Ten Things I Didn't Expect From Motherhood | Maris Ehlers Photography

Ten Things I Didn’t Expect From Motherhood

by Maris Ehlers

• I chased the school bus for 12 years.  I didn’t realize that once my own children started school I would spend another decade chasing it again.   

• While never a math all-star, I never expected that I would be humiliated more than once by not understanding my second grader’s math homework.

• In my pre-motherhood life, I didn’t worry.  Even when I really should have.  Now, I can worry about anything and everything surrounding my children.  I don’t know that I actually do much about it, but I’ve perfected the art of it.  Please note:  Worrying wasn’t on my list of things to perfect.

• I didn’t anticipate that my second job would be to manage the sheer amount of papers with random important tidbits on them that come home in all shapes and sizes in their book bags each day.  Frequently, it’s like a timed treasure hunt to find the piece of paper that I need before we leave to chase the bus.

• I never expected that I could act more immature than my child, but um, it has happened.  Once.  Maybe twice. 

• I did not EVER expect that I would read a book called Captain Underpants.  All eight of them in fact (there may be more now).  And laugh.  BTW, we are still searching for Captain Underpants Crunch O Rama Book of fun 2.

• I never expected that a three year old girl could know exactly how to push my buttons, wear me down, get me to do the opposite of what I said, do exactly what she wanted. Thankfully, now she is able to get us to the same end result with much less effort and pain on both our parts.  She would say it's all about consistent parenting on her part.

• I never expected that I would really honestly without even pausing, say to my son as I did last weekend, “What?  Were you raised in a barn?” and mean every word of it.  How cliché am I?

• I never guessed that the things we hand down to our children would be so transparent and meaningful:  Not just the fact that my daughter has her father’s beautiful amber brown eyes, or his sweet smile, but his love of routine, desire for rules, and of knowing what to expect.  Admittedly, I find these traits less than endearing in him at times, but the fact that she is her dad’s “mini me” in these ways is utterly charming to me and thus connects me to him in new ways every day.

• I never expected motherhood to leave me speechless.  But it does. Frequently. For a variety of reasons.  Most of them wonderful.

Join us in reading our other Mother's Day Essays in these posts listed below: 

You can find Sara Biren's post on motherhood here. 

Read Marly Cornell's post about her mother Elma here.


We will be posting new essays from other guest blogging contributors throughout the entire coming week as well. 

Maris Ehlers is a lifestyle photographer in the Twin Cities area, and owns Maris Ehlers Photography. She lives with her husband, two children and a dog, and is busy cramming life as it happens into every available moment.  She is also the owner of this blog.