'Tis the Reason

I'm guessing you assume that I am talking about the 'reason for the season'. No... not today, but perhaps soon. I am talking about the reason my house is a mess.

It came to me like an epiphany. This is how the morning started:

I woke up with a bunch of motivation to 'get going'. Yea! Mornings are not my thing... so it took me a minute (okay an hour or so...) but by 8:00am I was up and running.

That is when I realized why the house is a disaster. Here is my quest to do laundry and the dishes. Two very basic, everyday chores that must be completed....or so you would hope.

I am dressed, ah.... now to grab the laundry basket in my room to take to the washer..."mom! Can I color on the computer?" No.... I pick up the basket and walk to the stairs.

(Screams from the girl's room) I run to check on them. Everyone is alive. I head back to take the dirty laundry downstairs. I actually get all the way to the laundry room when another child comes running in to say that the baby spit up all over. "I'll get it in a minute...." I casually say. But when they tell me it is up her noise, I decide to run to rescue the babe.

While I am upstairs I realize the babe has also exploded her morning diaper. So I change her. Oops! The diaper pail is overflowing. I go to put the baby in the living room to play and grab a trash bag.

I go into the kitchen to get a trash bag and realize I still haven't packed Alex his school lunch. I yell for him to bring me his lunchbox and unpack it.

I take the trash bag back to the baby's room and start to put it in the pail. The phone rings. It is my husband. He needs the number to (church/a friend/ the bank...). I put the trash bag down and head for the phone book. "Can I call you back?" I ask. The baby is being "moved" by her older sister and this is looking scary.

I scold the older sister for trying to move the baby and my son announces that his backpack is "missing."

Well... you get the point I hope. So, here I wake up with all this motivation and so far in the last hour these are my accomplishments:

Laundry is IN the laundry room, but not started.

I realized I have a lunch to make.

The baby is changed and rescued (twice).

The diaper pail has been emptied, but there is no new bag replaced. Good luck to the next diaper changer.

I am now on a hunt for a backpack - since school starts in 30 minutes.


So... an hour later my house still looks like crud, and some may argue it is even worse off.... At least I realized WHY it looks like this. I never get to finish a single blazing task!!


....Oh my goodness.... I still need to call my hubby back!!

four cutest things in the world

1: My six year old son playing Yahtzee with his dad and bragging that his numbers look like "grown-up writing".

2: The way my four month old is getting so big, yet still fits in my arms like a little living doll. She is s snuggler and so amazingly adorable.

3: The way my 2 year old demands a kiss and hug "in her bed" each night. You can kiss her in the livingroom, the hall - her own bedroom, but nothing counts with her unless you do it "in her bed" ie: sitting on her bed while she is tucked in.

4: The way my 4 year old daughter stares at herself for what seems like hours after putting her potato-head earrings on her own ears. She is definitely ALL girl.

Okay, those are just the cutest things today.... but what can I say, I'm in love with my fam!

My favorite place

I have a favorite place right now.

We all have favorite places in different times in our lives.
Throughout childhood I can remember different favorite places: playing Barbies in the basement next to my sister, Tickles (a Chucky Cheese meets Mr. Biggs kinds of place), digging in the sandbox all the way to China....etc.....

Right now, my favorite place of all is standing in our bedroom in front of our big round vanity mirror.
Not admiring myself, I might add..... but standing there with my two month old baby girl on my chest - looking at her. Trying so hard to burn that image of her little body into my memory's hard drive. Not ever wanting to forget her smell, her size, her snuggle, the way her arm is starting to cling to mine, or how her tiny fingers rest on my chest or grab onto my shirt. Photos are good, but a living memory is better.

Moms try hard to remember everything from those precious baby days, but when it is your last baby, and every day is the last day EVER you will EVER have such a small, sweet, precious life in your arms, all your own..... you try harder than before to never forget.

I will never again have a little baby of my own. I will never again have a limp little tiny scrunched up newborn. I will never again have a little one month old starting to hold their head up. I will never again.......

And this is why standing in front of the large vanity mirror with my baby girl on my chest is my favorite place to be. Our house is a disaster. Our room is a mess. The laundry is piled high. The dishes are dirty. But it all can wait - I'm staring at the beauty of this baby on my chest.