The Joys of Mommyhood.....

Some of you may think that my title is a sarcastic lead-in to a blog about getting pooped on at 4 a.m. followed by getting peed on during the diaper change or getting stuck in traffic while your 6-month old is screaming in the backseat. Nope. This is a serious blog about the joys of mommyhood. Though I will admit, some of the mishaps of mommyhood (like deciphering between a tired cry and a teething cry, becoming a spectacle in the mall when you didn't plan the timing just right and the baby is crying from hunger, sleepiness or pure boredom - the case with my son - or feeling guilty when you mix sour milk with his carrots the first time he tries them, turning him off to them forever!) are downright hilarioud just minutes after they occur. Seriously! You can pull him from his carseat after a 3-hour road trip to the Grand Canyon, stand in the cold only to look down and see your fingers just centimeters away from the biggest pile of poo creeping from the top of his diaper and smeared up his back. First, you stand there and think, "what am I supposed to do now?" And then you deal with it. What choice do you have but to figure it out? It's these challenges that become funny memories and are just part of the inevitably chaotic and messy situations that all mommy's must face.

I seem to have derailed from my point. Like I said, this is a serious blog about the joys of mommyhood. There are so many joys every single day, and I am loving each and every one of them. We just introduced Baby Boy to solid foods (like I said, our first experience with the added sour milk wasn't fun for him, and he hasn't liked carrots since), and it's making me realize that he's getting to be such a big boy. He's growing up. They say the years go fast, and man, they weren't lying. If the next six months go as fast as the first six, he'll be one before we know it, and walkin' and talking'...and then he'll be a really big boy!

I just love watching Baby Boy learn and grow. I remember watching him in the bathtub when I handed him his rubber cow-duck (yes, it's a rubber ducky dressed like a cow...it's a cow with a beak...never realized how strange that was til now) for the first time and he reached for it with slow, shaky hands and took it from my hands. Just watching him learn to use his hands was fascinating. When my cousin and his wife visted when Baby Boy was just three weeks old, they took a video of him, and his little hands were all over the place. He didn't know what to do with them or how to control them. I had forgotten that he was that small. I'm SO glad we have that video!

I love watching Baby Boy eat. Just watching him learn to use his mouth and hear his little lips smack the food is so precious to me. Believe it or not, it's even precious to me when he blows spit bubbles while eating and sprays food all over his high chair (and me) : ) I love watching him laugh when Cooper is around (I literally came walking down the hall the other morning to hear Baby Boy cracking up while bouncing in his bouncer...he was sitting there, by himself, looking at Cooper and belly laughing). I love the noises he makes in the morning (we call it "talking") when he's lying in his crib. He's so content just to lay there, testing his vocal chords, with no real urgency of being picked up. I love watching him bounce in his bouncer with a look of determination to bounce as high as possible. I love playing fetch with Cooper in the backyard while Baby Boy watches from his tiny blue Bumbo. I love how he laughs when I push him in his swing and how he laughs at me when I do silly things like kiss his cheeks and talk in funny voices. I could go on and on. The point here is that babies bring a whole new level of enjoyment to your life that I honestly didn't know existed before Baby Boy was born. While some of the joys of mommyhood are those icky, poopy, frustrating moments, they just add character to the rest of the moments you will treasure forever.
AndI am finding that those icky, poopy moments are also ones to treasure forever.