The truth

First, I am going to show you the kids cute Valentine's bathroom. I could tell you that every room in our house is decorated this cute. I could also tell you I did all of this in a few hours.

But I would be lying and this post is all about honesty. It took me days to print that file out, send it to Staples, get a frame and then actually get it on the wall. It took even more time to paint the wood pieces, then cut the names from vinyl on my Cricut and then actually get those on the wall. Seriously, people, like weeks. See, I, like many of you, read those blogs where the moms are all crafty and cook great things and always look super cute. I read them and want to be like them. But then I stop and KNOW they are only showing us one side of their lives. I know that alot of you think I am crafty or bake fun things and I do that- some of the time. But here is what I do MOST of the time:

I come into Jack's room to find he has taken everything he owns and put it on the top bunk

I come out of my room after feeding the baby and find that Jack and Madeline have taken everything they both own plus all the cushions in the house and piled them up outside my door

My bookcase looks like this at the end of the day

And most mornings I wake up (at 6am) to Jack having piled more stuff in Madeline's crib to help her climb out.

This is what I do MOST of the time. I clean up, pick up, vacuum up, empty dishwashers full of stuff, load laundry, unload laundry, fold laundry, put it away and start all over. I hold the baby so the toddler doesn't harm her. I build tents and forts and make more messes out of sheets, blankets and pillows. I go up and down the stairs a bazillion times and still can't fit into any of my clothes. I try to feign some sort of normalcy that reminds me of the days when I had control and cute shoes and necklaces without teethmarks and at least 15 minutes in the day to do something I wanted to do but those days are long gone. Everyone keeps telling me to "enjoy this time- it goes so fast." While I realize that, I think it would go faster if I got to sleep any longer than 4 hours at a time in the last three months. I love my kids. They are amazing. I laugh alot but I cry sometimes too because this motherhood thing is hard. Damn hard. And that friends, is the truth.