I read somewhere that the years of childhood fly by, but the minutes of a single day feel like they just stop.  I find that to be so true. There are days I stand in my bedroom in the morning thinking, “What am I going to do with them today.” I try to be a fun mom, a mom who plays games and reads books and plays out side and does crafts. We do all of those things. But there are days when I think I just can’t play one more game of trains and cars. I can’t do one more craft.

I love being home with my boys but it is exhausting. I spend my days wiping noses, wiping butts, doing laundry, doing dishes. It seems like the minute I get the kitchen cleaned up, someone is asking for something else to eat. The minute I get all the laundry washed and put away, someone has an accident. The minute I get the floor swept or mopped, something gets spilled. It’s never ending. Some days, I look at the clock and think, “My gosh, it’s only 8:45 in the morning!” Only to look at the clock an hour later and realize, it’s really only been 15 minutes. The days drag. The minutes crawl. But, the years do fly by. My baby, my youngest is going to be 4 in less than a month. How did that happen?

When Christopher was a newborn Jim and I took both boys out to lunch. As Jacob, who was just 19 months old, was running all over the restaurant, I held Christopher in my arms, trying to unpack a bottle, a jar of baby food, searching around in the diaper bag for Jacob’s spoon and then realizing Christopher needed a diaper change. I looked up at Jim and said, “I can’t wait for the day when we can just leave the house without a diaper bag, without having to make sure I have a bottle and baby food and special baby spoons and diapers. When we can just go to a restaurant, sit down, order food and everyone can feed themselves. Or get in the car and go anywhere and know we won’t have to turn around because we forgot something.”

My brother-in-law put it perfectly. He told us, “You are in the eye of the hurricane. Wait until they get to be about 3, when they are potty trained. It makes all the difference. Life does get easier.” I remember thinking we’d never get there but, that day came more quickly than I ever thought it could. Both of my boys can feed themselves. They can order just about anything on a menu and neither of them wears diapers anymore.

It does get easier. With each passing day they become more and more independent.  I do see a light at the end of the tunnel and I know it is not an oncoming train. As I said, the years do fly. And I want to cherish every moment of them while they are little. There will come a time when I might not be their favorite person, a time when they won’t both crawl up into my lap after a day of play. I realize this. And I know I made the right decision staying home with them. Much of the time I do enjoy them. But there are days that feel never ending.

I love watching my boys and seeing how much they behave like my husband and me.  One story my   sisters-in-law have told me about Jim was how he would push his belly out as far as he could because he knew it grossed them out but it also made them laugh. Christopher started doing that the other day. It was hilarious, made even funnier by the fact that he kept doing it and laughing because we were laughing. (At one point, he was laughing so hard his belly wasn’t pushed out at all but, he was so pleased with himself that Jim and I kept laughing anyway!)

Christopher is also very much like me in that he collects stuffed animals. They are like a part of him. He can’t go anywhere without at least one of his “friends.”  For my 10^th birthday, my mom took me shopping so I could spend my birthday money on whatever I wanted. I chose this hideous stuffed monkey. My mom tried to talk me out of it but I was persistent. I was going to have that ugly little monkey.When we got home, I dressed it up in a dress and he earned a place of honor on my bed. (Yes, I claimed it was a he but still insisted he wear a dress.) Like Christopher, I was also one of those kids that collected stuffed animals. I got them all situated just right before I went to bed each night. Then I would snuggle down in between them to go to sleep.

So, when I walk into Christopher’s room and find him stacking up all of his stuffed animals on his bed, insisting that they all be there, it makes me laugh. I was so very serious about my stuffed animals. I love seeing just how much like me Christopher is now. The difference is that he also insists on sleeping with a matchbox car. He chooses a different one every couple of days. He holds them in his chubby little hand while his 3 Pooh Bears are horseshoed around his head, all the other animals arranged nicely by his feet. It is so incredibly sweet to see.

My boys may be extremely rambunctious and they certainly keep me hopping. They fight, they bicker, they wrestle, they dump every toy out of the toy box before finding the right one and make a big mess. But, they also like to sit on my lap at night, reading stories or telling me about their day, Christopher twirling a finger in my hair, Jacob holding onto my hand. Walking into Christopher’s room after he’s asleep and seeing him all cuddled up with his animals makes me realize, yes, being a parent is exhausting at times. But, at the end of the day, I couldn’t imagine my life without them.

Lord, just help me remember that tomorrow when the chaos starts all over again.

My boys go to gymnastics every Wednesday and Thursday afternoon.  Jacob is home from school about 11:30. I give him a few minutes to play then we have lunch and then head to gymnastics.  To be on time, we need to leave our house by 12:45 at the latest. I start doing the potty break round up about 12:20. It takes me about 60 seconds for me to pee and wash my hands. It takes my boys about 20 minutes.

The potty break round up starts with me saying, “Ok, before we leave, everyone must use the potty.” We have 2 ½ bathrooms in our house. The boys then begin to argue over who is going to use which bathroom.  Who is going upstairs and who is staying downstairs and who is using the big blue bathroom and who is using the white bathroom (aka, Mommy’s bathroom).

Once we have established who is using which bathroom, the boys head upstairs. (Because, yes, the result is almost ALWAYS the same… Jacob uses the blue bathroom and Christopher uses the white bathroom… however, they still have the same discussion every single time it’s time for potty breaks… but I digress.)

As both boys are heading upstairs, each one is scrambling to be the first one up, which means they are pushing each other out of the way to get there. I don’t have enough gray hair, right? I get to stand there, hand on my chest, waiting for one to come tumbling back down. Once they are up, they then start the discussion again about who is heading where.  Decision made again, Jacob heads to the blue one, Christopher to the white. They then proceed to holler from room to room to each other about exactly what they are doing on the potty.  “I’m putting the seat up, Christopher!” “I’m pointing my peepee down Jacob so my pee goes in the potty!” And so on.

After they describe in detail how they went to the bathroom, the mad scramble for the step stool begins. We keep it in the main bathroom. One would think Christopher would catch on after all this time that he’s just not going to get to it first since he’s in the other bathroom.  I hear toilets flush and then Christopher’s feet scrambling down the hall as he’s yelling, “NO! I have to use the stool!”  During Christopher’s mad dash to the blue bathroom, I hear the step stool scrape across the bathroom floor, Jacob already giggling because he knows he’s won the race.

At this point, I head upstairs, and find both boys trying to stand together on the stool as they push each other’s hands out of the running water, resulting in water being splashed all over the bathroom counter and floor.   By now it’s usually 12:45. We still need to put on shoes.

The lesson here?  I need to start the mad potty dash much sooner.

My first blog! Ok, I decided for my first I should say a little more about myself. I am originally from Ohio and moved here about a year after my husband and I got married. We lived in DC until I get pregnant with my first baby. We bought a house in Maryland (they accepted the offer the day my son was born!) and have been here 5 years. I have 2 beautiful boys; Jacob is 5 1/2 and Christopher will be 4 in a couple of weeks. (They are almost 18 months apart to the day).

I became a stay-at-home mom after Jacob was diagnosed with Autism. We decided it would be best for him (and me and Christopher) for me to spend more time at home with him, helping him be all that he can be. It has made a world of difference. By the time he was 3 he started talking and he has made leaps and bounds ever since. (We have also had a team of wonderful therapists and teachers helping us but… more on that later, lest this become a 15 page first post!)

That’s the short version… but, I think that’s enough for now. I am not exactly sure how this works… I am just going to go about this whatever way works best for me. I might post a couple of times through the day and there may be some days I don’t post anything. (But, I love to share stories about my boys so I doubt that will happen often.)

Having said that, welcome to my blog! I hope I can make some of you smile along the way.