on having 4 kids

I interrupt my regularly scheduled post to bring you words from the heart...

I often dream up blog posts in my mind while I nurse Violet in the dark on our bed in the wee hours of the morning.  I feel like God  frequently lays on my heart to be vulnerable, to share my insecurities, downfalls, struggles, etc.  We all have them and sometimes I fight sharing them wondering what someone might think.  But more often, He wins and I share my heart because what do I really have to lose?  It only actually matters how He feels about me so I am gonna roll with that...

Having four little kids is harder than I could have imagined.  Being a mother is all I ever wanted to be.  It was my dream and I am living it.  There is not a day that goes by, even the toughest of days, that I don't thank God for allowing me to be a mother and making my dreams come true.  This is why it is so hard for me to admit that I am not so great at it.

So if I am living my dream with an amazing husband and four awesome kids that I get to stay home with each day, what is the problem?  I mean, seriously, being a wife and mother is what I feel I was made for so why am I not stinkin' amazing at it?

In my dreams as a kid, I imagined precious tea parties with my little girls, sweet & calm bedtimes where we read books & cuddled to our heart's content, meaningful conversations during our wonderfully nutritious dinner, and so many other "perfect"sweet moments as a family.  But you become a parent for real and realize the truth.  It is hard.  It is so, so hard.  These things do happen, just not as often as I would like them to.

When one goes down for a nap, another wakes up.  When one gets well, another gets sick.  When one finally comes out of a rough patch, another enters into one.  Someone always seems to be waking up in the middle of the night.  You get the energy to do something exciting and fun with them and then they aren't actually excited and nobody ends up having fun.  When one needs to go to the doctor, you drag all of them out and when you finally make it through that, you still have to go pick up a prescription for a tired, crying, ear infected child while the baby wants to nurse and the two year old is losing it.  There is never an end to the madness.  It is so easy to lose perspective in the midst of it all and begin to feel sorry for myself.

But this is what I signed up for.  We chose to have these babies and are so incredibly blessed that we asked for them and received these four precious gifts straight from God.

When it was just me and Avery, I felt like I had it all together and was very confident in my mothering abilities.  Now since baby Violet came along, I have been more down on myself and my mothering skills than ever before.  I have been struggling.  Why is that?  I always try to find a reason for it.  Is it the season of winter that has got me down?  Is it the fact that we rarely leave the house because it is easier to stay home?  Is it because I have never had a baby and one in school at the same time?  Is it because Violet cries a lot and stopped sleeping through the night?  Is it because we don't live close to family? Is it because Violet hasn't really taken a bottle and I feel a bit trapped?  Is it because the oldest is only 6 and still needy?  Or is it simply because having four kids can be quite overwhelming?

I am not sure what it is.

But I do know that I am always thinking of ways to show grace to our children.  What I have neglected to do is give myself some grace.  I need to believe Tyson when he tells me I am "the best mommy that ever lived". We can be our own worst enemy when we start getting down on ourselves, when we don't allow ourselves to be human, when we don't let God's grace flood over our own mistakes.

Life with little ones cannot be perfect.  It is supposed to be crazy.  They are trying to figure out this life just like we are.  Everyone will make mistakes, some bigger than others, but God's grace will certainly cover them all.