Climb up Sunshine Mountain

Being a mom is hard. I don’t care what your situation is, it’s hard. Kids take a lot out of the adults in their life. People who are on the outside looking in probably wonder why we choose it. Why would anyone voluntarily subject themselves to perpetual lack of sleep, non-stop mess, and ridiculous amounts of money spent with no end in sight? Sometimes I wonder myself. Nights like tonight, however, remind me exactly why I do this mommy thing. Kids are crazy rewarding. Just when you think you’re gonna pull your hair out and run screaming away, they do something adorable that makes you fall on the floor laughing.

Tonight, I found myself getting annoyed. Jacob has started climbing stairs. He’s extremely talented, really. A few weeks ago, I purchased a gate for the bottom of the stairs. I gave myself a pat on the back for being so prepared. Seriously. I should get some kind of medal for baby-proofing. True, the gate sat in the box for a week or so. I considered tackling the task many times. Each time, I would pull out the boxes of parts and begin to read the instructions. Almost instantly, some kind of secret siren would go off that only kids under 3 can hear. They were alerted and before I knew it, pieces were being pulled from the box and Jacob was climbing up the open staircase. There were probably 3 unsuccessful attempts before I finally found myself alone in the house one afternoon and committed myself to getting the thing installed. Everything went swimmingly until I realized my gate was meant for openings up to 37″. My staircase measures in at 40″. Wonderful. All that to say, I still have an open staircase. So tonight, for some reason, the staircase was magnetized to Jacob…or maybe the other way around. I was losing it. Each time I would sit down on the couch (how do they know??) He would start back up the stairs and I would have to go grab him away and try and distract him with some fascinating toy. This happened maybe 37 times. On the 37th attempt up the steps, I realized that maybe I was going about this all wrong. So I let the kid climb. I followed right behind him and he took off. About halfway up the first section of stairs, some kind of crazy creature attacked Jacob’s cute little bottom. Gobbled his little arms and face right up. He completely lost it laughing, but the funniest part was that it seemed to make him want to climb faster to get away…I just can’t figure out why. A few stairs later, it attacked again. The giggling was even louder this time. The rest of the way up the stairs, he was ready. He would turn around and glance at me as he climbed giving me just the sweetest look ever. He was daring me. I was relentless. That boy got attacked with kisses the whole way up the steps. At one point, he even slipped because he was laughing so hard and that just spurned on more laughter. By the time he got to the top, Austin had noticed the laughter and wanted to see what was up. Each time Jacob would laugh, Austin would laugh. Somewhere in the middle of all of the laughing, I paused to take it all in. Man do I love my kids. I’m so excited that Jacob is developing this cute little social personality. I’m thrilled beyond belief that they have started playing together (sharing is another story, but one thing at a time I guess). And I’m happy. Happy that I can enjoy these sweet little moments with my guys. God’s given me so much. Sometimes, I’m overwhelmed with all that I have. It’s hard to find time to slow down in life, but tonight God reminded me that a clean house and clean laundry are far less important than spending moments together with the people I care about. Now sure, I cleaned up as soon as they were in bed, but in that moment, nothing else mattered but their little smiling faces. *MELT*