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Want to get thrown up on?

Want to get slapped in the face?

Want to listen to screaming until your head is about explode?

Want to get a few (hundred) nights of no sleep?

Want to then have to function the next day off of no sleep?

Want to try to control something uncontrollable?

Want to talk to someone who won't listen to you?

Want to clean up food from hair, bodies, and floors, over and over again, multiple times a day?

Want to wipe some poop off some butts?

Want to wipe some poop off some butts that are squirming away, rolling away, kicking away, screaming away while managing to get said poop all over you, the floor, the changing table, the walls, and more?

Want clean up some puke?

Want to clean up puke from bedding, the floor, your clothes, other smaller clothes, your hair, and give a bath to a screaming, kicking, someone?

Want to do it all again a half hour later?

Want to convince someone unconvinceable that they need sleep?

Want to rock, and rock, and rock an overly exhausted child to sleep because you don't know what else to do?

Want to try and put them down in their bed without waking them?

Want to feel an awesome cringing feeling when the moment you stand to set them down they start to stir?

Want to hear the screams start again when you finally set then down?

Want to hear those same screams behind closed doors for what seems like forever? 

Want to feel a great sense of loss at what to do when you finally give into those same screams?

Want to feel like your life is coming to it's slow painful death and that you'll never sleep again?

Want to feel like you need to be stern to not start any bad habits, and feel like you are the most unloving living thing at the exact same time?

Want to feel frustrated?

Want to try bribing and fail?

Want to try persuasion and fail?

Want to try giving time outs and fail?

Want to cuddling and fail?

Want to try literally climbing inside the crib with them to try and sleep together and fail?

Want to feel like poking out your eye balls is a better option than what is going on at the current moment?

Want to watch the night hours pass by so quickly and know morning is coming all too soon?

Become a parent! You get all of this and more! Better yet, become a parent of a toddler. Think infants are hard? Puhhhleeeseeee. 

*Written with the background noise of a screaming tired child, with heavy eyes, and with love at 4:00AM on just "one of those nights". 

#dislifedoe

I just need a little something more.

A lot has been on my mind lately. Bonnie recently hit the 6 month age mark and I've begun to feel stir crazy. I think a small apartment can do that to anyone. 

Before Bonnie was born, I felt so bored. Not a bored that I have nothing to do kind of bored, but a bored that I have many mundane things to do, over and over again. That feeling has returned.

Don't get me wrong, I love being a momma. I LOVE being a momma. On the good days I absolutely love it, and on the bad days I still really do love it.

I love waking up with my babies, eating with my babies, playing with my babies, going for walks with my babies... I love so many things about our days together...

HOWEVER sometimes at the end of a day, I look around my house at toys littering the ground, dishes in the sink, clothes needing to be folded... And feel like I got absolutely nothing done all day. 

There are weeks that pass quickly. We have doctors appointments, play dates, office hours, and other activities planned. But on those weeks where everyday fades into the next, feeling exactly the same as the last one, that's where I get bored. Bored of doing the same thing over and over. 

In those weeks I also feel tired. I know there are things I could plan, or create, to spice things up a little... But to be honest, I just don't have the energy! I feel like unless something like appointments or planned activities are already in place, it's difficult for me to have the motivation to want to add variation. Sounds backwards, I know.

So I go, day in and day out, getting the same things done, over and over again. Diapers changed, laundry loads switched, laundry piles folded, toys picked up, dishes washed, strollers pushed, groceries shopped for, mouths wiped, counters cleaned, floors mopped... On and on the list goes. And even though this list is long, at the end of these days, I feel so unproductive. 

I need more. And I'm not sure what that "more" should look like yet.

Should I get a second job? Start a hobby? Write a book?..

I find myself leaning towards another job. Just a very part-time job, a couple nights a week. This scares me a little, however it also excites me.

I think it might be the variation I need to escape from the mundane tasks of motherhood I find myself in. 

I imagine having a small job some type.. I would be able to get out of the house, without my kids. I would be able to interact with other adults and have regular conversations. I would be able to earn a bit of extra money. I would be able to come home, excited again to be back at home with my sweet family. I would be able to feel refreshed. 

I think it might be good. 

I hope these thoughts and feelings don't make me a bad mom. I want to be a good mom. If I could choose to be only one thing, I would, hands down, be a mom. I feel so blessed to have the opportunity to be a mom. 

But... I also want to be other things as well, at the same time. I'm naturally a busy person. It's in me to always be doing something. And while I was still figuring out how to take care of babies, my mind felt busy, so I felt busy.

But now, Bonnie reached that 6 month mark and I'm back to feeling bored and not busy the way I prefer to be- the way I am happy being. 

I just need a little something more.

How to spend a perfect Friday Night.

"Want to take a bath, Brody?" I ask, anticipating his usual response. "Noooo...." he replies, just as I had expected. "Want to help me give Bonnie a bath? Bonnie is going to take a bath." He looks at the two of us, and with a "Uh, yahhh," we head off to the bathroom. 

I undress both kids, fill up Bonnie's baby bath in the tub, and put Bonnie inside. I lift Brody into the tub and let the water fill up around Bonnie's baby bath. Bonnie is calm, while she watches Brody play in the water. Brody is so giggly in the water, splashing and pushing the limits to see how wet he can get me before I tell him it's enough. But it's bath time, so a little bit of wet clothes never hurt anyone, right? 

"Just on her toes, Brody. Just on her toes." I tell Brody as he fills up his special BYU bath cup and helps me rinse off Bonnie's sudsy little rolly body. She lays there, as calm as can be, listening to the sound of the water and of course, watching Brody. 

After Bonnie is rinsed, I lift her out and wrap her in her little pink towel. The kind with the pocket that covers her cute, bald, wet little head. Mmmm... The smell of a freshly bathed baby... I could die. I lay her on the ground in the bathroom and lather her with good smelling baby lotion. Now I really could die happy. She's relaxed. Brody is still content in the tub while I pull a onsie over Bonnie's head and get her into a fresh diaper. 

Bonnie smiles up at me while I snap up her onsie. Her body bends into a natural little ball on the floor as she reaches to play with her toes. I brush her fuzzy little head and feel how soft it is. It is, hands down, the softest thing in the entire world.

"Okay, Brody, we have to get your hair cleaned, can you help me?" Brody reaches his hand out as I squirt shampoo into it. "Rub it in your hair, baby." He rubs it in while I get the rest his body. Rinsing it out is always a time for Brody to be brave . When he sees me pull the water sprayer close to him, he turns around away from me and grasps the wall of the shower with his hands, bracing himself for what is about to come next. I ask him, "Brody, do you want to hold my hand?" He always does. His small hand grips mine tighter as the water hits his head and runs over his face. I rinse him off quickly and end with a, "Okay baby, we are all done! You did so good!" He turns around and his little, wet eyes slowly open and look at me. 

"Brody, are you ready to get out?" "Nooo..." (How did I know he was going to say that?) "Well, me and Bonnie are going to go play in your room, so do you want to cuddle, cuddle, cuddle? Or do you want to stay here?" With his arms reaching out of the tub, he replies with a "Uh, yah." 

I lift my big two year old out of the tub and dry him off with a fresh towel. I wrap him all up, and lift him so his head lays on my shoulder. He looks in the mirror at himself, all wrapped up in a towel and giggles. I guess he think he looks silly as we cuddle, cuddle, cuddle. 

Leaving Bonnie in the bathroom, playing contently with her freshly cleaned toes, we head off to Brody's bedroom, straight across the hall from the bathroom. On the changing table, I squirt lotion onto Brody's little tummy. He helps rub it in and anticipates my response of, "Brody!!!" when he sneaks his lotion covered fingers into his mouth. He giggles and I tickle him in return. As I snap a fresh diaper on him and get him dressed in clean pajamas, we go over his body parts one by one. "Where is your... shoulder?" "Good job, Brody!"... 

As I pull Brody's shirt over his head, he suddenly disappears! "Brody! Where are you?" Finally his shirts pulls all the way over, and I gasp, "Oh! There you are!!" What a relief. We giggle and I give him a kiss because he just the sweetest little boy I know. 

After retrieving smiley, perfect smelling Bonnie from the bathroom, she sits on my lap in the rocking chair, while Brody picks out a few book for us to read. Always included in his pile is, Mr. Brown Can Moo. Can You?. I'll be honest with you, I read this book reallyyyyy well. So well, and with such rhythm, that Brody dances the whole time we read it, every time. 

As we turn the pages, trying to avoid Bonnie's reaching hands attempting to eat the books, the three of us sit in the rocking chair, reading together. Just me and my babies...

... this is what I call a perfect Friday night.