Girl's night out!

Pillow Talk

Craig finally returned from his mountain lion hunt a few days ago. I hate it when he's gone. It feels so wrong to go to bed without him. Almost eerie. I try to wear myself out completely so that when I finally do hit the sack I fall asleep quickly. Sometimes it works, others it doesn't. I just miss my chatty man. We always have great plans to go to bed early but as soon as the lights go out... the verbiage begins. "Wasn't it cute when Hallie ...?" "I wish I could turn back time to when..." There is never a shortage of conversation until either he or I start having slurred speech and half-sentences. It's all over from there until the next night. But when he's gone it surprises me how much I REALLY miss it. I'll be the first to admit that sometimes we drive each other crazy. But isn't it nice to know that at the end of the day all you want is to be beside the one you love. Happy Valentine's my love.

"Real Person?"

I love being a mother; wouldn't trade it for a million dollars but some days it would feel nice to be a "real person" for the day... A woman without snot smeared across her shirt or a gummy bear stuck to the bottom of her sock. How would it feel to wake up, get straight to work doing whatever task I set my mind to achieve that day and do it without 20 interruptions per minute? Not to mention trying to have a shower without someone opening the door every 30 seconds to tell me what someone else took from them, spilled on the floor or wrote on the wall. By now everyone reading this is thinking what a horrible mom. That's okay...I'm just saying what we are all thinking sometimes. Parenting is hard! Is this REALLY what we signed up for?

In light of the recent economy slump, I've begun looking for a job. At first the search was exciting. The prospect of someone paying me money for whatever talent I may have sounded very appealing. I could get up in the morning, be that "real person" for a few hours then come home again. Like a split-identity or something, right? So it seemed until the actual applying, interviewing and phone-calls began...

Suddenly I was overwhelmed with what I will have to sacrifice if I go to work. All the walks on sunny afternoons. Staying in bed till 10 am watching cartoons with kids piled all over me. Sticky kisses and scraped knees. This is what I dreamed of doing my entire life and when I think of leaving it behind everyday it absolutely breaks my heart. With every one of these messy little stinkers in my house I have given up another little piece of myself but in doing so have gained so much more. I have learned to love, to feel and to dream what someday might hold for each of them.

So while I may be out in the work force shortly, I've learned an important lesson for now: Cherish it...Every second of it! Cherish untangling Barbie's hair from the Matchbox car wheels. Cherish untying the socks wrapped around the big dinosaurs to hold on the baby dinos. Cherish the laughs and the tears and the fact that I can be here for ALL of it today....because we never know what tomorrow brings.

This IS what I signed up for. The hardest, most exhausting, messiest, most emotionally draining position in the world! And the most priceless...Motherhood.