Motherhood

Two blogs in two days...I know, hard to believe!:)

We have been going through the Terrible Two's for too long at our house. TOO LONG! I love my Annie but sometimes I look at her and I want to run! She can go from happy to tantrum in 3 seconds flat. Of course, her little sister has a similar ability so I am predicting the next few years are going to be pretty rough.
This is not quite what I imagined motherhood will be.
I'm really lucky to know a wide variety of women. Alot of them are like me - moms with a few kids. It's a great place to be in life...I wouldn't trade it for anything. I know other women - some single and wanting desperately to be married with a family, some single and wanting desperately to stay single, newlyweds, married without kids, divorced...the list could probably keep going. I'm always intrigued by what those women I know who don't have kids think motherhood is about. I think some of them have a clue, especially ones with much younger siblings. I was one of those who had NO IDEA what I was getting myself into.
My dad, a single dad for the last 19 years, told me today that having kids is a bigger sacrifice than most people realize. Yep. I've been through some rough things in my life, but none harder than just being a mom.

I wish I had known how little sleep I'd get. Sometimes I get 6 hours of sleep a night. Sometimes I get 2. Sometimes I get a nap, but most of the time not.
Showering? I wish somebody would've told me to enjoy my showers before I had kids.
Eating? While they eat, I babysit to make sure there's not food on the floor, wall, in their hair, etc. Then I rush through whatever cold food is on my plate. Sometimes standing up.
I don't have more than 2 items of clothing that aren't stained. I go to the bathroom with an audience. My house is generally a disaster. I stumble over toys in the dark. I find diapers in the weirdest places. I am constantly sticking my fingers in little mouths trying to figure out what they're eating. I am also a giant tissue for boogers.
I yell more than I should and I do things I always said I would NEVER do. I am not ashamed to say I have ZERO problem with this. I let my child get away with things I probably shouldn't, because I don't have the patience to fight with her about it.
I cry on a pretty regular basis because I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT I'M DOING.
The good news is that, because I don't know what I'm doing, I'm never really sure if I'm doing it wrong. For all I know, I'm doing everything right.:)

Motherhood just isn't what I anticipated. It does have its perks, though.

I am the first to be warned if the food is too hot.
I always have somebody to hold my hand, especially when I'm sad.
When I rescue a binky or a toy or something else equally as important, I'm pretty much the greatest thing EVER.
I'm pretty much the greatest thing most of the time, regardless of what I do.
Emily smiles bigger for me than anybody else. She lights up all over the place when I come in the room and cries if I walk past her without talking to her.
Annie, without any encouragement or prompting, runs up and hugs me and says, "Love you Mama."

I'll clean up crushed Cheerio's and deal with crayon on the wall just for that.