Surviving

I was browsing blogs several days ago and there was a phrase or idea on one of them that has given me pause to think and reflect. I'm not sure now what blog it was, but the premise of the idea was that when you have small children (preschool) and a lot of them close together, some days the best you can do is survive. I laughed when I read it and totally identifed. However, over the weekend I've been thinking about that over and over and thought I needed to revisit it. And where better to ramble about my thoughts than here? Often times when I am forced to put something down on paper or articulate it to a person I become much more clear about my feelings and ideas.

As a mom of three small kids myself, I agree that the best you can do some days is survive. But those are bad days, and I hope to only have them few and far between. The more I think about this, the more I think about how impressionable these young lives are, and all that we do shapes their personalities and how responsible I am for how they turn out. I don't want them to just survive, I want them to thrive.

I guess this is just me, feeling really convicted about how I handle the boys and what we do in the evenings. Tim's been working a lot lately (and busy with the musical) and hasn't been around much so that has also made me a lot more aware of how I handle the boys since it's just me and them. I am very passionate about wanting to make happy memories with them. I mean, after all, this is their childhood, these are the things they will always look back on and be the "good ole days" and I just want to make sure we get the good in there--and we're not just surviving until they are all older and more self-sufficient.

But again back to having the multiple children under 5 brings you to the difficulty factor. For instance, we are planning to string popcorn to put on the little tree in the boys bedroom, but I'm sure Simon will be in the way and wanting to choke on popcorn, so I'm not sure how we'll handle that. I have a hard time incorporating all of the kids sometimes since they are at such different skill levels-but that is absolutely no excuse for not doing the things memories are made of. That is part of why Noah isn't fully potty trained yet, I get distracted and forget to take potty breaks, but I've been doing much better the last week or so and Noah is doing super too-we're almost ready to break out the real underwear (again).

I guess being a mom is a total work in process, which I know, but sometimes I need the reminder that I can't be static. I get the mom part down and then I have another kid and need to learn to handle the mom thing with one more kid. It's like a marriage, you always have to be going somewhere, you can't sit still or you'll be drifting apart and going backwards.

So I guess that's it, I just need to keep evolving as a Mom as my kids grow and change so I can not only keep up, but maybe stay one step ahead to lay those good memories out there for them to go through. It's hard work to be a good mom! And some days I am happy to have made it to bedtime....