When I woke up the first-gra­der, she felt and loo­ked fe­ve­rish. Was that why she had slept so rest­les­s­ly? She had wan­ted to come in­to our bed and had then tos­sed and tur­ned all night. I felt I had hard­ly slept at all. I took her tem­pe­ra­tu­re, gave her some me­di­ci­ne and made bre­ak­fast.

I in­for­med the girl’s te­ac­her about her ab­sen­ce. Then I chan­ged the di­a­per of our one-ye­ar-old baby, gave him bre­ak­fast, and be­gan to clear the tab­le. The mess that the kids had made again! I know on­ly lazy pe­op­le count their cho­res, but I was dre­a­ming of a mo­ment when I could sit down for bre­ak­fast at a tidy tab­le and read the mor­ning pa­per – or well, at le­ast leaf it through quick­ly. There was no such mo­ment that mor­ning.

I have been a mot­her for ne­ar­ly 19 ye­ars, which me­ans that I am so­mew­hat used to post­po­ning my own nee ful­fil­l­ment. So­me­ti­mes I don’t feel at all bad about it, so­me­ti­mes I do. This was one of the mor­nings when I did feel bad about it.

The fe­ve­rish pa­tient nee­ded at­ten­ti­on and ten­der care, she nee­ded wa­ter and more blan­kets. The one-ye­ar-old nee­ded wha­te­ver he could think of: He wan­ted to stand on a chair, he wan­ted to feed the gui­nea pig HIM­SELF! He wan­ted to play with his big sis­ter’s phone and dad­dy’s tools. He wan­ted to be held and to help fill the dish­was­her, no, he wan­ted to walk and rum­ma­ge through the kitc­hen ca­bi­nets. He wan­ted wa­ter and some me­lon, no, he me­ant ap­p­le, no, he me­ant a coo­kie, yes, he wan­ted a coo­kie. “Gim­me coo­kie”! he de­man­ded.

I spoke some se­ri­ous words: "This is re­al­ly get­ting on my ner­ves. I am like yo­ur ser­vant. I ha­ven’t even had time to have bre­ak­fast be­cau­se I need to pam­per you all the time.” The one-ye­ar-old lis­te­ned to me with his head coc­ked and his ey­es round with as­to­nish­ment. Then he wal­ked up to me, hug­ged my legs and said: “Mom­my, for­gi­ve!”

The first-gra­der and I loo­ked at each ot­her in ama­ze­ment. What on earth had he done?! ”How can a baby know how to ask for for­gi­ve­ness,” the first-gra­der won­de­red. I pic­ked up my baby, said all was for­gi­ven, flop­ped on the sofa next to the first-gra­der, and we all burst out laug­hing.

The baby smi­led triump­hant­ly at the im­pact of those ma­gic words. Mom­my was no lon­ger ang­ry, not in the le­ast. She had not ex­pec­ted him – or any­o­ne el­se for that mat­ter – to ask for for­gi­ve­ness.

Pa­tients should be al­lo­wed to be pa­tients and a lit­t­le mi­se­rab­le, and ba­bies al­wa­ys de­mand things, of­ten just to test their mot­hers. And mot­hers should help and ser­ve ot­hers and so­me­ti­mes take a break from ser­ving to see about their own needs.

But I was very, very hap­py! I was hap­py be­cau­se I thought our baby had seen ins­tan­ces of for­gi­ve­ness in our home. He must have seen the con­se­qu­en­ce of for­gi­ve­ness: it ma­kes mi­rac­les, it chan­ges the at­mosp­he­re!

Text: Vir­pi Mä­ki­nen

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal fin­nish blog post here.