On Being a Mom

One of my best friends is pregnant with her first baby right now.  She lives in Dallas so she's not around us much.  She went to lunch with another friend of hers who has two kids the other day.  Afterwards we were talking and she said, "I got a glimpse into what my life is about to be like.  You can't see how exhausting it is from y'alls cute little pictures on facebook."

I've been thinking about that ever since.  My first thought was, that is so true!  Anybody who isn't a mom must think, "Oh aren't those kids so cute? Her life is all about fun times and dressing her kids up & posing for pictures."  But anybody who is a mom knows that isn't true.  We all know that nobody gets a picture of the 50 dirty diapers we change a week, or the snot dried on all our t-shirts, or the spit-out, floor-covered organic home-made baby food you spent so much time steaming and pureeing, or the  piles of laundry you can't seem to stay on top of, or the screaming toddler in her 3rd time-out in 2 hours,  the list could go on and on and on.

So then, if it's so awful and demanding and exhausting, why do people keep doing it?  Why do moms say it's the best thing ever?  Here's why I do it.  Here's why being a mom is the best thing I've ever done.

Nobody gets a picture of how it makes you feel when:

• Your 2 year old says, "Mommy, I love you."
• Your baby's eyes light up when you walk in her room to get her out of her crib in the mornings.
• After tantrums & loss of patience from parent & 2 year old, she finally learns how to pedal her tricycle around the driveway.
• After snot & crying & refusing to eat, your baby's stubborn teeth finally break through & she flashes that new, precious, toothy grin at you.
• Your child wants so much to be just like you that she runs to her room as fast as she can & drags out her play vacuum to follow behind you while you clean up her 20th mess of the day.
• Your baby crawls around you and pulls on your legs incessantly while you're cooking dinner because she wants nothing more than to be in your arms.
• After cleaning up numerous pee-pee accidents, your 2 year old finally announces on her own, "I have to go potty" and proceeds to complete the task all on her own.
• Both your babies wake up from their naps and spend the next 30 minutes snuggling with their momma.

Oh this list is endless, but you all get the picture.  Being a mom is way more work than I ever dreamed imaginable, but it is beyond rewarding.  It is delightful, amazing, fantastic, wonderful.......

And to think, God loves me even more than this.  Wow!