Mush

I felt like today's post was too mushy for me.

I've been feeling pretty mushy lately for some reason. I think it's because my BABY is almost 2. And my OTHER BABY is graduating from elementary school.

And it hurts my heart.

But I'm not typically your MUSH kind of gal. Not even remotely.

So I thought I would take a moment and get real on you.

This morning? I found poop. Poop all over my house. Now, it's not unusual for Grayson to bring me his diaper and tell me he has pooped on the floor. I find the poop, and clean it and him up. That's mom life for you.

But today? I have absolutely NO CLUE where this poop has come from. My only guess is that he took off his diaper, did his business in three different spots, and then had Leah assist him in rediapering. In the whirlwind of packing Leah's lunch and getting her ready for school, then shooting out the door it was missed.

This comes after the day before yesterday. Grayson brought me his diaper, filled with poop. It was all over him, all over his shirt. I cleaned him up, got his shirt in the wash, and a clean diaper on his butt and then searched the house in the trial he had taken from his sister's room to the living room looking for casualties. I couldn't find a single one! That night, Mel came home and upon walking in the house immediately spotted poo. Apparently it had flung almost under our couch, just out of sight. But not out of smell. I smelled it ALL DAY LONG and couldn't for the life of me figure out where it was coming from!!

This week I'm done with the poop.

I am BLESSED

I have been blessed with FOUR healthy, beautiful, intelligent, loving, caring, sweet-as-can-be children. I have been blessed four times over! Sometimes when life is crazy, and we're running from appointment to appointment, to the grocery store, to gymnastics, back home where it seems we live in a whirlwind of chores and homework I forget to be thankful.

I forget to just stop. And say THANK YOU.

I never knew what a blessing motherhood would be. And sometimes, even though I certainly don't intend to, I know I take it for granted. On the days I'm going a million miles a minute I do, I do take things for granted. How well behaved they are as we whip through the stores. How most of the time they willingly help me at home with chores. How Joshua will play with Leah just to make her happy, and how Hailey's favorite thing to do is read to Grayson. These are all GIFTS that I too often forget to be thankful for.

Now at night, when I'm lying there, moments before sleep, and I say my final prayer for the day of course I give thanks for my kids, but it's all of the little things that add up, and while, like anyone, I don't have time to name EVERY single little thing I am thankful for, I know I could definitely work on not taking them for granted.

So today I am giving all of the little things their due. I am reminding myself that my kids ARE AWESOME. And that they're MINE. And I am so, so, so thankful. Today I will soak in every laugh, and every smile, and I will work on not shushing the loud moments, I will not just let my little ones crawl all over me, I will greet them with hugs and kisses and HOLD them on my lap.

And I will tell THEM thank you. And remind them, again, how very much I love them.

Time

I used to think having more children meant dividing my love. How could I ever love anyone as much as my Joshua? I thought having another child would mean splitting my heart in two. That my first born would have to share his love with his sibling. I was so wrong. My heart didn't instantly split in half, each side for each child, my heart GREW. In fact, my heart has grown 4 times over. 5 if you factor in the plunge I took when I feel deeply in love with my one and only.

One thing, I've learned, does NOT expand and grow. It is inevitably divided. Never stopping, not even pausing, forever running.

Time.

When I stop and really think about time, and how much has passed since first giving my heart and soul over to another being, I am almost overcome with pain. How did it go so quickly?! Even though while going through it I felt I was doing the best, and making the most of it, there's so much I would do differently now. There's so many times I wish I could go back to when Joshua fit so comfortably and cozy in my lap. He is so quickly outgrowing me that holding him is painful. Both physically and emotionally.

I just want it back.

I want him to always be my little baby boy but time is cruel and each day he grows more and more into a preteen. I see less and less of my boy and more and more of the future man he is becoming.

It has reminded me to cherish these days with Grayson. To baby him with all I have and have no regrets. And even in doing so I almost feel guilty. Do I cuddle Grayson more than I did Joshua? Most certainly not! But I cuddle him more than Joshua NOW. Who is to say Joshua doesn't want my cuddles? He hasn't said! Even if he is heavy, and boney, and can't comfortably fit into me like he once did, I vow to get more cuddles. Until I am denied them.

I didn't know that watching your babies grow up would be this hard. But it is. It is one of the most painful heart wrenching things to go through. Yet NOTHING has ever, or could ever, make me feel so proud. Watching our children grow is the very definition of bittersweet.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I have a name!

Welcome to my new name... MomoftheLivingDead.blogspot.com, or, for short, Zombie Mom.

Yay all around guys, yay, all the frick around.

What's in a name?!

I am having the HARDEST time coming up with a new blog name! Actually no. Let me rephrase that. I'm having the HARDEST time coming up with a new blog name that isn't already in use!

What's infuriating is that every variation of the name that I love have been used, and then abandoned. Wasted on a blog that is no more. There are some blogs that haven't been used since 2006. Just sitting there, lonely and forgotten for 7 years, taunting me with the perfect name which I long for.

Some have no posts what-so-ever.

They were created and left to collect virtual dust and cobwebs, never feeling the joy of a published blog.

I'm half-tempted to contact the blog owners and beg for their name. After all, THEY'RE not using it anymore, shouldn't I be able to?! I know, I know, I'm being super whiny. But COME ON. And of course I really have no room to talk. You wouldn't BELIEVE the cobwebs I had to clear away from my Blogger account. It's downright pitiful.

Needless to say, I'm cranky. So I feel my long-forgotten Cranky Raptor is in order.

Yup. That about sums up how I'm feeling.