Love them more than the laundry...

It is amazing to me how God uses my children to grow me in areas that are lacking...PATIENCE: I don't have much. I need more. God gave me children.
One thing that I DO know for sure is the fact that I don't know everything there is to know about raising children. Cana and Leah are so different in so many ways. Leah would wake up every morning around 7:30 and then would fall back asleep in my arms for at least another half an hour. Cana, on the other hand, wants to be UP at 6:00 every morning. I try, selfishly, to snuggle and get her back to sleep, but she will not have it. The morning starts with her playing with my fingers and eventually escalates into her making shrill shrieks that could wake the neighbors! Not shrieks of anger, mind you...She just likes to hear herself talk! So, in an effort to help her big sister sleep a little longer, I surrender and take her downstairs for breakfast. If her bottle/food is not ready in -2 seconds, she starts...She bangs on her highchair tray, throws her head back, and screams at the top of her lungs. She doesn't play around when it comes to food. I can totally relate!
(Can I be honest for a minute? One of my major mistakes with Leah is that I always felt like she was out to get me. That somehow, at just 9 months of age, she knew just what it took to really annoy me and she was determined to do it. Of course, this is completely ridiculous! I never thought that she might actually have a need that I wasn't meeting, whether it be hunger or just needing some affection.)
Cana needs her sleep. Neither of my kids were/are the type to fall asleep in the stroller while I shopped all day...Nope. My kids are the ones screaming, hanging halfway out of the stroller, while others look on in pity. This has been a hard lesson for me to learn. I have to fight all of my pre-baby urges to get out and shop. It is better for my children (and my sanity) if we just stay home.
Like most women, I often get frustrated by children who will not let me get ANYTHING done...Whether it is being right under my feet all day or ripping apart newly folded laundry. I lose sight of the reason I do what I do. Who am I folding that tiny laundry for? For me or for them? Thankfully, I have a gracious (and smart) husband who never asks what I have done all day!
What makes me successful as a mom? The fact that my house is pristine or that my laundry is folded perfectly in a drawer somewhere? No. Do my children know that they are loved and that they are the most important thing in my life at ANY given moment? Am I able to look back on my day, regardless of the meltdowns, and know that I was the best mom I could be? Being a mom is not a hobby, it is a calling. A calling to sacrifice. A calling to put the needs of others above your own. Being a mom doesn't always change a person, but it absolutely should.