Sweet and Salty

Each day in parenting small children has the opportunity to be sweet, fantastically magical and make you feel incredibly fulfilled... and then there's today.. where the tears streaming down your face are salty.

The children ate cereal for dinner,

[lets get real...the cereal is mostly on the floor.]

But none the less, they ate dinner.

The kitchen you cleaned twice today is a wreck, the bathroom looks to have survived a CAT 5 hurricane and the living room is littered with blocks, veggie straws and 3+ articles of clothing. Each worn likely less than 20 minutes before being shed and abandoned with no regard to their mothers sanity.

Back to the tears.

You aren't crying over the spilt milk, or any of the chaos created by the small monsters people keep insisting belong to you. You're crying because yet again, you tried your best to be the "gentle" "attached" "attentive" definition of parenthood that you're constantly trying to achieve. Again, you yelled. Again,  you held your little monster close because its the only thing that calmed the storm inside your body, begging to boil over.

deep breath.

In an instant, my child is over any incident that has occurred. He immediately returns to trying to sweet talk me into watching a movie with him in bed, rather than going to bed as Ive been trying to convince him to do since 9 pm.....

take note it's now 11:45pm.

The baby has woken and now you have TWO little ones to put to sleep. So into Mama and Papa's room we go. Surrendering into the king sized bed nursing the 4 month old on one side, desperately hoping the toddler stays quiet and still as to not wake the baby. Soon they will both be asleep and I can get some rest.

JUST KIDDING,

did you forget about the science experiment waiting to happen in the kitchen?

And the American Ninja Warrior obstacle course of hazards going on throughout the rest of the house. The two loads of laundry that literally demand to be folded. Sleep. Yeah, maybe in 5 years. We will put that on our amazon wish list. Too bad theres no two day delivery for the eluded 8 hours of uninterupted sleep.

But then theres the magic. There is the sweet and the Salty. A sweet surrender right before you lose your ever loving mind. The lions slumber.

Gosh, they are cute. When did they get so BIG!?  RESIST THE URGE TO KISS ALL OVER THEM. MUST. NOT. WAKE. THEM.  

Suddenly, all of the stress from today's battle melts away.  

Being a mother seems like the best gift you've been given. 

Sweet.

Salty.

Motherhood.

-T