feeling like a mom

There have been many days in the first few years of motherhood that I looked at my kids, my family, my life and thought, "How can I be a mom to two boys already?" It just didn't seem to fit. It was too soon. It was too much. Two kids! That seems to have all sunk in and it just feels right.

Jaden is 4 and 3/4 and Clay is 3 and they are so much a part of my life that it would be very difficult to imagine life without them. It is getting harder and harder to remember what life was like before kids. I know that marriage was easier then and that seems to be the biggest difference now. There is less time to do things that I like and there is less time to do things that Bryan and I like to do together. There is less time for church ministry and less time to watch movies. There is less time for clothes shopping and more time for grocery shopping.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about how comfortable I feel with this mothering thing. It probably has something to do with watching my 2 nieces more lately. My sister-in-law, Chrystine, is in grad school getting her masters in social work (so proud of her for doing this). I really want to support Kirk and Chrystine over the next difficult year of their lives. I am happy to take care of the girls. Four kids can be a lot sometimes and it sure make me feel like a mom. I rarely am at home when I take care of the boys all day. I enjoy getting out to do things with them but this is much harder and not worth the effort when there are 4 kids involved. I have had to be creative in coming up with things for the kids to do. I feel like I have been pretty successful with it all but it sure makes me feel like a mom. There is no denying it.

Today we played with blocks, cars and ramps, made art projects, used masking tape all over the house (created an exercise area, a football field, diagonal lines, fort), created with pipe cleaners, played with Cars movie toys on the masking tape Nascar race track on our carpet, read books and cleaned up a hundred times. I also made two snacks and 3 meals today. I did 2 loads of laundry, checked my home and work email, talked with Bryan and took a nap! Wow, that was quite a mothering day! Time for a loooong nap.

One of the favorite activities when the 4 kids are together is building forts. I love it; probably that engineering side of me. We have used couches, cushions, chairs, pillows, blankets, sheets, tape, chip clips, laundry baskets and moved lots of furniture. This was one of my favorite activities when I was little. My mom always let us create forts and I had many fun times in them with my brother, Kirk.