How I learned to take more things in stride.....

Sure when you're a mom you start taking alot more things in
stride as a right of passage. You get spit up on, tinkled on & you
just never know when you could have a glob of something on your
shirt or in your hair. When our kids were babies they were spotless.
If they got messy I wiped them off, changed their clothes or "spit
shined" them quickly when nobody was looking. Their little outfits
matched much of the time once we had Will.

Now that our son was vaccination injured & diagnosed with
Regressive Autism that's all gone out the window. My life used to
be much more Martha Stewart"ish than it is now. We had nice things
looking pretty set all around the house, framed photos, beautiful live
plants flourished and things were so organized. Our beds were made
& laundry all folded nicely in everyone's drawers.

Will is the anti-organizer. If I fold it, he unfolds it. If I make the
bed he messes it up over & over.....he loves that game. I find
Geotrax guys buried in my plants after I drag Will & our cat out
of them. There used to be a day when I would not let people in my
house if the dishes weren't done. At this point my feeling is love
me mess & all. I know it makes my mom & my sister uneasy when
they see it. My husband still remembers the Martha Stewart days
& believes in his heart they'll come back.

Martha does struggle to get back in the door for every holiday
but the anti-organizer arrives & then it gets interesting. LOL Will
likes to undecorate the Christmas tree as fast as we decorate it. I
think so far one of my favorite mommy moments with him is seeing
his chubby cheeks stuffed full of Christmas cookies and hands covered
in icing as he helped himself to a snack and danced to the Christmas
carols his sister loves to listen to year round.

The best part about learning to take things in stride is the
realization that my kids will only be little for such a short time.
They won't remember if the house was spotless, their hair neatly
brushed or the laundry Clorox clean; they'll remember if I played
with them. My daughter loves to have me tell her Princess tales & my
handsome son loves it when I crazy dance with him. The belly laughs
I hear from him as I spin him fast make all the sleepless nights &
worrying about him all worth it. Feeling my daughter's tiny hand in
mine as we walk along "finding nature" will warm my heart on all of
those evenings she's not speaking to me as a teenager.