Were Supposed to Be Born Today

  I Don’t Know When You Died

  When Night is at Its Darkest

  You’re Still My Child, Angel

  On Those Long

  Dear Mother

  Madness

  The Paradox of Motherhood

  When I’m with Them

  Nobody Tells You

  I Wish I Was Your Grandmother

  There Are Two Mothers Inside of Me

  It’s Tempting to Hold Each Moment

  As Exhausted as I Am

  It’s Tiresome Feigning

  Some Days I Feel Like the Poison

  I Can Get So Lost

  Motherhood is the Only Time

  Camera Roll

  Sometimes I Don’t Know If I’m Going to Survive

  He Said “Mommy”

  The Magic of Motherhood

  Dear Mother

  Raising

  Some Days I Can’t Believe

  Motherhood Has a Way of Taking All of Your

  Dear Mother

  The Triumph of Motherhood Cannot Be Found

  What I’m Most Afraid Of

  Every Day I Have the Choice

  We Don’t Have Children

  When the Nurse Yelled “Push”

  People Seem Ordinary

  Dear Mother

  Children Weren’t Designed to Be

  I Pray They Don’t Notice

  We Can Talk to Our Children About Love

  The Difference Between

  Whatever Soul Pains

  You Have My Eyes

  Every Once and Again

  I’ve Learned That the Best Parents

  Dear Mother

  If My Children Grow Up to Be

  Everyone Tells You About

  I Want My Children To

  I Know Enough About

  I Didn’t Pray Much Before Having Children

  It’s Taken Many Years

  My Wish for You

  The World Doesn’t Deserve You, Child

  Dear Mother

  I Didn’t Realize How Dangerous It Is

  Over My Dead Body

  I Believe These Boys

  “You Can Get It Yourself”

  That Moment When Your Child

  The Stillness of a House

  Will They Remember All the Yelling?

  Apology

  In These Days

  On the Bed of My Imminent Passing

  If I Could Give You

  Dear Mother

  Some Days I Wish Your Heart

  Rising

  Who is Going to Raise Me

  Motherhood Transforms You

  If I’d Known How Lonely

  What If the Children We Have Are No Accident_

  I Hope I Look

  M
y Motto Began as "Breast is Best"

  My Biggest Fear

  Motherhood Doesn’t Push You

  Dear Mother

  Motherhood Exposes

  They Say You’ve Made It When the Bills All Get Paid

  One Day You Wake Up

  I Liked You on Our First Date

  There is Nothing That Melts the Heart

  The Best Part Of

  Love in the Time of Children

  Don’t Say You Love Me

  Dear Mother

  She is a Single Mother Married

  Dear Mother

  If You’re Tired of Me

  If I Promise to Blame Myself

  Dear Mother

  As Much as I Want Him

  Dear Mother

  Women Don’t Marry for a Partner

  I Don’t Want to Hear About

  My Secret Desire is For

  Dear Mother

  I’m Not Broken

  From Time to Time

  The Unspoken Work of Motherhood

  On the Day They Handed Out Brains in Heaven

  Of All the Things I Pass Down to My Children

  Dear Mother

  I Wish I Could Love

  Be Careful How You Speak About Yourself

  What a Shame It Would Be

  When I Was Younger

  If Babies Ruin Bodies

  Love Tore Through My Body

  I Don’t Like Being a Mother

  Think of Yourself as a Garden

  If Motherhood Has Taught Me Anything

  Labor Never Ends

  Dear Mother

  LOVE

  Where can you find my heart?

  It is no longer locked away

  afraid of the cold world.

  You won’t find it racing to

  keep up with what strangers want me to be.

  Nor is it attached to my sleeve

  ready to be broken by

  a harsh word or glance.

  My heart can be found

  hidden

  in the small, plump hand

  of this child I call mine

  who cares not what I look like

  or have achieved

  but wants only

  to rest in my arms

  until dawn breaks.

  The audacity of a child’s

  demands for love

  are only matched

  by the ridiculous depths

  of the love their parents

  have for them

  What kind of magic enchants

  the well of motherhood?

  Mere hours after my ragged

  bucket scraped the last

  drops of mercy from the

  echoey depths

  I find myself

  once again

  at my child’s bedside

  hypnotized by a face

  so breathtakingly serene

  And as I slide my hand

  across the softest of cheeks

  somewhere inside me

  I feel the waters

  that hours ago had been depleted

  begin to rise

  Most days I wake up tired

  No longer young and excited

  to see the sun rise

  But when I see your sleepy face

  and hold your pajamaed body

  warm and heavy from a long night’s sleep

  I find the strength to give today

  a chance

  MOTHERHOOD HAS TAUGHT ME

  THAT LOVE IS NOT

  A FEELING

  IT IS A BURNING DESIRE

  TO TRY A LITTLE HARDER

  THAN I DID

  YESTERDAY

  When I squeeze you

  hold your small body in mine

  my wounds stop bleeding

  and the dull ache of adulthood

  for a moment

  ceases to throb

  you, my child, are the antidote

  to this life

  What does it mean to be a mother?

  Is the role defined by the cleaning,

  cooking, scheduling, kissing,

  the tired hugs, the stories read?

  The truth is that anyone can do that

  but not everyone lies awake in the dark

  staring at your face

  begging the angels

  to cover you with their wings.

  As you grow into the person you were meant to be

  remember, my love, that it’s okay

  to slip

  fall

  fail

  cry

  lose

  come in dead last

  sit this one out with your head in your hands

  You can’t disappoint me as you walk these slippery rocks of life

  for I adored you before you knew what medals were

  and applauded your heartbeat and first breath as magnificent victories

  If there’s one truth I want you to know

  tuck into your heart and seal with my kiss

  it’s that I don’t love you because you’re perfect

  I love you because you’re mine

  On days I don’t feel loved

  evenings I drown in my solitude

  sure that no one’s heart will ever flutter

  at my presence again

  you run into my arms

  and remind me

  that to someone

  I am everything

  To embrace my child

  is to feel my entire body come alive

  with the kind of love

  I thought was only reserved

  for fairy tales

  How can it be that

  the entire world tells me

  a million ways that I’m not enough

  but you

  my child

  even if you could

  wouldn’t change a thing

  To me there is nothing more beautiful

  than a tired mother making room on her lap

  for a child who wants only to melt

  into the safety

  of her warmth

  I know I may forget this day

  how you look in those

  little blue overalls

  but please God

  don’t let me ever forget

  the sound of my child’s

  laughter

  Motherhood opened up the floodgates

  and filled my deepest wells

  with watery emotion

  leaving me soft

  and ready to spill buckets

  of salty sentiment

  at the slightest provocation

  whether it be a baby koala

  clinging to his mother’s back at the zoo

  or a well-worded commercial

  For Mother’s Day

  I don’t want you to spend

  very much.

  Kindly bottle the scent

  of our baby’s skin

  fresh out of the bath

  so I can wear it like

  perfume.

  Wrap his toddlerhood in

  shiny paper

  topped with a red bow

  so that I can return

  to any moment I please

  after he’s flown away

  leaving me with only echoes.

  I’ll also take his giggle

  in a golden locket

  and six frozen baby kisses

  sloppy openmouthed

  wet against my cheek

  th
at I can defrost as needed.

  And would it be too bold

  to ask for a glove

  that allows me to always

  feel his hand in mine?

  When I tell a man

  “I love you”

  I mean “You make me happy.”

  When I tell my children

  “I love you”

  I mean

  “I would burn it all down

  to warm your feet.”

  I weave my love around you, child

  a thick warm blanket

  stitched with my veins

  stuffed with my breath

  sealed with my kiss

  so that if one day they tell you

  you are not good enough

  you’ll know

  they’re lying

  An angel told me that love

  is the most powerful force in the universe

  and I didn’t believe

  until I saw steel bend

  wood burn

  brick shatter into dust

  and a mother at 4:21 a.m., who had already

  risen more times than she cared to know,

  hear her child’s cry

  and rise again

  You were not born of my body

  but from the depths of my heart

  my little seedling

  planted in the soft earth of my soul

  I don’t need to own your tangled roots

  to water them

  No matter what storms may pass

  I will be your sun

  singing warm melodies as you grow

  stalks and leaves reaching toward the clouded sky

  green skin against the pale blue and white tomorrow

  How blessed I am to have this flower in my garden

  children don’t just grow up

  they also grow out

  first spilling out of your arms

  then your lap

  then their car seats

  and clothes

  but take heart, love,

  because the one thing they

  can never grow out of

  is your heart

  I want you to grow

  sail, fly, soar

  but baby

  promise me

  that every so often

  you’ll return to the nest

  and let me look at your wings