My kids are awesome. All day long I received homemade note after homemade note. In sacrament meeting I led the Primary in singing "The Dearest Names", and I a) loved watching Tyler, Hailey and Emma sing that for me, and b) I loved seeing all the Primary kids sing that for their moms. (Although they were all watching me because I had a poster in my hands with the words on it). I absolutely love kids and their total innocence, exuberance and sweetness. Even when T, H an E ask me two times EACH to go to the bathroom after the sacrament was passed. Oh, and I love my new weed wacker from Nathan. :) BUT, my Sunday nap was interrupted by Cherry the Stinking Loud Rooster cawing, (crowing, croaking? whatever they do) outside my bedroom window.
I found this on a friends blog. It is from Emma Bombeck who I love reading. Stay strong mothers of young children!:
"A young mother writes: "I know you've written before about the empty nest syndrome, that lonely period after the children are grown and gone. Right now I'm up to my eyeballs in laundry and muddy boots. The baby is teething; the kids are fighting. My husband just called and said to eat without him and I fell off my diet. Lay it on me again, will y,ou?"
OK. One of these days, you'll shout, "Why don't you kids grow up and act your age?" And they will. Or, "You guys get outside and find yourselves something to do... and don't slam the door!" And they won't.
You'll straighten up the boys' bedroom neat and tidy: bumper stickers discarded, bedspread tucked and smooth, toys displayed on the shelves. Hangers in the closet. Animals caged. And you'll say out loud, "Now I want it to stay this way." And it will.
You'll prepare a perfect dinner with a salad that hasn't been picked to death and a cake with no finger traces on the icing, and you'll say, "Now, there's a meal for company." And you'll eat it alone.
You'll say, "I want complete privacy on the phone. No dancing around. No demolition crews. Silence! Do you hear me?" And you'll have it.
No more plastic tablecloths stained with spaghetti. No more bedspreads to protect the sofa from damp bottoms. No more gates to stumble over at the top of the basement steps. No more clothespins under the sofa. No more playpens to arrange a room around.
No more anxious nights under a vaporizer tent. No more sand on the sheets or Popeye movies in the bathroom. No more iron-on patches, rubber bands for ponytails, tight boots or wet knotted shoestrings.
Imagine. A lipstick with a point on it. No baby-sitter for New Year's Eve. Washing only once a week. Seeing a steak that isn't ground. Having your teeth cleaned without a baby on your lap.
No PTA meetings. No more car pools. No blaring radios. No one washing her hair at 11 o'clock at night. Having your own roll of Scotch tape.
Think about it. No more Christmas presents out of toothpicks and library paste. No more sloppy oatmeal kisses. No more tooth fairy. No giggles in the dark. No knees to heal, no responsibility.
Only a voice crying, "Why don't you grow up?" and the silence echoing, "I did.
