Mothers day

Being a Mom

This one's long, so bear with me. When I didn't get the thing posted for four months, I just kept adding to it!

This is probably more about my kids than me, but isn't that just like parenting?

• I can hold a sleeping baby just because I don't want to put her down.
• I can ABSOLUTELY LOVE being a stay at home mom!
• I can wonder at what point my husband and I will ever be able to both sleep in on the weekend.
• I can say I earned these bags under my eyes.
• I can say I no longer take sleep or long showers for granted.
• I can no longer drink soda or eat sweets or junk food when the kids are around. They want whatever I'm eating or drinking and will come over to me and start begging for it.
• I can say I'm not the only picky eater in the house.
• I can think my children are the cutest kids I've ever seen.
• I can wonder if my children are actually as cute as I think they are.
• Whenever another woman is rude, I can secretly say to myself, "Well, it's because my baby is so much cuter and smarter than hers!"
• I can think a sun hat has never looked so adorable, even if I have to keep putting it back on every three minutes!
• I can see what and who my children become when they grow up.
• I can hope that someday my children will be best friends.
• I can buy cute little outfits.
• I can start family traditions. I LOVE this one.
• I can appreciate my mom more.
• I can watch my husband and children playing. THAT makes me happy.
• I can sometimes have the feeling of running a preschool with someone I used to date.
• Sleep or sex? Please--that's too easy.
• I can love my husband more than ever. I just don't get a chance to talk to him that much.
• I can put things on my head to make my children laugh.
• I can have spontaneous dance party in the middle of the day.
• I can laugh at all the funny things my son says.
• I can make up stories that have a moral- Sharing is great! Nighttime is for sleeping!
• I can color and draw pictures as I am directed to.
• I can cater to the whims of a three year old.
• I can carry a baby and a screaming three year old at the same time out of a public place.
• I can sometimes stay at home because leaving the house just seems too daunting and so much trouble.
• I go stir crazy stuck in the house with two little ones who are crazy to begin with.
• I can be pulled in two directions.
• I can read the same stories until I have them memorized.
• I can look forward to snuggling in the rocking chair with my daughter before bed every night.
• I can say I can't do the dishes because I have a sleeping baby in my lap.
• I can get kisses that have never been so slobbery...or heartfelt. I love every kiss, even the sticky ones.
• I can call two people sweet potato pie and sweet sugar plum.
• I can kiss constantly.
• I can know how happy a kiss and a hug from a bite size person can make me feel.
• I can love/hate that my son will only let his daddy put him to sleep when I'm nowhere to be found.
• I can feel the frustration melt away, no matter how mad he has made me, with one kiss and one hug.
• I can wish I had dozens more kids, then realise I'd go mad.
• I can marvel at how fast time goes by and how fast they're growing up. It's very bittersweet.
• I can hear the best sound in the world everyday, my son's giggle.
• I can watch the little wheels turning in my daughter's mind when she's trying to figure out how to do something. It's pretty amazing.
• I can laugh everyday. My son makes me laugh...a lot.
• I can live for the simple joys, even when things are spinning.
• Even though it can be hard, I can soak up the good parts of each phase without obsessing on the bad parts.
• I can think that my son is the funniest kid in the world!
• I can be having the worst day, and just seeing my kids will make me smile.
• I can just want to cry when I see my son trying to play with his baby sister. It's the best feeling in the world.
• I can wait in anticipation for my daughter to start talking.
• I can be led around by a little person, pointing and saying babababa.
• I can find out that "Ba mmmm ba!" has MANY, MANY, MANY meanings!!
• I can laugh when my son tries to give kids who are complete strangers hugs and kisses - He's very friendly.
• I can't believe I have a three year old!!
• I can think it's funny and annoying that every time I open the refrigerator door, my daughter thinks it's a free for all.
• I can feel like my children are the most important people in my life.
• I can think my son is so smart for his age and is going to be a brilliant adult!
• I can say that my children are the smartest, most beautiful human beings I've ever given birth to. I will feel the same way about consecutive children birthed from my loins.
• I can feel so proud of my son when he shares or "uses his words". I BURST with pride.
• I can laugh and smile often when my daughter does the most simple things.
• I can know that no matter how mad I get, it doesn't take much for him to make me smile.
• I can cherish the looks that my daughter gives only me and my husband. Everyone else has to try to make her smile, but when she looks at me or her daddy, she just does.
• I can remember how much I loved seeing my babies big gummy smiles.
• I can see all their "firsts" and wonder what their next "first" will be.
• I can watch them explore new things and reach new milestones. That's better than anything I've ever gotten.
• I can believe my daughter's the cutest baby ever and is "oh so advanced" for her age. (Don't we all??)
• I can be delighted by my daughter. I'm so excited she is at this wonderful age!
• I can love the fact that my daughter gets into everything.
• I can listen to my children's beautiful laughs.
• I can have my eyes opened by my children without them even knowing it.
• I can be glad my son has a sibling because he loves being around other children so much.
• I can stop to catch my breath when my daughter smiles at me.
• I can relish that my daughter is happy playing with cars, blocks, and dinosaurs.
• I can call two people Booka and Poopek and know that it makes them feel loved and special.
• I can't tell you how much I appreciate the fact that my kids sleep through the night.
• I can pick up toys everyday.
• I can know the joy of watching them "get" something.
• I can hear the sweetest sound on earth-hands down- their laughter. Well, next to Mama.
• I can be amazed at how kids learn. The other day, my daughter said book, ball and bath (buh, baa, and bah) , and I felt like alerting Harvard.
• I can enjoy watching their reactions to things and the way their eyes light up.
• I can admit I don't like playing cars or trucks, but I do it anyway.
• I can know the thrill of watching a road being repaved.
• I can read out loud with foreign accents and have my audience beg for more.
• I can lick the bowl and have someone to lick the spoon.
• I can dictate fashion trends.
• I can be the first one to show my children something great in the world and always have the experience of having been the first one.
• I can draw gold stars in the air with my finger and hand them out like rare treasures.
• I can make costumes out of bath bubbles and wash them away.
• I can master acting completely shocked when my child hides in the exact same spot fifteen times in a row during a game of Hide and Seek. When it's my turn to hide, he shows me where.
• I can know that couch cushions are really for making forts out of, not sitting on.
• I can have help in the kitchen, as well as plenty of suggestions - Let's make grape pie!
• I can remember how much fun it was to be a kid. I love doing all the things I did when I was little with them. I can find my inner child and have fun playing with them. I can be a kid all over again.
• I can come to realize that I hate playing with toys.
• I can "shake my sillies out and wiggle my worries away" with my son.
• I can admit that if I color one more picture, do one more "experiment" with baking soda and vinegar, or watch the movie, Underdog, one more time, I'm going to go crazy! haha
• I can sometimes get bored playing with my son, other times I can't stop cracking up.
• I can make a song out of EVERY situation we are in.
• I can change song lyrics to have their names in them.
• I can make up nonsense words with Timmy.
• I can look wistfully back on my days of wearing a bikini.
• I can wish I didn't have any stretch marks or baby fat, but I wouldn't trade my kids for anything!
• I can think my daughter is the most delightful person I've ever known.
• I can know how much I can really love someone.
• I can have someone else's pain hurt me more than my own.
• I can be surprised at myself for knowingly going through hour after hour of pain(labor) and then sign up for it again.
• I can want to take away their pain when they hurt.
• I can love how excited my daughter gets when I walk in the room.
• I can think she's the most precious, beautiful, intelligent little being I've ever seen.
• At night, when my son is in bed, and I'm watching TV with my husband, I can look around and see all his toys....THAT makes me smile!!
• I can have two kids who think I'm the best best best.
• I can give selflessly.
• I can smile in my sleep.
• I can live my life making sure that they feel nothing short of the amount of love I started feeling the day they were born!
• I can have my eyes well up with tears when my children are happy or excited about something. It makes my heart smile.
• I can just want to give my children the world when the cry.
• I can be amazed that we don't know just how much love we can feel until we are moms.
• I can be amazed that I can love someone so much who can't even tell me they love me back.
• I can know that my children are the best thing that has ever happened to me.
• I can experience love at first sight.
• I can think my son is the best in the world at the end of the day, no matter how mad he's made me.
• I can know that a mom's love is limitless.
• I can say that I could not be more proud of their accomplishments, if they won gold medals in the Olympics.
• I can understand "in it for life".
• I can actually say I would die for another human being.
• I can feel my heart break into a million pieces when I can't stop the hurt.
• I can have my life affected so much by something so small.
• I can know the feeling of having my heart walking around outside my body.
• I can know the bond between a mother and her child.
• I can know the warmth, the joy, the heartache, the wonderment, and the satisfaction of being a mom.
• I can know just how much I am capable of feeling.
• I can say to myself, "Clearly, people who don't understand my toddler are just not that bright."
• I can find people's inability to see their children's flaws to be baffling- I see my kids' flaws in high relief.
• I can get up and leave if someone starts smoking around my children.
• I can see that moms can be some of the most generous, loving people I've ever met; They can also be some of the meanest people I've ever met.
• I can say that I'm better at being mom than I thought I would be, but I can also say that I'm worse at being a mom than I thought I would be.
• I can worry about being a parent to teenagers.
• I can find out that I will do or try almost anything that my child asks me or wants me to do.
• I can find that being a mom makes me want to be a better person.
• I can tear up at some of the sappiest things since I became a mom. I'm a complete sap. Those little warnings before TV programs for sensitive viewers were written especially for me. lol
• I can feel more confidence in myself since I became a mom.
• I can smile when I shouldn't.
• I can cry when I shouldn't.
• I can teach my children while at the same time learning from them.
• I can at times feel terrified that I am wholly responsible for keeping these two most precious little children safe and out of harm.
• I can realize that my friends are probably tired of hearing about my kids. Lol
• I can now know how strong I am. Going out and about with a busy 10 month old and a rowdy three year old is tough!
• I can think about how empty my life would feel without my children now.
• I can love to feel needed.
• I can pull from places I didn't know existed. (Especially those days when I'm tired and/or sick.)
• I can learn a lesson about quick forgiveness from my children.
• I can have the most rewarding job.
• I can be glad that my children's first words were Mama.
• I can have a son whose a mommy's boy sometimes, and I like it.
• I can be surprised at how much I love being a mom.
• I can resign myself to the fact that I will never finish my son's baby scrapbook and hope that I will at least print some pictures of my daughter and put them in an album someday.
• I can admit that I want to be a soccer mom someday. Lol
• I can laugh at the fact that MY purse is filled with crayons, toys and snacks. I guess everything I have just screams Mom now.
• I can find out that being a mom is harder than I thought it would be.
• I can find out that being a mom is more wonderful than I thought it would be.
• I can look at my daughter and see that she is so beautiful it takes my breath away.
• I can grow to be more patient and learn just how patient I can be.
• I can say that my two best friends are three years old and one year old.
• I can say, "Wow, I'm all grown up now."
• I can think of myself as a mom first and everything else next. I didn't think I would, but I do.
• I can have other "mommy" friends.
• I can realise that once you become a mom, there is never a moment when your kids aren't on your mind.
• I can have a social life that is made up almost entirely of activities related to my children.
• I can have fun having both a boy and a girl, the best of everything. I feel very lucky.
• I can remember when I slept all night and slept in every weekend.
• I can soak in the smell of baby soap and lotion.
• I can be surprised that I don't mind my house being filled with toys, and when people come over, I just push them to the side.
• I can come to admit that hot dogs are actually kind of tasty.
• I can wonder how long it will take to get a good picture of both of my kids together, both fully dressed, reasonably clean, not facing away from the camera, and both in focus.
• I can feel how lucky I am to have two healthy children.
• I can wonder how many diapers I've purchased over the past three and a half years.
• I can learn Toddler speak.
• I can learn that when I hear silence for a little too long, I better race in there.
• I can be calmed by the fact that hand lotion, deodorant and zinc oxide cream, if ingested by your toddler, are not toxic.
• I can relish the fact that digital cameras are the greatest invention for modern day parents. You can take 1000 pictures and manage to get at LEAST one good shot.
• I can relish all the little colorful socks in my laundry baskets.
• I can look at life completely differently from the perspective of my toddler and preschooler.
• I can know how much birthday parties cost, and I always start off thinking, "Oh, we'll just have a pretty simple little thing.."
• I can say, "I'm a mom...ask me anything, I bet I know the answer."
• I can warm my heart just thinking about baby laughs. They're just about the cutest thing in the world.
• I can say "Uh Oh!" in a happy baby voice all the time, even with no children around.
• I can look into teary eyes and cry.
• I can get giddy over a simple grin.
• I can forget what warm food tastes like.
• I can admit that my kids will probably never learn to tie their shoes because they live in Velcro.
• I can no longer say the words, "Just real quick". They are no longer in my vocabulary.
• I can find it hilarious that pre kids I considered myself to be busy.
• I can remember how it used to make me nuts how my mother couldn't remember every single thing about our childhoods or get things that my sister and I did mixed up. Now I know exactly how she feels.
• Sippy cups are like socks, either the stopper or the lids always seem to disappear.
• I can no longer laugh when I hear someone say, "Being a parent is the hardest job in the world."
• I can see that patience is truly a virtue.
• Between dressing and feeding and finding shoes for everyone, it can take hours to get out of the house, not to mention bundling them in winter and packing snacks and drinks.
• I can leave the house looking haggard and run into everyone.
• I can dread the day things start being flushed down the toilet.
• I can say, "No you cannot draw with mommy's makeup or soap or your food, not on the table, not on the wall and floor, not on yourself either.
• I can't remember when I went to the bathroom by myself last.
• I can learn to go NOWHERE without a drink and a snack if I want to remain sane.
• I can learn that my children don't respect personal space. My little ones will sit on your head if you let them.
• I can know that getting out of the door quickly will never exist as it once was.
• I can know when to say that something just isn't going to get done today, or I will lose my mind.
• I can know that a chance to watch a tv show or read a book , write on the blog... means my children are into something or are asleep, and I'm not! Lol
• I can miss bath times to myself.
• I can't remember the last time I took a shower to myself! Lexa is always hanging on my legs, or clinging onto the shower door, crying!
• As a rule, at least one of each of our shoes is missing when it's time to put them on.
• I can measure a good day by whether there is food on the floor. If there isn't, we've had a good day.
• I've learned that if we can manage to stay out and away from the house all day, it stays clean.
• I can wish that the tables and countertops would get taller as Lexa does to keep things OUT of her reach. She's into everything, all of the time.
• I live in a house where there are usually at least three types of "snack" on our living room floor at any given time.
• My daughter wears underwear around her neck...and they're Daddy's, and I CAN'T KEEP HER OUT OF THEM!
• Planning our wedding was a breeze compared to being a mother.
• I can have dinner and a movie replaced with a day at the park and netflix after bedtime.
• Leaving the house to buy some milk can take two hours, between getting dressed, finding shoes, finishing playing, putting shoes back on, changing diaper, getting everyone buckled in and then back out at the store, and finding restrooms at the store.
• We have a baby that stays up late and prefers to nap in my lap and a busy three year old who doesn't nap, with one child sleeping on either side of me in bed who will wake and cry if moved as birth control.
• I can have things that I used to do so quickly take three or four times longer to do.
• I can grow a thick skin because my son crashes into and jumps all over me!
• I can give up the idea of a neat and orderly house. I just don't have the energy or time to keep up with the whrilwind boy and into everything girl.
• I can eat my dinner cold sometimes and graze at most other meals. Sometimes I eat my lunch standing so that Lexa won't be into it.
• I don't wear cute shoes anymore. I wear chase and carry and Toddler and all their gear around shoes.
• I can be the queen of laundry backlog.
• I can trip over toys.
• I can cover the stream with my bare hand, when my baby boy started peeing during a diaper change.
• I can think it's funny when, at the end of the day, I have stains on my shirt that not even I know what they are.
• Lexa was a big spitter upper as a baby. It got to the point where I'd forget about stuff here and there.
• I can have everyone notice the spit up stains, food stains, paint, snot stains on my shirt or sweater but me.
• I HATE fishing poop out of the bathtub.
• I can talk about poopy diapers without it grossing me out.
• I can be peed on by my baby and be surprised when I laugh and say, in little baby talk, "Did you peepee on your mommy, you silly?"
• I'm exposed to so many germs. I hope my immune system is getting stronger. We're sick with something once a month.
• I can pick a booger out of my child's nose without gagging. Even the big ones.
• I can have way more knowledge on eczema and related skin conditions than I ever wanted to know!
• I can be slobbed on more than I ever have in my life.
• It took me a long time to wash some things. After about a year, I didn't notice those spots anymore.
• I can watch them pick up something off the floor and eat it and sometimes not stop them.
• I can have the experience of being puked on, pooped on, peed on.
• I can think that my daughter has the best smile and my son has the best laugh of anyone on the planet.
• When I'm having a bad day, I can feel better when I see my daughter's huge smile. Sounds cliche, but it's true!
• I can have daily reminders of how lucky I am to be a mom. Each day there is something that happens, whether big or small.
• I can know in my heart that having my children has changed me as a person for the better.
• I can live for cuddles. That's why I had kids.
• I can LOVE EVERY MINUTE OF IT.
• I can feel so lucky and grateful to be their mom.