Parenting is hard work

I love being a mom and able to stay home with my boys every day.  I love my boys more than words can express.  But sometimes my days are hard.  Not just the daily demands of feeding, dressing, and playing with the boys.  The constant lack of sleep isn't as hard at some point these kids have to sleep.  (as a side note - joel only woke up once last night, Colin 4 times! The night before Colin slept all night - Joel was up every hour...I am ready for them to start sleeping better)  But the hardest part for me right now is the discipline. And since I'm with the kids all day its mainly me who is doing all the discipline. Learning right from wrong and also that there are consequences.  That part is hard and something we all have to learn. In fact I feel like I'm still learning it at times.   Discipline is an act of love and I know some parents don't do it or take the easy way out.  And its easy to see why - it would be easy to give in or ignore some things but it is a choice to discipline and we are sticking to it.  And Colin is such a good kid who rarely disobeys. He also doesn't melt down very often and we are actually learning to tell him to take a deep breath which when he does he will then calmly tell us what was bothering him. It has helped so much. But there are some days like today where everything seems to spiral and he tests and pushes.  Just to see where the boundaries lie I think and also to see if mommy really means what she says. And sometimes I feel like I'm doing a great job and other days I feel like a failure.  But at one point this afternoon I said "mommy isn't too happy with you right now"  and he stopped and ran into my arms sobbing, gave me a big hug and said "I'm always happy with you mommy!"  Thanks kid. you've just made my job much harder :) Since I still had to follow through with the discipline.  But even during the hard days I couldnt imagine any other place I would rather be. 

 

But it was a great day overall. Here are some pictures I got of the boys this morning. Joel crawled around on the grass and loved it. Colin made a big mud puddle in the garden and then proceeded to make a 'mud angel.'  guess if you can't have snow you do the next best thing.  I made him strip his clothes before he was allowed to come into the house.

 

doesn't he look just like Brent in this picture?

Joel enjoyed the climber a lot today. He thought he was such a big boy and kepy squealing the whole time. He kept trying to go down the slide face first - he's a dare devil. We have to keep our eyes on this one too. He is also learning "no" since he thinks its fun to crawl over to outlets and try to stick his hand in them (dont worry they are covered) Colin even let Joel ride on his caterpillar truck and steer it.  I can't wait for warmer weather when we can spend all day every day outside.  I think the boys are ready too!