These Are My Confessions: Mom Edition

My babies are almost a year old!  I have no idea where the past year has gone.  Time has a way of moving at warp speed.  I am truly trying to take everything in and really soak up the sweetness of every moment with my babies.

As I take some time to reflect on this past year and myself as a mother, I am not afraid to admit that motherhood has been far from what I expected.  It has been more amazing than I ever could have dreamed.  But it has also been so much more incredibly challenging than I imagined! 

I can still remember the kind of mom I thought I would be when I finally got pregnant with Archer and Lyla.  I was worried that I would be a little too controlling and hover a little too much over my babies.  I thought I would be hyper-organized and scheduled.  I thought I would make all their baby food and be obsessed with sanitizing everything they touched. 

Ha!  What a joke! 

Once Archer and Lyla made their arrival, everything I thought I would be as a mom seemed to fly out the window!  Of course I knew I would love them and keep them safe and make sure they felt secure.  But what I didn't know was how much freaking work and time and effort two infants take up! 

To help illustrate just how differently my parenting style has panned out, I will share a few confessions with you:

• Sometimes when I need a moment of peace and for no one to touch me, I throw a handful of cheerios on the living room floor.  It keeps Lyla, Archer, and Jazzy busy for a least five minutes.  

• I don't know any of the songs we sing at story time.  Archer and Lyla have a deep love for going to story time at our local library.  When we go, there are always several songs we sing (some of which we sing every single time) and I still don't know all the words.  I kind of just mouth the words and hope none of the other moms notice.  I keep meaning to google the lyrics to the songs, but I never seem to get around to it.  I do know the Tiny Turtle song we sing at swimming lessons, though!  I should get some sort of credit for knowing that song!  

• My underwear now comes above my belly button.  That's just how it is now.  (Sorry, Adam!)  

• When we are grocery shopping and one of them starts to get restless, I give them my car keys to chew on.  I know they are probably full of germs.  And I know there's a tiny battery in the remote that would be bad news if they somehow managed to get to and swallow.  But I would rather not get a bunch of stares (and glares) from all of the people in the grocery store when Lyla and/or Archer get bored of sitting in the shopping cart.  

• I've lost track of how many teeth they each have or how much they weigh.  When I'm at activities with other moms, conversations somehow turn to milestones.  I'm inevitably asked how many teeth they have or how much they weigh and I just make it up.  A new tooth in someone's mouth pops up, like, every other day.  And who has time to weigh their kids every day?

• I call the nurse line at our pediatrician's office at least once a week.  One of them always seems to have some sort of bump or rash or I work myself into a tizzy trying to decide exactly how much food they should be eating or how much water they should be drinking.  I'm sure the nurses play rock, paper, scissors to see who has to talk to me, yet again.  

• I let my kids crawl on the floor of a bowling alley.  If I had seen babies crawling on the floor of a bowling alley five years ago, I would be appalled.  But now that Lyla screams bloody murder because she hates being held for too long, I have loosened my bowling alley floor policy.  

• Archer somehow managed to make it all the way downstairs by himself without me knowing the other day.  Archer, Lyla and I were in Lyla's room.  I was trying to take out the clothes that are too small for them from the closet.  I guess the door hadn't fully latched shut and Archer got the door open.  Then he backed himself down the stairs.  I didn't realize it until I heard him loudly smacking his hands on the hardwood floor downstairs.  I ran out of Lylas' room, through the open door, and saw him grinning away at the bottom of the stairs.  Thank goodness we had been practicing how to back down the stairs!  That whole episode could have ended very differently!  

• I don't think my kids have ever eaten any of their food warmed up.  When we started solids, they always acted so starving that I didn't take the time to heat anything up in the microwave.  They even happily drink their bottles straight from the fridge!  They never seemed to mind and I am not going to do any more work than necessary in the kitchen.  One of these days I'll have to actually cook something for them.  I'm dreading that day.  

Motherhood isn't easy.  Most of the time I have no idea what I'm doing.  I just feel like I'm winging it most days.  But I do know I love my kids to pieces.  And given the sheer number of slobbery kisses and delighted smiles I get every day, I'm pretty sure they love me too.