How I KNOW That THIS is the Best Time of My Life

Sure I am tired. Okay so actually I am beat, exhausted and pretty much done for. It's been a long haul of children not sleeping in this family. I have had a lot of dark, tired and sad days feeling sorry for myself. I have been hormonal, emotional, grumpy and crazy. I have grumbled and complained and cried many a sorry for myself tear. However I just want to tell myself and you ~ that I am living the best time of my life and I KNOW it. Sometimes I don't feel it or see it in front of me but I KNOW it. So many moments throughout these days and nights of mine I am overwhelmed with a feeling... that this is the best.
I remember childhood and there were many incredible defining moments, I remember being a teenager and school and how wonderful and horrible that was, I remember being a young adult and going into marriage...I remember it all...but now, NOW I am a mom. I have been a mom for a while. I am not a new mom or an old mom I am entering the middle. I have learned a lot and have been told a lot. I have seen a lot and experienced a lot. All these stages of life have been momentous but they were all about me in so many ways. This mom me is different. This having to be the life giver, the nourish and soul shaper, the nurturer and peace filler its just crazy right?
 I have done the nights where I slept in the hallway because everyone was puking and I had to go between three sick children and a sick husband holding back hair and murmuring comfort. I have cooked and cooked and cooked and had food thrown in my face, given hair cuts and grown gardens. I have thrown birthday parties and cut toe nails, I have taught bike riding and nursed teething babies. I have cleaned a lot of crayon off walls and have washed floors only to have juice spilled on them two minutes later. I have cleaned poo off walls and floors and beds and other things, I have seen wonder filled eyes over first moments and have experienced the first time my baby called me mama. I have had tiny arms hug me tight and not so tiny arms hug me tight. I have seen myself through my children's eyes in my most ugly and my most beautiful. I have felt on top of the world and at the bottom of the hole, the biggest failure and the best mom ever. I have listened to the cutest giggles and been alongside my child as they came out of anesthesia screaming in terror. I have held my little one while she cried for her birth mother and my heart shattered just a bit more, and I have held my boy while he screamed in unknown pain for hours. I have watched the joy daddy's home coming brings and the excitement that the smallest treasure brings. I have listened to whispered prayers and watched my little girl learn to do her hair and choose her own outfits. I have listened to my tiny baby hum and seen her eyes light up at the sight of me. I have seen my son conquer fear and I have felt the agony of hopelessness and the pain of the what ifs. I have remembered and been reminded that each child has so many gifts and that each one is a miracle.
 I have observed that after children grow up so much changes. They are grown. All these moments of exhaustion and overwhelm and poo; all the crying and fighting and screaming, all the hours of make believe and total freedom to play, the feeling of being the most beautiful girl in the world, the most amazing boy in the world, the strongest and the most coolest....being so incredibly confident... and the total dependence on ME...the need for just ME ~ I KNOW that one day it will all be different. Oh I know I will always be mom and be needed, but it will not be the SAME as it is right now.
 Tonight as I lay in my bed for a little breather before bed time bedlam, what whispered in my mind was that one day I would be able to do that whenever I wanted to and for how ever long I wanted to (resting in bed). The house would be quiet and still and clean, and the fridge would empty so slowly. The toilet would be flushed and the toilet paper roll more full then empty. The laundry hamper would not be filled at the end of the day and the floor might be worth washing. However I knew as I lay there that I dont want that for a very long time. Even though this is hard and it wrings me out empty it is the empty that I want. This is the life for me, this is the pouring out of me that I want. This is what will matter in the end, this is the lasting, the imparting, the impacting that I want to have. This is what I love and want to love more.
So I want to remember that for tomorrow and the next day and the next when I want to run screaming down the street or I tell my four year old that mom is not my name. I want to remember that when I simply can't clean another dish or wipe another bum and my shoulder is smeared with snot because I am a human snot rag. Being this mom to these children has been bewildering and has brought about soul excavating and the need to discover the meaning of love on new unimagined levels. My sanity hangs on a delicate thread so many days and yet the love that fills me and the joy that floods me is nothing I ever would have felt or experienced without the sacrifice. So thank you my children. You are doing in me what never would have been done without your coming.  I take every single day and every single moment and I surround it with all the thank you's my heart can utter. I hope I can make it through until you all decide that sleep is what keeps people alive. I hope I can make it through until you all are potty trained and can blow your own noses.However, I will keep on realizing more and more and keep on remembering as time goes on that these moments of snuggles and snacks, temper tantrums and reading time and every single energy filled crazy moment....is the absolute best time of my life and with that being said; off I go to nurse the very tired, teething baby  who only I can comfort:)