Ever get whiplash from parenting?
It’s one of my greatest accomplishments — becoming their mother. I take the role seriously, and most of the time I’m filled with such deep gratitude and awe for these small humans. Watching them learn is fascinating: the proud grin when they fill their own water bottle, or twist the cap back on the toothpaste for the first time.
These moments melt my heart — the “oh, my precious boy” moments — until, in a blink, the switch flips. The same child who just made my heart swell is now inconsolable because I used the other salt shaker. Sorry, bud, I already used it. I can’t give you a tower of salt and dry you out. Cue the toddler hunger strike for the “wrong” salt. I ended up fake-shaking the other shaker just to make peace — not that he ate the macaroni anyway. He liked it last week.
This is a hard age. I guess they all are. 😂
And yet, we do it willingly — and multiple times. Our bodies defy reason, longing for hypothetical babies even when we know how hard it is. Especially when we care deeply, when we’re trying to break generational cycles — addiction, emotional chaos, the silence that swallows hard feelings. I don’t always know if I’m succeeding. I could be doing more, reading more, watching more. But I’m trying. I’ll always try.
Sometimes, in the chaos, I catch myself spiraling over not keeping up with my twelve-year-old’s homework. How he still needs a thousand reminders to do the simplest task. And then I think about how this all comes full circle.
Maybe it’s my nurse’s mind, but I often notice how we enter and leave the world in similar ways — vulnerable, reliant on others for care, connection, and gentleness. The very young and the very old remind me what it means to be human.
I don’t always love that my eighty-year-old mother lives with us — it’s messy, loud, and layered — but I know how lucky my kids are to have her. They get to witness compassion up close. They’re learning empathy without me having to teach it. My hope is that this generation — their generation — grows into the peacemakers we so desperately need.
There are these moments — quiet ones — when I wrap one of my boys and the fabric settles over my shoulders like an exhale. I can feel the rhythm of my heart against theirs, the soft hum of our breath syncing. It’s grounding. Familiar. Almost ancient.
Sometimes I think about all the mothers before me who carried their babies this same way. Not in the exact pattern or color, but in spirit — thread by thread, heart to heart. Those women carried entire generations on their backs, literally and figuratively. They passed down strength, survival, tenderness — the things no textbook can teach.
Each wrap I own tells a little piece of that story. My Lisca Karibik — soft as memory — was my beginning. My Trias Dew and Agave came during a season of growth, when I realized how strong and capable I had become. And now, these new ones on their way… they feel like a promise. Another thread connecting where I’ve been and where I’m still going.
When I tie the fabric, I sometimes think about my boys as grown men — maybe fathers themselves. Maybe one day, they’ll remember that warmth and safety, the steady rhythm of my heartbeat against theirs. Maybe they’ll pass that same kind of love on — even if it’s not through wrapping.
That’s what I mean by the threads between.
They aren’t just in fabric; they’re in us. In the way we show up, the softness we choose to keep, the care we give when no one’s watching. It’s all connected — mother to child, generation to generation.
Maybe that’s what I love most about babywearing — it’s never just about carrying. It’s about connection. The way a simple piece of fabric can hold so much: a child, a moment, a memory, a legacy. One day, these threads will rest in a drawer, softened by years and love. But their purpose will remain. They’ll remind me that I was here — arms full, heart fuller — learning as I went, building something lasting out of ordinary days and tangled moments.
