A quote

From a lady whom I feel some kindred spiritness with although I've never met her.



Let me insert something I have been wanting to communicate here, just because:


I do NOT think i'm something special because I have five small children.
The NUMBER OF CHILDREN we are GIVEN is NOT UP TO US!
Whatever we are given, IF we are given, will be a challenge to us, as it is a different number than what we lived with before. One is more than zero. Two is different than three. You can't know what six is like, when four is your number. Whenever I hear "I feel like I'm going out of my mind and I only have one child!" I want to (and often do) respond with, "Don't diminish the demand! One or three or six or eight...children in any number challenge us in ways we never knew!". I know of several women who have one child who would test me in ways far deeper than my five put together are and I would not be handling the testing nearly as lovingly as they are. I genuinely believe that.
It is as unfair for a mother of one to diminish herself compared (oh that dirty little 'c' word!) to me as it would be to diminish my load compared to a mama of nine.
We are all challenged in our raising those little lives we were given, leaving them unscathed and being limited by our imperfect selves in the process.
(There. Thank you for letting me get that off my chest).



I would like to say I think she's hit the nail on the head. Smack dab in the center. And if I could write as good as her I would have tried to post that under my own steam. But, I didn't, I'm not. If you'ld like to read the rest of what she wrote including the disaster of nap time with a 2 year old and 2 - 1 year olds, head here. It makes for great reading. No matter if you've been there in years past or you're there right now or you're just really glad you haven't and aren't.

Ps. If you live in my town or you're familar with it you will appreciate Cody's comment when we went outside to meet the bus this afternoon. "Yook, Mama," as he pointed skyward, "dere's bwue up dere!" It seems like a long time since we've seen sunny skies. It hasn't even been but the amount of rain that's fallen between the two blue-sky points makes the distance seem 10x farther apart.