Surviving a Year with 3

I have been meaning to do a post about what I have learned in the one year I have mothered 3 children.

1. IT IS HARD!!!! Don't let anyone fool you!!! When I was pregnant, I heard things like "After having 2, 3 is no big deal." or "You have learned to split your attention between 2 so it will be easy to handle 3." WRONG!!!! This is just nonsense. Parenting 3 small children is hard. I thought going from 1 to 2 was difficult. We had lots of jealousy from Jillian. But then when Hadleigh came, we had jealousy from J and R.

2. There is a lot of chaos. There is always something going on. Someone is fighting over a toy, fighting over a chair, fighting over Mommy, fighting over a pillow, etc. There might be a shove, a kick, a poke, a pinch, a spit, a push, a pull of hair to fight over the prized object.

3. Keeping up with the laundry is a full time job!! I do at least 3 loads a day. I do at least 1 load of dishes a day.

4. Keeping up with everyone's socks, underwear and clothes is another full-time job. I know everybody laughs at my matching clothes but half of the reason I do it is because it is so much easier to track everyone's clothes (the other half is the cute factor)

5. I am not sure which is in worse need of attention right now - some couple time or my own personal time. It is very hard to carve out that much-needed "me" time and "me and Bryan" time.

6. Finances - The daycare situation was ridiculous. I wish Bryan and I had found a solution sooner about the daycare drain. I love our situation now but even that is only for a couple more weeks. At the beginning of April, B will start a new schedule working evening/nights. He will still be off to help with the kids during the day but we (well, mainly ME) will miss his help during the evening hours. BUT he will get most of the weekends off which he is really missing right now. We will see how this whole new situation works???

7. The constant need of something......the warm weather has started and the kids are wearing some new spring/summer clothes. I didn't forget that!!! Hadleigh got her new shoes. Luckily, I bought Jillian's summer shoes a little big last year so her shoes are still fitting. What did I forget??? Poor Rocco has outgrown all of his summer shoes. He is wearing his sandals and half his foot is falling off the back. He needs some summer shoes.

8. With all of the hard stuff, comes the really good stuff. I get so many I love yous and kisses during the day. I count my lucky stars all day that I have such sweet kids that seem to be growing up waaaaay too fast!!!

9. Taking pictures is impossibly hard, but they all seem to understand that we are going to sit there and take a lot so Mommy can be happy!!! Rocco and that silly finger!!!
Now he has a leaf and Hadleigh is really starting to fight wearing a bow!!!

Almost perfect!!!

When this whole Mommy thing got started, God blessed me with her. She is such a stereotypical firstborn daughter. She is soooooo smart, beautiful, very bossy, a little know-it-all, but has a heart of gold. I really couldn't imagine anything as better as this.

But then God threw me a curve ball and blessed me with him. LOOK at him in that bow-tie. I cannot tell you how sweet this boy is. He is my lover. He constantly wants to hug me or kiss me or cuddle with him. Now don't get me wrong - he is all boy and loves to cause mass destruction whereever he goes but then he'll give you a really big sorry and kiss all the worries away.

I kind of butchered his hair but he loves me anyways. He told me "Don't worry Mama. It will gow."

Now for this one.....I thought she would come out looking just like her sister. But as you can see, she looks very much like her brother. Most times she is very easy-going, but there can be a flash of a temper and flashes of stubborness. She cracks me up with those loooooooooong legs.

Parenting 3 is not for the faint of heart. BUT the rewards are so great that it makes the hard times feel less so. Actually, it makes me feel like a very lucky lady!!!

And really I know in my heart that this first year was probably the easiest one I am going to have!!! Such a scary thought!!!! The real "hard" years are still to come!!!