The Other Days

I tend to blog about the sparkly moments in family life - birthday parties, rosy cheeked children, grins on the playground and overall bliss. But today? Today I'm going to record a little bit about the "other" days. They also happen around here with regularity and I would feel remiss in not giving them a bit of airspace too. When I'm old and grey and look back lovingly at having young children I want to remember the happy days and the days where I'm pretty certain if an entire pan of brownies were sitting in front of me right now I would eat them all. 

Every. Single. Last. Brownie.

You know ... days like today. 

The ones where I'm pretty certain I should change my name. Anything will do - as long as I don't hear "Mom? Mom? MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM,"  one more time. At least until at least tomorrow.


Days when I'm tired of little friends that cause more messes for me to deal with. Or come out of the bathroom declaring "Um, I think the toilet is exploding!" (true story)


Days when fruit snacks are both my best friend and worst enemy (Do you know how many can be asked for and consumed by 3 & 4 year olds? Or how many can manage to get spilled all over the garage floor?)

Days when I struggle being patient during diaper changes ... because we've hit the age when they are an EPIC battle. The type of battle that includes lots of indignant screaming, arm flapping and twisting as if his life depends on him escaping the evil wet wipes.


Days when I just don't know if I can make it until nap time ... let alone bed time with my sanity (somewhat) intact.

And the moms who manage to never yell? Yep, I'm not one of them. This is not a fact I'm proud of. But unfortunately it's a fact of life. I yell. Some days more than I want to.  We always talk about the situation after, in calm tones. But my kids have definitely heard me yell a time or two (possibly today alone). 

You might think I'm bad, or crazy. But I hope there is a force of of moms out there that think, "yep, sounds about right." If so, please feel free to band together with me and repeat "we can do this!" together. 

I'll bring the brownies.

It's the Little Things

Friday night we made calzones and rented Turbo for a family movie night. And it turned out to be one of those nights I hope I never forget. 

We spread out a blanket picnic-style on the floor of the basement and settled in to watch. Turbo is a cute movie about a snail who dreams about being in the Indy 500 - lots of race cars and hip hop music are involved. 

Jeff and I had so much fun just watching the kids watch the movie. Landon was so into it he stood up half the time ... and had to turn on his race car track and race cars in the middle of it. Any time music came on Liam started dancing in his high chair while still shoveling food in his mouth (his whole calzone, fruit and then a LOT of popcorn ... he's a bottomless pit!). 

We kept exchanging looks that said, "they are so cute!" and "aren't we lucky to have such sweet kids!" There are so many parenting moments that are wonderful, and some that aren't quite so wonderful, but in that moment the world was perfect. We were together and happy, and I wanted to freeze that moment in time. Unfortunately that isn't possible, so instead, I'll write it down and remember these beautiful, simple, wonderful moments with our two favorite little guys.