An Open Letter To My Children...

Dear Ayris, Asher, Adler and whoever else we might add in the future,

Perhaps one of the saddest things for me as your mother, is the idea that you'll never know everything I've done for you.  It's easy to love the daddies...daddies are FUN.  They can become a horse at the drop of a hat...they give moon rides and play video games...they're ready and willing to get you all riled up even when mommy has had enough noise for one day..all in all, they're super cool, those daddies...and by no means is this a competition because your father is a good father and he loves you all like crazy BUT us moms...we work behind the scenes...before going to bed tonight, I went out and checked on you Adler...I took off the heavy blanket and traded it out for a lighter one because I didn't want you to get too hot...and before I even put you to bed, I switched you from your long sleeved shirt and pants to a onesie because I know that you sweat at night easily...which also prompted me to buy a lightweight cotton swaddling blanket early on...you know, so I could make you as comfortable as possible during the nighttime.  And did you know that I have separate diapers for daytime and nighttime?  I have Huggies Pure and Natural for the nighttime because they are the softest diaper I can find and if you have to stay in a diaper for longer than 2 hours at a time, I want it to be the best.  Did you also know that when you're old enough, I'm going to put some down bedding in between your crib mattress and your bedsheet so I can go to sleep at night knowing that you hopefully will feel like you truly are sleeping on a cloud.  Also, I have everything measured out each night so you don't have to wait any longer than you have to if you wake up hungry.

And Ayris and Asher, how would you ever know that every night before going to bed myself, I check on you one last time...pulling covers up over you and rearranging pillows underneath your heads after you've fallen asleep because I don't want you to wake up with a sore neck... or that it hurt me even more than it did you when I had to stop the pacifier at age three (Ayris) or when I finally took away the bottles (Asher)...and that when you were babies I cried right along with you when you got shots...or the anguish I felt when you dropped a rock on your foot and I wasn't able to stop that from happening...(Ayris) or how scared I was when you ended up in the hospital with your 105.6 temp (Asher)...this list goes on and on,

And the thing is...we moms will continue to do little things no matter how old you get...things that you probably will never even notice...like buying a pink notepad to write your school lunch notes on because even though you're 15 now and could probably care less about the color of paper it's written on, pink was your favorite color and it was a big deal when you were 4. Or making sure that there's 5 bottles of ranch on reserve because apparently it's practically its own food group as far as you guys are concerned.



You'll never know how many trips were made to and from a million different stores trying to get my hands on the latest and greatest for Christmas or Birthdays...all the times I suffered through the SAME SONG 1,000 times before you found another song that we then played to its death...all the nights I laid in bed praying that God would/will bless you with a long and healthy life and all of the nights I worried about your future and how others are treating you in life when I can't be there.  All the times I was *this close* to throwing my hands up in the air and saying "I give up!...I can't take it anymore!" but deciding that I had to hang in there because I knew and always will know, that no one can do it better than a mom.  There is never going to be anyone like your mother...and that may sound like high praise for oneself but in actuality, it's high praise for you my little ones, because YOU are the ones who have made me who I am today and you are the ones I do this all for...credit or no credit...I just thought I should put it all in writing so when you're teenagers and you're all hooting and hollering about how much I suck, you can look back on this and understand *hopefully* that even though I'm being hard on you or you're not getting your way, I've been here for you all along...I'll be here for you always and I've been loving you since the day I found out I was pregnant.

Love,
Your most awesome mama...
(Who, I hope you always love "all the way up to heaven and back.")

I just want to reiterate one last time that this is nothing against Chris or the dads out there, because they play a vital role too...but like I said above...it's easy to love the daddies because their love is more easily viewed through the eyes of children...