Being a Mom 101

Being a mom this fourth time around has made me really thankful for what I have and how I’ve changed and evolved as a Mom over the past 12 years.  It has also helped me to not sweat the small stuff (ok… those of you who know me are chuckling at this… So I’m not perfect at it, but I’m trying) and to enjoy the little things and little people in life.  Each milestone and everything they are going through right now is special to me.

I’ve been asked many times if I’m “done having kids”.  I’m not sure how to answer that because I love the kids I have and am never “done” having them in my life.  Do I wish to have more children?  Yes, always.  My kids are my greatest blessing in life and I can’t imagine my life without them.  The more the merrier.  I just hope my body can keep up with all of this fun!

Here’s a list of 101 things I wish I had known the first time around and am coming to know the fourth time around.  Some are funny (but real) and some are serious.  Please feel free to add any that you might have to the list by posting a comment at the end of this post.

Being a Mom 101

1. My body can create a person.  That’s amazing!

2. I’d rather snuggle with my sleeping baby than do just about anything else.

3. I sound just like my Mother did when I scold my children (even though I swore I would be different).

“All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his”.

-Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest

4. Covering up boy babies boy parts while changing their diaper is a REALLY good idea.

5. I will never get everything done that I want to in a day.

6. I need and appreciate my own mom more than I ever thought

7. My house is never “really” clean, and that’s ok.

8. Your own sleeping baby is just about the cutest thing you’ve ever seen… ever.  You’d sacrifice your own sleep just to watch him sleep a little longer.

“There was never a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him to sleep”

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

9. I won’t be a perfect mother.

10. I will never be able to use the bathroom without someone beating down the door and asking when I will be out.

11.  Somehow I will be able to listen and respond to all 4 kids talking to me at the same time.

12.  There’s almost nothing that compares to a Mother’s bond with her child and the comfort he feels when she is near.

“Don’t stand unmoving outside the door of a crying baby whose only desire is to touch you. Go to your baby. Go to your baby a million times. Demonstrate that people can be trusted, that the environment can be trusted, that we live in a benign universe.”

–  Peggy O’Mar

13. Whining needs a volume control.

14. Being a stay at home Mom is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

15. Being a working Mom is a lot harder than I thought it would be.

16. Being a work at home Mom is a lot harder than I though it would be.

“The phrase ‘working mother’ is redundant.”

-Jane Sellman

17. I secretly find myself rocking out to kids songs {loudly} when my children have left the car.  I won’t admit to it if anyone were to ask.

18.  My prayers are much more meaningful

19.  I lose track of the time, half of the time I don’t even know what month it is!

20.  I don’t know why I bother giving my kids names, I never call them the right one anyway.

21. Somehow my prayers have much more meaning when I am praying for my children’s well-being above my own.

“I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life.” 

-Abraham Lincoln

22. Criticize my child, and you will see my wrath.

23. Laundry is futile.

24. I’m convinced the alarm clock must be wrong every time it goes off.

25. As soon as I change my baby’s diaper, he will poop out.

26. My husband helps with all math homework.  My kids don’t even bother to ask me.

27. My child is the cutest child in existence

“Don’t ever tell the mother of a newborn that her baby’s smile is just gas.” 

-Jill Woodhu

28.  When my kids have a question, they will always ask me, even if my husband is also in the room (except if it’s about math).

29.  Holidays are much more fun

30.  I should record myself saying, “Shut the door” and nail it permanently to every exterior door in our house, never to be removed.

31.  I will never be a sound sleeper again.

32.  The phrase I love you is never used too much.

“Mother is a verb, not a noun.” 

 -Proverb

33.  Somehow you know exactly what to say when you child asks you, “Where do babies come from?” for the first time.

34.  That awkward moment when your child realizes you don’t know everything.

35.  You can cook dinner, hold the baby, unload the dishwasher, and talk on the phone all at the same time.

36.  Your neighbors see you in your pajamas for a week straight and don’t think a thing of it.

37.  You know your own baby’s cry and he knows your voice.

“How beautifully everything is arranged by Nature; as soon as a child enters the world, it finds a mother ready to take care of it.” 

-Jules Michelet

38. Babies get white tongues, and it’s nothing to worry about.

39. Your child will want to read the same book over and over until you and she both have it memorized.

40. After the kids go to bed, the good snacks come out.

41. Time outs should be for Mom’s too.

42. Nothing exemplifies intolerance more than a boy who wants to date your daughter.

It’s not easy being a mother.  If it were easy, fathers would do it. 

~From the television show The Golden Girls

43. I really do mean to exercise.

44.  I’d rather go through labor 100 times than be pregnant once.

45.  It’s fun to explore and see thing through a child’s innocent eyes.

46.  Putting on a swimsuit isn’t really that much fun anymore.

47.  God gave us children to teach us what love really means.

Because I feel that in the heavens above
The angels, whispering one to another,
Can find among their burning tears of love,
None so devotional as that of “Mother,”
Therefore, by that dear name I have long called you,
You who are more than mother unto me.
-Edgar Allan Poe.

48.  Getting anywhere on time is impossible.

49.  Strollers take up the whole trunk.

50.  When girl babies pee in the bathtub you can’t see it, therefore, you don’t know.  When boy babies pee in the bathtub, they can aim it just right so that you have to take a bath too.

51.  You don’t judge the Mom in line in front of you at the grocery store because she has chocolate in her teeth, because you can totally relate.

52. You can no longer fit in your high school clothes, but either can your husband, so they cancel each other out.

“The beauty of my body is not measured by the size of the clothes it can fit into, but by the stories that it tells. I have a belly and hips that say, “We grew a child in here,” and breasts that say, “We nourished life.” My hands, with bitten nails and a writer’s callus, say, “We create amazing things,”
-Sarah, from I Am Beautiful: A Celebration of Women in Their Own Words

53. Your kid is the smartest in the class.

54.  Kid stuff is really expensive.

55.  Kids will come running from any room in the house if you ask if they want a treat, but ask them to do their chores when they are sitting right next to you and they will claim they “didn’t hear you”.

56. There’s this weird competition thing that goes on between Mom’s.  I’m not sure what it is or why, but when you are a Mom, you’ll understand.

“Before becoming a mother I had a hundred theories on how to bring up children. Now I have seven children and only one theory: love them, especially when they least deserve to be loved.”
-Kate Samperi

57. God is in the details.

58. An uninterrupted shower is a luxury.

59. Pick your battles wisely.

60.  Your best blouse is never safe when there’s a baby around.

61.  Always choose the nap over work… always….

62.  Mother’s intuition is real.

“Women do not have to sacrifice personhood if they are mothers. They do not have to sacrifice motherhood in order to be persons. Liberation was meant to expand women’s opportunities, not to limit them. The self-esteem that has been found in new pursuits can also be found in mothering.”

—Elaine Heffner

63. You love your husband so much more every time you see him being a great father

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

– Author Unknown

64. Kids say really funny things, especially to your inlaws.

65. Enjoy every moment and don’t sweat the small stuff.

66.  Nesting is a strange phenomenon that only Moms or Moms to be can truly understand.  Warn your husband now!

67.  Infant carseats are heavier than the infant.

“Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.”

— Phyllis Diller

68. Alzheimers disease doesn’t seem all that impossible.  With everything you have going on, you can’t even remember your own kids’ names.

69. Your infant will pull your hair out every time you pick him up.

70.  You are infinitely more thankful for your own Mom.

-Abraham Lincoln Quote

71.  If there is something breakable in your house, your kids will break it.

72.  You love your kids more than anything.

73.  Your kid will throw up on you, poo on you, pee on you, and talk back to you and you will still love her.

“A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end a no responsibility at the other.”

– Ronald Reagan

74.  You talk in a different tone of voice to each kid.

75.  Amazon.com has me under their little finger because I prefer to get my merchandise under my front mat, than I do carting 4 children to Walmart.

76. You have to bring snacks and drinks where ever you go.

77.  Someone will ask, “Are we there yet” every 10 minutes when you travel anywhere as a family.

78.  Babies really do eat, sleep, spit up, and poop all day.

“People who say they sleep like babies usually don’t have them”.

– Leo J. Burke

79.  Libraries and Story Time at libraries are the greatest inventions for modern Moms.

80.  You have to say I’m sorry lots of times when you’re a Mom.

81.  Whenever you tell yourself you would never let your kid stand up in the shopping cart like the Mom in front of you in line, you turn your back for a second, and your kid launches himself out of the shopping cart and breaks a limb.  It’s something about Murphy.

82. You get really good at saying “uh huh” when your kids say anything to you.

“First you have to teach a child to talk, then you have to teach it to be quiet.”

– Prochnow

83.  There are no child carriers that don’t hurt your back.

84.  There is pain and then there is step on a Lego pain!

85.   Piano lessons pay off big time when your child fills your home with beautiful music for the first time.

“You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance.”

– Franklin P. Jones

86.   Finger paints are fun all over again.

87.  When you have a kindergartener, you learn that everything you need to know really did learn in kindergarten,

88.  When you become a Mom, you automatically know 2 languages, English, and Baby.

89.  You scream and jump up and down the first time your baby takes a step and everyone else just thinks your weird.

 “We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.”

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

90. Enjoy the little things.

91.  Don’t wish for them to grow up too fast,t hey do that on their own, enjoy every moment and every stage.

92.  Turn off the TV and listen to your kids.

93.  Even when you’re tired, listen to your kids when they want to talk.

94. Don’t be afraid to apologize to your kids.

95.  Model good behavior.  It’s pretty hard to teach your kids to do something you don’t do yourself.

“Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels.”

-Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

96.  Don’t waste your time on things that do not matter, spend it with your kids.

97.  Even though I’m exhausted and want to sleep more than anything, when my baby wakes up at 3am, I still love cuddling with him.

98.  I love it when sticky fingers reach up to hold my hand.

99.  I hesitate to wash the mirror on the back of my door because your adorable fingerprints are on it.

100.  Hearing you giggle with your brothers and sisters is the sweetest sound!

101.  I have never and will never regret choosing to have a family instead of wealth, fame, the perfect job, the ability to travel the world or anything else.  You are my world, my life, and everything I have ever wanted.

You are the trip I did not take;

You are the pearls I cannot buy;

You are my blue Italian lake;

You are my piece of foreign sky.

-Anne Campbell (taken from this LDS Grandma’s post.)