kindergardeners....

"look what i am going to do, mom. are you watching?"

nora found my clothes and wanted to wear them to bed!!!

okay, so tomorrow i am supposed to talk to the kindergardener sunday school class at church about the work it takes to raise a baby... i have to bring james with me. first of all, let's talk about how fun it will be to have my 9 month old who will want to be crawling in a room with 30 5 year olds....

secondly, what do i tell them? i mean, what will they understand? if i tell them that i can't get my child to sleep in because i am tired and stayed up too late, they will just think, who would want to sleep in? or if i tell them about the days i work so hard to get both of my children to go down for a nap at the same time, so i can sleep or get something really important done, those are the days that my kids don't sleep at all, will they get that? or will they just say "we don't like to take naps either"?

how do you explain to a five year old that sometimes you can't wait to leave, but then when you do, you feel like you are missing half of yourself? that it's overwhelmingly exhausting trying to discipline and sometimes you don't want to because it's just more work, but if you don't, you are extremely inconsistent and then have even more to deal with later... that you have to plan meals so that your children don't starve, or end up eating things like a goldfish crackers for breakfast? or how about the budget and making sure you don't overspend, but that your kids have a variety of foods and ones they like? or that sometimes you just want to go buy an awesome pair of shoes or new make-up just because. or that you lay in bed wondering if your children are scarred for life because you yelled at them just before bed because they disobeyed, but now you can't even remember what they did, but probably deserved it, but you still feel bad and want to go kiss them but if you did, it might wake them up and then they would never get back to sleep and that would be an even worse night?

and if i just talk about the work, they don't get to hear about all the awesome benefits... when my two year old sits at breakfast and asks, "how was your run today, mom?". or for no reason comes up and kisses me. or says, "you are so beautiful, mom". or smiles at the sweetest thing. or when you find them in the morning, playing with their ariel doll and singing "look at this stuff, isn't it neat, wouldn't you think my collection's complete...". but more probably when she can say four different Bible verses and sing about twenty hymns all from memory... how do you explain that?

i wouldn't trade what i do for the life of me. i hope this didn't sound like complaining... just not sure what to say to these kindergardeners... i mean, do they get that you can't leave ANYTHING on the floor because this nine month old will put it in his mouth? and you have to make sure his sister doesn't love him to death, literally?

well, i'll let you know what i say tomorrow...