I am really good at getting down on myself about things: my house isn't clean enough, my clothes don't fit right, Alex doesn't eat very well, it is really difficult to get Edison to sleep outside of his bed, etc. Well, I spent a few minutes to see what I was doing right. As I walked around our house, what I saw surprised me.
What if I never had another mess to clean up?
What if Alex never brought home another craft from nursery?
What if Edison stopped covering everything with spit up and having blowouts? (Wouldn't mind that, I guess.)
What if Alex stopped pushing back all of the books on the bookshelves?
How much harder would it be to nurse without that extra roll of fat to prop Edison on?
My kids are the most beautiful thing I have ever had. My life is beautiful because of my children.
We can't second guess ourselves. My daughter eats tons of jumk food, goes to bed at 9 pm, and is saucy to high heaven. I'm not doing a lot of things the way I was sure I was going to. But my solace is that your children follow example more than our hounding. So I show her how I love to eat vegetables and that I love sleep and that we need to do and say nice things to everyone.
ReplyDeleteAnd you know what? I'm kind of okay being a laid-back mediocre mother. :)
Amen, sista. Children sometimes make you feel like you're going crazy, but all the little things (and sometimes big things) make it so worth it. Your kids are so cute. That big grin on Alex's face is darling. What a handsome, little man.
ReplyDeleteYup~ It is ALL so worth it!!!!
ReplyDeleteI love this. I was having these same kinds of thoughts this week, and I listened to Pres. Monson's talk about "finding joy in the journey" and he said something like "the fingerprints and piles of laundry will be gone all too soon" and it got me thinking, I may feel down sometimes or bored with the same old thing, but I really don't want to look back on this time and only remember how hard I was on myself or that my house was always a mess. I want to think about how when my kids were little, I tried to enjoy it and be happy no matter what was going on. Thanks for being a good example of that!
ReplyDeleteI found your blog! We have that exact same swing!
ReplyDelete"Sometimes" I wish I had a bunch of little bodies still bouncing around my house.
ReplyDeleteThis is a beautiful post, Emily! You are a perfect example of embracing motherhood as a noble work and calling. Plus your children are absolutely stinkin' adorable. They will be so thankful you kept such a diligent and wonderful record of their early years!! Thank you for your thoughts and words and pictures! You are so inspiring!
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