This kid.......

has absolutely STOLEN my heart. I didn't plan on writing a mushy-gushy post, but after I saw this picture, I just had to. Motherhood.........there's really no way to sum it up in just a few words. There were a lot of things that I THOUGHT about motherhood when I was not a mother. When I was young, the majority of those things were the typical, "I'll never say that to my daughter when I have one" type of things. I'll never tell my kids that I hope they have a daughter who acts just like them when they grow up, I won't ground them because they said one more word after they were told not to say ONE MORE WORD and I will NEVER dress them in any rediculous outfits just because I think they are super cute. Nope, not me. When I became a teenager, my thoughts switched more along the line of, "If that kid screams one more time, I will rip my hair out" and "That mom just yelled at her kid and then hugged him afterwards--how is she not still mad at him??" I couldn't understand why my mom would always say, "Can I not get just a LITTLE privacy even when I'm in the BATHROOM?!?" I mean, it's not like I was IN the bathroom with her.....we were just trying to talk to her through the door :) There are so many things that unfortunately, just can't be understood until you are a mom. I realize now how much work motherhood is. I have sympathy instead of contempt for the mom at Wal-Mart whose kid is hiding in a rack of clothes and she is screaming at them if they don't hurry up and come out of hiding, she's going to leave them at Wal-Mart for the bad people to get them. I empathize more with the woman in pajamas at 2:00pm with a diaper bag on one arm and pushing a stroller with the other. I used to wonder why my mom never went out much and I would feel bad for her on days when  all of us kids had something to do and she was at home by herself. Ha! That thought actually makes me laugh out loud. I bet when we left, she was dancing around the house in her underwear, watching trashy TV shows that weren't kid friendly and shouting praise to the Lord for the few hours of peace and quiet she had to herself.

And while there are SOOOOO many things about being a mom that make me think, "Dear Lord, please just 10 minutes....that's all I need is 10 minutes alone and I'll be fine", there are that much many more things that make me want to cry with gratefulness at the end of the day. I look at my sleeping baby with his bottom lip all puckered out and his body curved in the shape of a C and I think, "What did I do that was so good I deserve to be this kid's mom?" He can cry and scream and throw a fit and even though I KNOW he's being a little bratty, as soon as the episode is done, we can go right back to being the happy mother-son duo we are :) It makes me feel SO good knowing that I am the one he wants when he is crying. I know how to get him to go to sleep in 5 minutes or less. I know which cry is his scared cry or his hurt cry or his hungry cry or his "someone-better-pay-attention-to-me-NOW" cry. I know that he'll startle at a loud noise but if you distract him really fast, he won't start crying. I know that when he's done eating, he is DONE eating--his lips close tight and there's no way on earth you're getting that spoon in his mouth. God has entrusted this little person that I will get to know like the back of my hand and that I will get to watch grow up into a man. What a priviledge. It breaks my heart to know that there are people who have children who don't want them. How is that possible?!? How can you grow something inside of you and not feel the kind of love that only comes from another human actually being made from a part of you? I feel like Tommy literally has a chunk of my heart that hurts when he hurts, laughs when he laughs and cries when he cries. Corny, but true. So thank you God, SO very much for giving me and Nick this little guy. Please help us to take care of him and to love him the way You would love us. Keep us sane in moments of chaos, keep a smile on our faces when there's not one on his and lead us where we need to take this boy to live the best life we can for You.