The Mom I Want To Be.

I have been at this mom thing for 5+ years, you would think by now I would have it mastered.  But I don't.  Honestly some days I feel like I am back at day one with Matthew, knowing nothing, trying to figure it all out.

At the end of so many days I wonder what more could I have done, did I spend too much time looking at my phone, was I short with Lilly, did I hold Joshua enough.  I always doubt my abilities of being a good mom.  Matt always says that is how I should know I am good.  Always wanting to be better for my children, never feeling like I am giving them enough.

I have wanted to be a mom my whole life.  Is it everything I dreamed it would be, no.  It is so much busier and hectic than I imagined.  Someone always needs something.  I just hope I am taking advantage of all the free moments we get to enjoy it.  Enjoy the random dance parties in the kitchen while making dinner, enjoy sitting at the baseball fields in the freezing cold watching Matthew play a game he loves, enjoy listening to Lilly read me book after book all day long, and enjoy the moments when Joshua is awake smiling sweetly at me 2am in the morning.  Not taking ANY of it for granted.

Most of all I hope one day my kids are proud of me.  Looking at me the way I look at my own mother.  Seeing the sacrifices and time I took to make their little childhoods as perfect as possible.  I hope my daughter grows up and wants to be a mommy, and wants to stay home to raise them, because that is what I did for her.  I hope my sons grow up to support their wives if staying home is what they chose to do.  I hope they look back with nothing but wonderful memories of this time.

I just need to remind myself is that all my kids what is for me to be me.  Not beat myself up over the things I don't do, embrace the things I do well.  I may not sit and play with my kids all day long, but I do let them go and play using their imaginations for hours in the afternoon, making gigantic messes of their rooms.  I may over schedule/obsess over mealtimes and bedtimes, but they have a routine that makes them feel secure, knowing everyday what to expect.  I am so lucky for the 3 greatest blessings in my life, and I know that they love me no matter what (even when Lilly tells me otherwise) and that I also have a wonderful supportive husband who thinks I am doing a great job.  And that is all that matters.