Motherhood Badge of Honor

I once heard an acquaintance describe her motherhood badge of honor.  After comforting her crying child, she was left with the remnants of a runny nose on her shirt.  While she at first went to change the shirt, she ended up leaving it on, and felt that it was her badge of motherhood.  "I comforted my child today," it proclaimed.

Tyndale is a cuddler, which I LOVE, but it also means my shirts are frequently covered in marks of drool and slime.  And baby food, since I often feed him while holding him.


The terrain was hilly where we went camping recently, and beginning-walker Tyndale took a lot of falls.  After a particularly bad down-hill face plant, I quickly scooped him up and held him as he cried with his face in my shoulder.  I ignored his fists full of dirt and plant material and the wet debris all over his little body and just held him tight.  It took me a moment to realize that he had a bloody lip, but I didn't realize until much later in the day how much he had bled on my shoulder.  Call it my motherhood badge of honor.  I got to comfort my child.  (If you could see well, you'd also notice the remnants of his breakfast on my shoulder.)