Loving the Mom Life

I love that I am able to spend so much time at home with my kiddos. Although my counseling practice takes me away from home a few nights a month, I still consider myself a stay-at-home mom. Daytime is a fun time to be home! If I were gone during the day I would miss all the action, drama, and adventures. I see the funny things like this:

• Simon keeps running around with a tiny purple horse from the baby's toy farm singing,"Neigh, neigh, neigh na neigh," to the tune of Daniels Tiger's Neighborhood theme song. He calls it his "cowboy horse."
• Grace tells everyone at the grocery store that she is a princess and asks them to look at her new shoes.

I spend half of dinner telling my husband about all the cute (or mischievous) things our kids did during the day. There are so many exciting memories or catchphrases that I want him to know about! Such as this:

• I fell asleep next to Grace on the floor while they were watching cartoons. I woke up to her kissing my cheek and saying, "Hi Mommy."
• Ruby smiles at me from across the room, then she hugs me before continuing to play with her toys.

Sure spending all these hours with the kids is trying at times. The occasional tantrums get old. The picky eating at meals gets old. By afternoon, I am ready for them to take naps! And I love my freedom during nap time. However, I consider myself lucky that I get to see all these precious moments throughout their day. I watch the kids solve problems together. I see them play together. I see their little personalities developing before my eyes.

I get to teach them lessons about love, sharing, forgiveness, apologizing, determination, perseverance, fun, and honesty. I get to build them up and encourage them. I enjoy telling them about how amazing their daddy is, and how excited he is to come home and play. We all really try to make family life an enjoyable life.

Now, I am aware that not every family lives in the same situation as my own. Each family is unique and different. Yet, I assert that looking for positive qualities in your family time helps to make the monotony exciting and enjoyable. In the future, I'm sure my kids will ask me questions about their childhood, and I hope I remember all their fun quirks. I imagine they'll love hearing stories then, as much as I love telling them now.

Simon flying in the rocket ship he made out of toys.