Encouragement for Toddler Moms: Finding Joy in the Messy Years

The Messy Reality of Toddler Life

If you’re a toddler mom, you know kids are messy. They leave paths of destruction wherever they go—sticky fingerprints, spilled drinks, trails of toys.

We parents can get pretty frustrated. No sooner do we pick up one thing, than another takes its place.

Exploring the world apparently requires close inspection. This part of the package we sometimes complain about.

I mean, we love the gift of course, but do they have to leave the wrappings everywhere?

Encouragement for Toddler Moms: Enjoying the Mess

Wait, hear me out! 🙂

When my kids were smaller, I’d pick up the toys with exhaustion each night. As they got older, the learned to do it themselves.

That didn’t mean it happened though, without my nagging direction. Some days I just longed for a tidy home.

Until it happened.

By the time it happens, it probably means the toys are outgrown. They’ve lost interest in playing and exploring and want to listen to music in their rooms. The house is eerily clean.

Just like I occasionally fantasized about. And it is hard.

You are as much serving God in looking after your own children, and training them up in God’s fear, and minding the house, and making your household a church for God, as you would be if you had been called to lead an army to battle for the Lord of hosts.
-Charles Spurgeon

Parents, if you still have messy kids? Give thanks.

I know it is so hard in the moment, but you won’t care about this stuff in the future. You really won’t.

I miss the sounds of block towers falling, and the shrieks of delight with each new discovery. Grimy fingers that grabbed my cheeks to say “I yuv you”.

Juice cups and dolls and even little Lego pieces under my feet. I’d like another day of that.

Because now, I could really appreciate it. Treasure it.

What Can I Say to an Overwhelmed Toddler Mom?

I thank God for reminding me every day when they were young that the moments were fleeting. I made a continual effort to enjoy those days. And I am thankful.

My girls are growing so fast. One drives and is embracing her future, the other is about to get a permit and will follow soon enough.

We don’t have time though to live in the past, or long for what we miss. They are still growing.

These days hold their own moments. And those little kids that loved you so much? They won’t grab your cheeks now, but they still want to be cuddled sometimes. Don’t let their size fool you.

The time spent building towers just to knock them down? They still want to be with you, play their favorite game now. Whatever it is, spend the time with them.

Teens have their own messes, and when I pick up the cups they’ve left behind for what feels like the 20th time? When I trip over their sneakers and gym bags in the dark?

Treasuring the Season (Even When It’s Hard)

If a complaint comes to mind, may God once again remind us to embrace these moments. For they too shall pass.

Then, maybe then, I can look back and miss it

Then I can wish for the days when…but not now. Today I am too busy playing when they’ll play.

Listening for shrieks of teen laughter, and paying attention when they share their jokes. Grabbing their faces and telling them “I yuv them”, and picking up those cups at night.

I could make them, but then- I’d be losing my time of remembering. Of gratitude for another day as a family of four. Home safe and healthy and happy in their beds.

Children are not a distraction from more important work. They are the most important work– C. S. Lewis

Mama, you are doing so much more than you know in the mundane and tedious monotony of parenting littles. You, sister, are a rock star.

Whether anyone seems to notice or not…I do.

Encouragement for Toddler Moms with Growing Kids

May we not spend so much time in our mind’s eyes remembering when, that we are blind to what we can still see today. I might change that poem to fit parents whose kids are older (you can print if off here).

Parenting is tough work sometimes. If this encouraged you, share today with a friend, with a mom’s group.

Someone else who desperately needs a hand up…

What season are you in?