To which I replied, "I have too many kids."
I don't really (have too many kids) but I am in the mucky, yucky thick of the toughest job on earth, and my face does not exude "life is a bowl full of cherries" most of the time.
It's hard to admit to that, with all the magazines and literature on parenthood displaying mothers with white teeth and tight sweaters handing five smiling children organic muffins with one hand while playfully tousling the hair of a hunky husband with the other.
And yet, if anybody (in real life) has a life that is anywhere close to truly wonderful its me, and I know it. I have a husband who will never leave me, and who I could not think more highly of. I have four great, healthy kids who say "please" and "thank you," and who have a genuine affection for one another. I have my health and I have a safe, comfy home, and I have a G0D who lived and died for me so that in my inmost being I have peace.
And I have a 6-year-old who hollers my mantra at me from the other room, whenever I need to hear it most (and want to hear it least), "Keep calm and carry on, Mom. Keep calm and carry on."
And I have a 2-year-old who hollered at me from his time-out the other day, while I was weeping on the floor in the dining room from the sheer exhaustion of my life, "Je-shush will come back, Mommy. Je-shush will come back."
You can do it, Kayla. Just keep going. You can do it.
