Motherhood... it's cool!

Motherhood is a great thing. Now, I'll admit, there are days when I feel like packing it in, turning in my time card and my "Mothers' Club" membership card. These are the days when I haven't had enough sleep, or the twins have decided to color the carpet with their crayons, or my littlest one decides to projectile spit-up on my favorite shirt. These days do happen. But, even on those days, I'm so thankful that I have my babies. And, yes, they will always be my babies.

I always rolled my eyes at my mother who, even though I was a cool, know-it-all teen, still insisted on calling me her baby. Hell, I'm 35 and I'm still her baby. I finally understand why. These three are my babies. For those who know me, you know my kids' names and ages. For those who don't know, let's just call my twins Bubba and Miss-Miss and my little boy J-Man (I'm not ready to post their real names on this blog - so we'll go by their nicknames).

You see, I never thought I'd have children. Becoming a mother was on my life to-do list. "Yeah, sure, we're going to have kids," we would nonchalantly say, as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Let's see, go to college, get married, travel to Egypt, dive every ocean in the world, have children, yadda, yadda. Just another tick on the master list. Six-and-a-half years ago, the birth control was thrown away and we began our wild roller-coaster ride toward parenthood. Little did I know that I would be told I was infertile. My OB/GYN spat that word at me, on the fourth anniversary of my father's death, as if it had left a bad taste in his mouth. I sobbed. Five months later I walked into the office of my savior, the man who diagnosed me with PCOS and who would help us have our children. I re-learned how to eat, how to keep my insulin in check, how to inject myself with hormones, and how to stay sane (the most difficult part of the whole process). I vividly remember sitting on my steps after learning that yet another artificial insemination had failed. I was sobbing and apologizing to my mother for not giving her any grandchildren, then calling my Ty-man and telling him to divorce me and find someone who could give him immortality.

Many tears later, the miraculous happened and we welcomed our twins (boy and girl) into the world. Bubba is the spitting image of his Papa and Miss-Miss is all me. It's crazy, and scary, watching these two little mini-mes running around our once-silent home, making our lives so very full and wonderful.

And just one year after these great handfuls of life popped into our lives, my body figured out how to procreate without medical intervention. Who'd have thunk it? Nine months later, here came little J-Man, who turned out to be a mix of all of us! For two weeks, I panicked. How in the hell was I going to manage three kids under the age of two? But, I've figured it out, all five of us (damn, five!) are doing great, and despite those tiresome days, I wouldn't trade my life for anything. These kids are my breath, my heartbeats, my laughter, and my joy. My once neat and perfectly-dusted life is full of toys, mashed peas, and crumbled Cheerios. My four-person kitchen table has been replaced with a six-seater. I don't practice my dulcimer due to lack of time but who cares when you hear the opening strands of Little Bear instead?

I'm so happy to have chosen this path and instead of being my usual pessimist/ glass-half-empty self, I wanted to share this glimmer of my life. Yes, I can be happy. Yes, I can be complete.

P.S. I apologize for the above pictures! I just discovered my MacBook has a nifty little program called Photo Booth and that I have a built-in camera on my computer. FUN! We had to experiment!