Motherhood

Well, it's been awhile since I've been here. Like you probably know, I tend to create much more than write. Lately I've been creating one of my best works!

My son.

He's pretty cool. Except at 3 am...and again at 6.  Then he's only kinda cool.  And I'm usually too asleep to judge his coolness anyway.

Regardless, he's been the catapult to launch us into being a family of 4. I'm still getting used to trying to do errands with a toddler and an infant.

You learn all of these new strategies as a mom, like parking next to the cart corral, even if it's farther from the entrance. That way you can load the kids into the cart and then roll them into the store. It's much better than trying to carry the car seat, a toddler, and the diaper bag across the parking lot until you get to the carts inside. There's one thing I haven't figured out yet, though. If I'm grocery shopping with a toddler riding in the top of the cart and the car seat in the main part of the cart, where do I put the food?

Back to the point.

I'm a mom. Again.

Not only that, but I've started to think about all of the things us at-home moms do. It's hard work, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's great and wonderful and I wouldn't trade it for the world, but let's be honest. It's hard. Maybe it's harder for me than some of you other come-by-it-naturally moms, but for me, it's a job in itself just learning how to be a mom.

Motherhood is about raising your kids, yes, and I have two under the age of two. But it seems like in this culture of blogging and Facebooking it's more about raising your kids to beat out all of the other kids on the block in the world. You know what I'm talking about. The baby milestone charts aren't enough to keep you feeling under pressure to get your kid to perform, so you've got Susie Shoo over there whose kid isn't even one and can already speak in full sentences in 3 languages AND count to 10 while doing somersaults. You're kid is just average.

Then there's all of the do's and don'ts. "Breastfeed until they're 1." "No TV until they're 2." "No processed foods." "Cloth diapers only!"

Let's be real. That doesn't work for everyone.

There's a lot of pressure that goes with being a mom. But there's more to being a mom than just the kids part. There's the cooking, the cleaning, the grocery shopping, the laundry, and let's not forget the WIFE part. That one's important.

Then there's the other stuff that comes up like refinancing, managing insurance policies, changing trash companies and so forth

To top that all off some of us also have other responsibilities. For me, it's my photography business and the real estate investment company where I'm a managing partner.

Most of the time I feel like this guy.

I pretty much feel like that 24 hours a day, thanks to waking up to cries on the baby monitor at 3 am, even if my hubby is getting up to take care of those tears.

Somewhere at the end of all of that is the "ME" part. That part where I take some time to relax. Oh wait, but I have to work out!

:::breathe:::

But alas, that's just the 'normal' around here. The fact is that plates do fall. Floors don't get cleaned and laundry doesn't get put away. When it comes right down to it, my family is priority one. I do my best.

And for all of you new moms and dads out there, I give 3 pieces of advice:

#1. Trust your instincts

#2. Do what's right for your family

#3. Stop caring about what anyone else thinks about your decisions regarding #2

.peace and rest.