we survived

Usually when the kids are all in bed at night, I can take a deep breath.  However, this particular night was different.  This was the night before the first day of summer break and I could literally feel the anxiety.  I was nervous.  I was soooo nervous.  I was convinced my 7, 5 and 2 year olds plus my 4 month old were enough to do me in.  I hadn't yet conquered my fear of taking all four of them out by myself and the thought of alllll day long with alllll of them was enough to almost give me a legitimate panic attack.  I love my children more than words, but I was very nervous.  I prayed that night, and did my best to be prayerful each morning over the summer to have the help I needed to calm my nerves and handle the long days.

Well, today is September 12th and the boys have been back in school for a few weeks now.  We have returned to our normal routine and I am proud to say that we survived summer!  We did it!  Yes there were some rough days with boredom and fighting and probably waaay too much TV.  But there were good days, too, with slip 'n slides and snow cones and countless evenings at the pool as a family.  There were exciting moments when the boys learned to ride their bikes, Jack went on the "scary yellow slide" at the water park, and Sam learned how to swim.  The kids had a BLAST during their campout in grandma Janer's backyard complete with hotdogs, s'mores and star gazing.  We picked (and thoroughly enjoyed) fresh peaches and tomatoes from grandma Shelley's garden.  We may not have gone on any extravagant vacations but we overdosed on popsicles and spent almost every Saturday (because that's when Kurt was home) braving the slides as a family at Seven Peaks.  I read the first book in the "Unfortunate Events" series to the boys, and we would all sit outside on the front lawn and eat otter pops as we waited for Kurt to get home each night.  And of course we spent several days up at Grandma G's house swimming in her dreamy pool.  Most of all, we spent time just playing together as a family and - I never I thought I'd say this - the summer actually went by pretty darn fast.  Thank heavens for prayer, am I right?

A few months ago I came across the book, "The Art of Motherhood."  I normally don't have time to read books these days, but as soon as I started flipping through the pages I couldn't put it down and I finished the whole thing by that night.  The book is a compilation of essays written by various authors, all on the topic of motherhood.  One quote stood out to me so much it practically jumped off the page and smacked me right in the face.  It was from a woman who is more than thirty years into being a mother and who was imparting wisdom to a newer younger mother.  As someone who tends to be very hard on myself when it comes to feeling like I am an adequate mother, her words really spoke to me.

"If I could go back and begin motherhood with what I know now, I could save myself a great deal of stress and anxiety over wondering why the baby wouldn't stop crying or why I couldn't stop crying.  I could have let so many things roll off my back without scarcely giving them a second thought, knowing that in the grand scheme of a child's life, bad days - and even bad weeks or months - all get ironed out, and my sincere efforts to be a good mom really did work out okay in spite of all my shortcomings." -Anita Stansfield

Not only did those words help me get through the summer, but they are something I continually remind myself of on a daily basis.  It's okay if I'm not perfect or if I have bad days!  My life as a stay at home mom is not meant to be a carbon copy of anyone else's life.  Bam!  So awesome.

Hooray for a successful summer…hooray that it's now OVER (haha)…and hooray for these crazies who I love like crazy.

(PS…remember last summer? Yikes.  Sooo much better this time around)