Before and After

Before I became a mom, if someone had told me about all the things that would happen to me after I became a mom, I really don't know if I would have still wanted to have kids.  

I mean when you look at it from an objective standpoint, it just doesn't sound too good.  Think about it.  

These have been my experiences as a mom so far: long, miserable pregnancy, swollen feet, heartburn, painful labor, painful childbirth (hey, those are just given), waking up repeatedly in the middle of the night, getting up way earlier than I would ever choose to since I am just going to stay at home anyway, cleaning up food spills, poo, vomit, dirt and various other things, painful breastfeeding, screaming toddlers, whining, children who run away at the park, and at home, children who kick other kids in the face, little boys who start fighting with each other almost as soon as they wake up, crying, arguing, demands which they expect to be met immediately even if I don't have the juice that they seem to so desperately need, refusal to play outside, break-downs because they have to stay inside, bath times where more water ends up on the floor than in the tub, mountains of laundry, a house that is never clean, and increasingly smaller amounts of time to myself.  I could probably go on, but I think you get the picture.   

I said earlier that if someone had told me all that before I became a mom, I might have second thoughts.  There's a good chance that in my youthful naiveté, I would have laughed it off and thought, "Oh it can't really be all that bad."  Well, it can be that bad.  And it can be worse.  

Now here is the mystery of it all.  After going through all of that and actually being a mom, if someone gave me a chance to go back and do it over, if I had a chance to change my mind and do something else instead of being a mom, you'd think I would jump at the chance.  But I wouldn't.  

I wouldn't trade those wonderfully wild little creatures that are my children for anything in the world.  Don't get me wrong, there are moments when I could just about give them away to passing stranger ("Take them!  Take them!  They're driving me insane!")  But when it's all said and done, I love them so fiercely and so much, I would never let them go.  It makes no sense.  But there you have it.  God gave them to me, and I want to keep them.  And I want more!  Because those kids have been the cause of some of the worst moments of my entire life, and they bring out the worst in me too.  But those kids are also the cause of the best moments of my life, and I know that God uses them to shape me into the woman He's made me to be.