But then we started having babies. Now all of my grey matter belongs to these tiny humans.

Rapid fire of questions from Zeke this morning: “Mom, if all the people in the world were in our house, we couldn’t breath, and we wouldn’t have any squirrels, right?” (What does that even mean?!?!) “Where do squirrels keep their babies?” “Why can’t I pray for it to be Halloween?” “Why don’t you have any costumes?” “Can I be a police officer and Batman when I grow up?”

and today’s super doozy:

“How come daddy works all the time but you don’t work?”

Typical mom blog format seems to dictate my answer to that final probing question as either:

A) An empowered momma bear roar that I love my “job” and it is so fulfilling that my child is right, I don’t “work”.

or

B) A bitter diatribe about the daily hard work that goes unnoticed and unappreciated around here.

Well, I am going with “C,” a choice that isn’t quick, easy nor constant. It is the ebb and flow of joy spent in minutes, hours, days, and years growing a family. It is the prayerful parenting, tickle fighting, toilet scrubbing, stain removing, book reading, nose wiping, laundry folding, teeth brushing, dinner prepping, joke telling, vomit cleaning, hurt feelings mending, guidance seeking, question answering, marker erasing, ice cream eating, grocery shopping, picky eater encouraging, fight preventing, gas pumping, forgiveness seeking, wagon pulling, trash taking, bubble blowing, sleep forfeiting, mistake making, temperature checking, sunscreen applying, coupon clipping, rolled eyes enduring, boo-boo kissing, playground climbing, rock collecting, hide and seeking, dirty underwear finding, costume tying, bed making, high chair hosing, game playing, spider killing, grace giving, smelly kid bathing, night terror soothing, dirt digging, bug finding, toilet-lid closing, allowance doling, dollar stretching, diaper changing, occasionally isolating J-O-B.

Simply stated: I work really, really hard, and I am blessed beyond measure.

Don’t worry, I didn’t burden Zeke with all of that information. I decided to use that question for a teaching moment.

He got to help me scrub the bathroom.