My Most Precious Gift

My heart is so heavy tonight.  I just put my cuddly, sick baby down to bed and I came downstairs with every intention to peer review papers, but instead I started thinking about how incredibly blessed and lucky I am.  Have you ever been full of so much joy, you don't think life could get anymore perfect?  That's how I feel lately every day.  I want to write down my wonderful feelings now before I forget, and so that when I'm having a bad day I can look back on this post to turn my day around.  So if you don't like gushy mommy post, you should probably stop reading.

Growing up I had a master plan that everyone knew about.  I wanted to be married by 20, and have a kid by 21.  I wanted 6 kids, 4 boys and twin girls.  I wanted to live in North Carolina in a white house with black shutters and a big wrap-around porch.  After my husband finished medical school, we would eventually make it back to Kansas and grow old together.  Well...None of that happened.. And I'm so grateful.  I got married at 21, had a baby boy at 22, live in Utah in a cute town home, my husband is a college graduate who works very hard at a great job, and I'll probably never make it to North Carolina (I'm still holding out for Kansas).  My master plan obviously hasn't gone the way I thought, but this life is so much better.

After hours of screaming- Parker would hold Kayd up to the TV and he would sometimes fall asleep

Guys.. I'm just going to say it, being a mom is hard!  Sometimes I look at my mom (had 8 kids) and my mother-in-law (6 kids) and I think they are crazy!  And I tell them that often. We all see those moms who look like naturals and love every minute of it (I just think they put on a show for social media), but I have to work hard to be a mother.  I really thought that right when I had my baby everything would fall into place.  I, to my humor now, thought my body would bounce back in a week, my baby would sleep all day and night, and that I would be ready to pop out another one a year later.  None of that happened... Not even close.  The first 6 months of Kayden's life I wanted to quit.  Kayden never slept.  Not at night and no naps during the day unless I fed him to sleep.  He was always so alert and never seemed like he needed sleep.  Also, those first 4 months Kayden screamed pretty much all day every day.  We tried everything and didn't know what was wrong with him.  I thought my husband was going to up and leave us and I had completely lost all sanity.  We both were so stressed and short tempered and all I thought all day was- why was I given this baby when I clearly don't know how to handle him?  I cried non-stop and felt like a failure.  Well we finally figured out some medical issues going on with Kayd (poor thing was just in pain all those months) and things started getting better, but then we had to go and slap a helmet on the poor lopsided head baby.  He had to wear it 23 hours a day, but he actually handled it like a champ.  Once those first 6 months were over everything in life became 100x better for all of us.

He pulled the helmet off pretty well if you ask me!

Besides those first 6 months being hard for the reasons above, it was hard for another reason.  Parker and I aren't huge baby nuts.  I'm not one to sit and hold other babies for hours and enjoy it and neither is Parker.  To us, babies are kind of boring.  They don't do anything.  So once Kayden started interacting, talking, smiling and playing, motherhood turned into what I've always dreamed of.  I can't even begin to describe how brilliant my son is.  He started crawling at 5 months and could do things 4-6 months earlier than others his age could  It blows everyones mind who sits and interacts with him.  I just love to sit back and watch him figure things out and see his little brain working.  He knows when I'm in need of a kiss, he melts his daddy's heart while running into his arms every day when he walks in from work, and he chases our dog around, which I think Teddy liked, most of the time.  He truly is the sweetest boy.

Kayden amazes me every day.  I can't believe my Heavenly Father has entrusted me with this little angle to raise and love and I thank him every day for this blessing.  I truly am the luckiest girl to have the cutest one and half year old, blonde headed, blue eyed, crazy little monster as mine forever.  That first year was so hard and I was defiantly tested.  I learned so much, gained a lot of patience, and learned to love in the hardest of situation.  Blessed I am.  And no I don't know when the next one is coming.  I just want to enjoy my time with my buddy one on one for a while before going through the baby phase again.

I'm here to say that it's okay for moms to complain every once in a while, to have bad days, to go have a girls night out or date night without feeling guilty.  I'm pretty much in sweats all day with dried snot wiped across my sleeves and nasty hair.  But you know what?  I love it.  I love knowing that my child needs me every minute of the day and that everything else in life can wait.  So next time you see me out in public, try no to think of me as a slob, but as a mother who would rather read books to her baby than curl her hair.  Every parent goes through hard things with their children.  My hard time (for now) was the baby stage.  I can't even imagine the sort of trials other moms are going through that I see.  We're all just trying our best.

And now after writing this- I want to go get Kayd out of crib and cuddle with him!  Gosh I love him so much!  

Alright... Enough procrastinating.. Back to papers..