I always wanted to be a mother.  I always imagined that I would be infinitely patient with my children.  The type of mom who would spend hours each day on the floor playing whatever their brilliant little imaginations had in store for me.  The type of mom who never yelled and had fun craft projects every day to keep my little artists engaged.  Its taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I am not that mom.  I am a busy, stressed out mom.  I am mom who is always behind and overwhelmed. I never planned for having a kid with autism whose needs are much different that what I had imagined my 2nd child to have.  I didn’t plan for having 2 children who I absolutely adore, but whose interests and abilities are so vastly different that it is usually impossible to all engage in the same activities and neither one is an independent player.  I didn’t imagine that life would feel so chaotic all of the time, rather than the dreamy laid back ideal world I had pictured prior to motherhood.

I can’t say that I wouldn’t like to make some changes so that things would flow more smoothly, but I am HAPPY with this skewed version of life that we have created.  I embrace all of our quirks & challenges & our ever-present need for complete flexibility.  I am quite pleased to take each moment as it comes, and learn from the multitude of lessons that my children provide me with on a daily basis.  There is always room for improvement, but I LOVE MY LIFE!!!!!

This morning was one of those where I put everything aside, focused entirely on my kids, and tried do things BETTER than many of our crazy-making saturday mornings while Rob sleeps after working all night.  We all sat down at the table and crafted.  Zoe & I with a pile of vintage buttons, some blank rings & some glue; Sammy with a heap of homemade playdough, some sculpting tools, & his own pile of buttons.  And it was the best Saturday morning the 3 of us have had in ages.  Here is the visual proof…

much love. xoxo