Daisy's baptism day

 Playing some catch up!

It's been really hard for me to keep up with blogging lately, I've got to do better! Pictures below show what you can do with a bunch of expired pancake mix from the cannery instead of just throwing it away (granted throwing it away would have been a much cleaner and less sticky solution). The kids each had their own bag of mix and made their own super sticky bowl of dough. It's funny how much they loved just sitting there and squeezing it between their fingers. They played with it over the course of 2-3 days until I finally made them throw it away and clean/scrape up their mess. The dough dried up a little more each day and it was really tough and gross by the third day. Even so, Brighton tried to hide his bowl in the outside closet so he could still play with it later. Brighton, when will you learn you can't trick your mother? I might not find out right away, but I WILL find out...

 So Adaira loves being in front of the camera. She wanted to take some pictures together and I thought we were going to take a nice picture but she opted for the "duck face" - where she learned the pouty expression I don't know, but it kind of concerns me that she has even seen it!

 Brighton joined in; after seeing that picture above on the camera I decided to do the "duck face" but Adaira was laughing...

 I think this was our best one...

I've been thinking about a blog post on motherhood for the past two weeks. Two Mondays ago I got to live through a day of the absolute downside to motherhood. I usually get to bed between 10:30-11pm. My night went like this:

3am: Adaira came and woke me up saying she had thrown up in her bed. As I'm walking into her room I see Brighton coming down the hall whimpering, holding his belly, and telling me his stomach hurt. I told him that if he felt like he needed to throw up to go run to his bathroom and do it in the toilet. I proceeded into Adaira's room and luckily her barf had only gotten on her blanket and top (flat) sheet, so I took those off, got her another blanket and carried her dirty linens to the laundry room. Down the hallway on the way to the laundry room I STEP in Brighton's barf and realize that he obviously didn't make it to the toilet. Around the corner I see another barf splatter on the floor just outside the bathroom and I could hear him flushing the bathroom toilet. I put the dirty stuff in the washer and start it on a sanitize cycle, then I get to cleaning up the pukes on the floor and all over the toilet. I take an empty #10 can to Adaira because she threw up far less than Brighton did and thought maybe she had more to go (I figured Brighton had gotten it all out...silly me). Then, since I'm already up, I nurse Daisy since I figured she would be up soon for a feeding anyway. Before I'm done nursing Daisy, Adaira comes in and tells me she threw up again and not all of it got in the can, so I put down Daisy and clean up some more barf.

4am: I'm finally back to sleep.

4:30am: Brighton comes in and tells me he threw up again in his bed. I'm so tired that I just ask him to get a towel and put it over it and I'll wash his sheets in the morning. 

5:30am: Justin gets up and leaves for work. Daisy wakes up so I bring her into my bed and nurse her back to sleep.

6am: Brighton comes in and says "Mom, can I take a bath?" I ask why and he says "Well you know how my stomach was hurting all night? Well I went into the toy room (our formal living room) and was saying a prayer that I would feel better but then I felt like I had to go to the bathroom really bad so I got up to run to the bathroom but then it just...came out. And to make matters worse it was diarrhea." ....sigh... I'm so tired I tell him to go ahead and take a bath and figure as long as Dale is still in his crib nobody can get into the poop mess on the floor so I'll just clean it up in an hour when Daisy wakes up. 

6:15am: Adaira comes in and says "Mommy, can I take a bath?" hmmmm....I wonder why?! I ask her if she pooped her pants too and she says that she pooped on the toilet but some of it got on her underwear. She then said that there was poop all over the floor in "her" bathroom (Adaira's room is next to the master and there is a half bath in the hallway right outside her room, the kids bathroom is next to Brighton's room on the other side of the house). So I told her to go ahead and take a shower in my shower. I figured she went to use her bathroom and saw poo everywhere so she had to run to the other bathroom and couldn't quite hold everything in until she got there...

7am: Daisy is up and so am I. I get out the paper towels and Clorox wipes (again...) and get to work scrubbing dried diarrhea splats off of the floor in the hallway and in the half bathroom. There is poo all over the rug in front of the toilet as well so I put it all in a bag and at first was just going to throw it away since I had had enough of nasty bodily excrement in the last 4 hours, but thought better of it and just threw it in the washer for another sanitize cycle. I then went to the other bathroom and cleaned the poo off of the toilet (also for the 2nd time in the last few hours) that Adaira "made it" to, and picked up her poo covered underwear off of the rug (this one also had poo on it) and added them to the washer.

7:30am: I call Justin and say "Why'd you rush off out of this fun house so early this morning?" and he says "What?" and I say "Seriously? You have no idea what happened last night?" and he says "Umm, other than Daisy being up all night?" and I say "Wow, you have no clue" and proceed to tell him all about the fun night events that he was so blissfully unaware of as he slept so soundly... It's hard some times to understand how my dear husband who always says what a light sleeper he is, can sleep through and let me handle such fun all night long. I love you Justin...

All of this brings me to some reflection on the pros and cons of motherhood. I think of what a "con" it is that I am the first one my kids always come to wake up at night when something is wrong (sickness, nightmares, etc) so I usually get to clean up the nastiness when it occurs, even though I might already be up every few hours with an infant. Then I got to thinking:

How lucky am I?

  I am the first one my kids run to when something goes wrong and they need comfort. 

I am the one they run to, to find their safety.

I am the first thought that comes to their mind when they are scared or hurt.

I have the ability to calm their fears and make them feel like everything in okay.

That is something so very special...

It's a difficult job, but the role I play is a sacred one, even if it means I don't sleep or enjoy it all the time! The "pros" of motherhood are that I get to greet such sweet and smiling little ones every morning. I love that Brighton and Adaira still want to give me a great big hug and kiss and say "Good morning Mom" every morning. I love that when I lay Daisy down on her changing table first thing in the morning her eyes are all squinted shut because of the lights in the bathroom. She grimaces, furrows her brows and turns her head from side to side blinking, but as soon as she catches a glimpse of me, a huge grin erupts from that grimaced face with brows still furrowed, and it is the sweetest sight to behold. I get to see that all the time. I get to snuggle and be the most important person in the world (for now) for this sweet 3month old:

 and I get to see the happy face of this little guy when I wake him up from his nap every day and share in his excitement to get out of his crib and start causing trouble again!

 I get to hear and have my day brightened by her bursts of giggles, just because she is so happy to see me...

 and I get to have this little one come sit by me with his blanket and nuzzle his head into my neck to watch cartoons together (this is me pulling his fingers out of his mouth for a picture).

It won't be much longer until Brighton and Adaira aren't talking my ear off after school about everything they have been up to, or asking me 1,000 questions about life every day. It won't be long before they won't be jumping at the opportunity to come to the store with me or help me make a meal.

Motherhood to little ones really is a tough job, but I think of probably the 80 or so years I hopefully get get to spend on this earth. Of those 80 years, probably only about 10 of them will be spent mothering very small children. Another 10-15 will be spent mothering (and monitoring) bigger children, and after that the biggest role is over, DONE! I will spend many more years on this earth being a mother without children in my home than I will with children IN my home. I really have to try to enjoy it more. I think as I reflect on the likelihood that Daisy is my last baby, I am really coming to appreciate these little things and relish in them so I don't regret not doing so when these opportunities are gone.