That Motherhood Research

Complete and total honesty here. When I was younger I didn't think much about what motherhood would be like. I knew I wanted to be a mom eventually. I knew there would be hard days. I knew it would be exhausting. I knew it would be fun. I knew I would love my kids. Turns out, every single on of those things is the biggest understatement ever.

I never knew how badly I wanted to be a mom, until we started trying and didn't get pregnant immediately. (Uh, I had spent my entire adult life trying to NOT get pregnant. Then we actually want to get pregnant and it doesn't happen at the first try? Was this some kind of sick joke?)

I had no idea that it would feel like the bad days are significantly outweighing the good days. This shiii is HARD! Like, holy crap, it's so hard! Why is it so hard? Shouldn't these yahoos come with a warning label? Mmhmm.

I had no idea how rewarding and fun it would be to raise someone who is half mine and half my favorite person's. How freaking cool is that? I never knew that I would send Matt text messages throughout the day with pictures of the kids doing something the exact way he does things (with the eye roll emoji, of course.) I never knew that I would be brought to tears by Kess sharing a toy with Manning without me asking. Or reading him a book in his room while I do the dishes. Who knew it would be so awesome to be a mom?

I knew I would love my kids. Sure! But I had zero, nada, zilch idea that I would love them way more than I love myself. Quite frankly motherhood has a way of making you not really love yourself at all - all in the name of those kids, right? I never knew that I would feel empty thinking about not having my kids. You know that feeling you get when you miss someone - like a hole in your chest? That's the feeling I get when I think about living my life without my kids. The worst.

I also had no idea that I would research more than I did in college to find answers to my parenting problems. Recent research consists of "Why won't my 15 month old sleep through the night?" "fever while teething?" "Can my cat give my toddler ringworm?" "Ringworm in toddlers." "ringworm contagious?"

Yep, you guessed it. Manning won't sleep & Kess got ringworm from our freaking cats... who are updated on their shots, too. What in the heck, you guys?! And this isn't even the whole point of this post - it's just to give you a little taste of the insanity of motherhood.

And let me tell you what... I LOVE BEING A MOM! Loooove it! I think I'm pretty dang good at it, too. But, again - not the point. The point is that when I'm knee deep in diapers, whining kids, teething, fevers, meltdowns, lunch on the floor, RINGWORM & all the snacks & shows that we can fit into one day - I'm still really happy to be a mom.

Lately I've been struggling to be a great mom and a great Kierra. You know the feeling, right? Where you want to grow as a person, but your tiny humans are essentially making that impossible.
Example: - working out for physical and mental health benefits. Real hard to get up before your kids for a sweat reset when said kids won't sleep through the night. I needs my sleeps to function. I really, really do. I can't grow as a person because I'm not sleeping. It's hard. It's so hard. I want to be a present, fit, spiritually fed mom/person. But my lack of sleep, focus, etc has me turning to social media/food/tv as an outlet or a way to "cope." That's NOT what I want at all.

Whenever I need a reminder about the importance of motherhood I think about returning to live with our Heavenly Parents again. I think about how They will hug me in my return and tell me about what a good job I did raising my kids. They will tell me that they know it was truly exhausting & sometimes heartbreaking. They will tell me how They know how I wracked my brain over sleep schedules, nutrition, fine motor skills, preschools etc. They will congratulate me for putting my kids' needs and my husbands' needs before mine own more often than not. They will tell me that MY JOB, my raising my kids was the most important job out of any other job I could have had on Earth.

I once told Matt (& he agrees with me - before you think I'm all stuck up) that my job was WAY more important than his. Sometimes I feel beneath Matt because I don't financially contribute in the way that he does. He has established a name for himself, he has a stellar career before 30 & I feel like the only name that I've created for myself is "Momomommmmmaaa."

But I had an epiphany that our Heavenly Parents will truly greet us with praise about how we raised our kids and not on how we built our worldly careers.

So for those of you who are googling solutions to your parenting woes - know this... You are such a great mom/dad. You truly care for your kids. I know it. You know it. They know it. Yes, it is hard when YOU are the center of your tiny humans' worlds. Really hard, but what you're doing is THE MOST important thing you could possibly be doing.