Mother's of Small Children

You know most days as a mother your like this...

Yeah, you can handle anything.

Then there are days when you wonder what happened to you and how did you get there? How did you become somones parent? You used to be patient, fun, interesting and talented? Then you had small children.

You arrogently go into it thinking that you are an adult, you can handle anything. Then one day you look down and yourself wearing "mom" jeans, soft around the middle, massive split ends, and who knows what shape eye brows really should be. You are now the MOTHER OF SMALL CHILDREN! Gone are the days of reading a great book outside the bathroom, eating adult food for lunch, and trying new recipies for the fear of the dreaded phrase, " Eeeuuuuu, I don't like that!" The faint of heart need not apply when it comes to being a parent. You have to have guts of steel, literally because you children will lovingly give you EVERY virus they bring home.

So I compiled a true grit, no holds bar, list of what motherhood is REALLY like.

1. You will never seem to have a clean shirt, stains on everything, and just when you think you have made it out of the house with a clean shirt you enter a restuarant bathroom, for a rare date with hubby, and discover that some sort of cootie had made it's appearance.

2. At some point in your days of motherhood you will find your 2 year old's favorite blanket and bink laying on the dogs hairy bed in the garage.

3. One of your children will put some sort of foreign object in some hole on their bodies. My 7 year old put a rock in his ear and didn't tell us for 9 months, yes you just read 9 months. It wasn't until the skin in his ear canal started to grow around the rock and he couldn't stand the pain any longer that he tells you there is a rock in is year. So like every good parent we rush off to the ER for a $2,100.00 bill to have the rock removed. Had we been informed that is had already been in his ear for 3/4 of a year I would have saved myself alot of money and waited to go to the Pediatrician on Monday.

4. You will find pee in mysterious places. For instance, finding ziploc bags of urine amongst the stuffed animals, because your son "couldn't get to the bathroom fast enough." But, he had time to walk past the bathroom and into the kitchen to collect said ziploc, then walk past the bathroom a second time to his room and "quickly" pee in the bag.

5. You will find strange colored mold growing in your bathroom that you haven't been able to get too in 3 weeks, because just cooking dinner, folding laundry, doing dishes, and meeting every child's need will fill your time so completely that mold will be well down on the list.

6. You will put away approximatley 47,374 baskets full of toys, socks, books, bags, clothes, tissues, and leftoers.

7. If you have boys you will find socks in the oddest places of places, cupboards, flowerbeds, under trampolines, in the garden, under the shoe rack in your garage covered with garage cooties (you know the kind I am talking about).

8. It will be required upon the arrival of toddlerhood to purchase a Costco or Sam's Club membership for the need of never ending snacks and if there are not graham crackers, yogurt or string cheese in the house that means you have NO food.

9. Your obituary will read, "Surived by huband and 3 children, who are now drowning in 3, 489 loads of dirty laundry." Death by laundry is not a pretty way to go.

10. Several times in you motherhood career there will be crayon left in pockets so it stains your last somewhat decent white shirt. It will never appear in the dark load of laundry, it will rear it's ugly head only on your whites.

11. The ever dreaded question, "What's for dinner?" Always followed up by, "EEEEEWWWWWWW I don't like that, how many bites do I have to take?" Need I say more on the subject.

12. The bewitching hours are from 5:00-8:00 every evening. Mealtime chaos will take on a whole new meaning. You will never getting to eat a hot meal again, or you will not get to finish said meal, because someone will want more, or want to get down, which requires an army of stratigally placed wet papertowls to make sure your latest new shirt does not get a spill on it. It will be in vain.

13. You will have to share your food when there isn't enough while your husband gets nice and full. They won't want what Dad has on his plate, but yours like "just right."

14. You will feel the pressure to plan nutritious, gourmet (without kid complaint), inexpensive meals while having a meager budget to do so. You will secretly keep a box of Hamburger Helper in your pantry and swear on your kids life that you don't really feed them that fake food with the bad reputation.

15. You will discover the real reason why romance novels and chocolate were invented. Romance novels were created for mother's of small children, because there is NEVER any romance going on in your life or your home with small children. You are either interupted (heaven forbid) or too exhausted from the above mentioned list to do anything remotely romantic.

16. Date night will be so rare that your husband gives up and takes up watching UFC cage fighting.

17. You will pick up the house before you go to bed and sometime during the night little trolls will come through and make another mess. In the morning you swear you picked up, but it looks just the same.

18. You will see at least 826 trees pass your kitchen counter with all the papers kids will come home with from school. If not kept under some control your house will soon look like horders just from school papers.

19. When you complain to your mother for sympathy she just giggles and tells you to hang in there.

20 Finally, but not least, your kids will wrap their arms around your neck on Christmas morning and say it was the best Christmas ever and you are the best Mom over. Suddenly the above mentioned list melts away and you have strength to carry on for one more day.

"No other success can compensate for failure in the home. The poorest shack in which love prevails over a united family is of greater value to God and future humamity than any other riches. In such a home God can work miracles and will work miracles." -David O. McKay

And that is why we do what we do as mother's in this world. Hang in there all you mother's. We are all doing better than we think we are!