Motherhood.

As with many things in life, despite the abundant research and even plenty of time spent watching and caring for children, nothing in the world could have prepared me for what actually being a mother is like.  I feel like my expectations were somewhere between the overly glamorized, happy, warm-fuzzies version and the frazzled, chaotic version seen in movies, commercials and plastered all over magazines and billboards.  While I envisioned this beautiful, perfect relationship I also feared the inconsolable child who never slept.  Turns out it's really quite a mix of both!  So often my heart is just ready to burst out of my chest with the amount of love I feel for that little girl, yet often in the same day I find myself tearfully begging her to PLEASE just sleep!  It's really not at all what I expected, but I wouldn't trade it for the world.

So I've done one for PCSing, how about the things I've learned about motherhood so far.

1. It is possible to shower in a minute.
2. It's amazing how well one can function on less than 3 hours of sleep.
3. There is very little you can't do with one hand, but it's usually that one thing that actually needs to be done.
4. The love you have for your husband can momentarily disappear when he wakes the baby after you finally got her to sleep after 2 hours of feeding, rocking and consoling.
5. You can go from requiring 6 meals a day while pregnant, to forgetting to eat at all in about a week.
6. No matter how independent or stubborn you are, receiving any and all help that is offered is key to survival.
7. You realize you had more confidence in your abilities as an adolescent than you do as mother.
8. Going anywhere is an event, and usually takes more time to get ready than it does to get to your destination.
9. You will get every bodily fluid known to man on your clothing, and you will truly stop caring.
10. Before having children you feel like you know NO ONE without a child, yet when you have a baby you suddenly feel like you know NO ONE who does.  (Or at least no one with babies)

It's hard.  It's exhausting.  It's emotionally, physically and spiritually taxing.  There is literally nothing in this world that could compare.  But in that same way, the smile that melts your heart, the extra snuggle that says you are so very loved and needed, the precious little life sleeping soundly in your arms, the way her eyes light up when she sees you; how can anything in the world compare that?  I love being a mother.  It is truly such an honor to have the chance to just ever so slightly mirror Christ by giving of myself for another.  I can feel myself being refined and molded in this journey, and I know that is never going to stop.  I'm just thankful to have a God willing to provide the strength, wisdom and grace needed to get through it!